Bryan Brown's second year as Defensive Coordinator allows unit to "gel and excel"

Retaining defensive coordinator Bryan Brown for year two has allowed Louisville's defense to slowly progress towards elite status.

No matter how skilled or talented a football team is, there is going to be a bit of a learning curve when shifting personnel and philosophies in the coaching room.

It's something that Louisville had been very familiar with over the latter part of the decade. The defensive coordinator position for the Cardinals had changed hands in each of the past three offseasons.

In 2016, Louisville had the 31st ranked scoring defense under third year defensive coordinator Todd Grantham. With Peter Sirmon's first and only year in 2017, that number fell to 70th. By 2018, it had plummeted to 127th under Brian VanGorder, the third-worst mark in all of FBS.

"I don't care if you're in the NFL, high school level, college level, it doesn't matter," defensive coordinator Bryan Brown said in a teleconference with reporters Monday. "When you're changing schemes year in and year out, changing terminology year in and year out, you're not able to play fast and understand what to expect, how to do it, when to do it, why you do it."

Fortunately, that number started to trend in the other direction with Brown's first year in control of the Louisville defense. Last season, the Cardinals had the 109th ranked scoring defense in FBS, allowing 33.4 points per game. That might not seem like a huge improvement at first glance, but Brown was able to shave over 10 points off that mark as Louisville allowed 44.1 points per game in their 2018 season.

With him returning for a second season as the Louisville Football defensive coordinator, it allows his guys to not only be much more efficient, but to get one step closer to some of the big boys in college football.

"You look at a Clemson, you look at an Alabama, those guys have had basically the same defensive coordinator for a long time," Brown said. "That's where you see really good football teams gel & excel, when you keep the same schemes and those guys know how to play fast and play hard."

Current UGA head coach Kirby Smart served as the defensive coordinator for Alabama from 2008-15, helping Nick Saban win four national championships in the process. At Clemson, Brent Venables has served as the DC since 2012 and assisted Dabo Swinney in two titles.

For Brown, the difference between last season's spring practice and this season's has been staggering, even during a shortened 2020 spring camp. He cites the playmaking ability as the biggest improvement his guys have made from year one to year two.

"We probably made more plays in the first 3-4 practices than we made really all of last spring," Brown said. "We had a lot more playmakers that made some plays this spring than last spring."

Not only are the Cards maintaining continuity with the coaching staff, but with also with said playmakers. Louisville returns eight of their starters on defense, including CJ Avery, Dorian Etheridge and Rodjay Burns. Brown also expects contributors such as Jared Goldwire to be much bigger factors in 2020.

"[Goldwire] was head and beyond the best defensive player we had this spring for those seven practices."

You can follow us for future coverage by clicking "Follow" on the top righthand corner of the page. Also be sure to like us on Facebook & Twitter:

Facebook - @LouisvilleOnSI

Twitter - @LouisvilleOnSI and Matthew McGavic at @GeneralWasp