LOUISVILLE, Ky. – As quickly as the previous year ended, preparation for a new season of Louisville football will soon be beginning.
Later today, the Cardinals will be returning to the practice fields of the Trager Center and kicking off spring practice – their third under head coach Jeff Brohm. Spring ball kicks off on Monday, Mar. 3, and will conclude on Friday, Apr. 11 with the program’s annual spring game.
As you can imagine, it has been an extremely busy offseason. While Louisville does lose several playmakers, they were able to retain a handful of their top players from last season, while simultaneously bringing in a myriad of talent via the transfer portal and the high school ranks.
Heading into Brohm’s third season as the head coach, there is no shortage of storylines. Here are our five biggest questions surrounding the Louisville football program heading into the start of spring practice:
Year three under Brohm will once again feature a new starter at quarterback. After seven years in college, Tyler Shough has officially run out of eligibility, and now he is off to the next stage in his career.
While there is going to be a new starter, there shouldn’t appear to be much of a discussion as to who Shough’s heir apparent will be. Miller Moss is coming in as a transfer from USC, and is set to play his final season in college as a Cardinal. While guys like Deuce Adams and Mason Mims have bright futures, Moss provides the most playmaking ability out of anyone on the roster right now.
Related: What is Louisville Getting in QB Miller Moss?
But that doesn’t mean there aren’t questions surrounding Moss. He certainly brings to the table fantastic on-field leadership capabilities and has well above average accuracy and poise, but he doesn’t have an arm like Shough, and also doesn’t have as much experience as him – or even Jack Plummer did. There’s also the elephant in the room that, while Moss was essentially scapegoated due to USC’s team-wide shortcomings, he was benched towards the end of the 2024 season.
Make no mistake: the good far outweighs the bad when it comes to what Moss provides for an offense. But there are questions about how his style of play will change what Louisville’s passing game/overall offense looks like. Especially since there was an added emphasis on the vertical passing game with Shough’s arm strength.
Regardless of who is quarterback, that debate is a moot point if there aren’t any good pass catchers on the roster. Thankfully for Louisville, they’ll have not one, but two All-ACC caliber wide receivers in 2025.
Chris Bell has taken massive steps forward over the last two offseasons, and is coming off of a career-year where he caught 43 passes for 737 yards and a touchdown. While Caullin Lacy only played in five games due to a fall camp collarbone injury and his subsequent redshirt situation, he still hauled in 18 passes for 196 and a touchdown – and has a proven track record from his time at South Alabama.
But get beyond those two on the depth chart, and the questions marks start to ramp up. Louisville four other returning scholarship wide receivers combined for just 10 catches for 96 yards last season. Of their four newcomers at the position, two are true freshman, while T.J. McWilliams had minimal reps at Minnesota and Bobby Golden was WR2 at Akron.
There are also questions at tight end, again. With Mark Redman graduating and Jamari Johnson transferring, the top option here of the four scholarship tight ends is Nate Kurisky – although he did catch 12 passes for 112 yards and three scores last season.
On one hand, Bell and Lacy will likely be one of the best pass catching duos in the ACC. On the other hand, for the passing game to be fully unlocked, there will need to be others behind them step up – unless Louisville dips back into the portal during the spring window.
During his time as a head coach, Jeff Brohm has been known for his incredibly prolific passing offenses from his time at Western Kentucky and Purdue, So naturally, his first two offenses at Louisville were anchored by explosive running attacks.
In 2024, Louisville had one of the best running back duos not only in the ACC, but in all of college football – and they were both true freshmen. Isaac Brown exploded onto the scene, rushing for 1,173 yards and 11 touchdowns, both of which were No. 1 among power conference true freshman. Duke Watson also had a breakout season, rushing for 597 yards and seven scores, with his 8.91 yards per carry leading the entire FBS.
These prolific season came despite the fact that Maurice Turner and Donald Chaney Jr. were the No. 1 and 2 backs to start the year. Brown didn’t become the regular starter until the sixth game of the season, and Watson didn’t see more than seven carries until the final four games.
On top of that, there’s a case to be made that the offensive line could be Louisville’s strongest unit on the team. They return four players who started games last season in Austin Collins, Rasheed Miller, Pete Nygra and Trevonte Sylvester. Not to mention they added multiple quality portal linemen, such as Jordan Church, Naeer Jackson, Mahamane Moussa and Makylan Pounders.
Put this all together, and you’re looking at an offense that could be anchored by the run game for the third straight season. A full season with Brown and Watson as the go-to guys in the backfield from day one, on top of the strength at offensive line, has the potential to be even more explosive than it was last season.
By all accounts, Louisville should have strong linebacking corps in 2025. T.J. Quinn and Stanquan Clark, the Cardinals’ two leading tacklers in 2024, are back. Antonio Watts is coming back following a breakout season at the STAR position, as is former five-star T.J. Capers. Not to mention the portal additions of WKU’s Darius Thomas and Tennessee’s Kalib Perry will only strengthen the position.
But that being said, there is one aspect of the linebacking corps that needs some major improvement over the offseason, and that’s their collective abilities in pass coverage. While the defense as a whole certainly had their struggles, defending the middle of the field against wide receivers and tight ends was an issue that routinely kept popping up – especially in the middle of the season.
The advanced stats back this up as well. According to Pro Football Focus, Quinn had a coverage grade of 64.9, while Clark’s was 67.1 – both of which fall in the average to above average range. Even the two transfers were just average here, as Thomas had a 57.7 coverage grade while Perry’s was 64.1. Even Watts, who made a game-saving play in the Sun Bowl, posted a coverage grade of 69.9.
This is a position group who undoubtedly excels when it comes to stopping the run – at least when it comes to actual running backs. But if Louisville is to unlock to full potential of their front seven, especially with there being so many moving pieces on the defensive line, the linebacking corps will have to get better in coverage.
Without a doubt, no area of the field for Louisville has more question marks than the secondary.
Not only were the Cardinals severely disappointing when it came to their group of defensive backs considering the potential they had, at times, they were simply outright bad. Last season, they allowed 236.2 yards per game, which not only was 12th in the 17-team ACC, but was 100th in the FBS as a whole.
Then you factor in the roster turnover. The Cardinals are losing their top five cornerbacks, including a pair of All-ACC performers in Quincy Riley and Corey Thornton. Louisville is also losing their starting safety duo in M.J. Griffin and Tamarion McDonald.
In fact, the only returning defensive back with significant experience at this level is D’Angelo Hutchinson. Blake Ruffin does have a lot of run from his time at Eastern Illinois, but he had to miss the entire 2024 season due to injury. Daeh McCullough and Rae’mon Mosby have minimal in-game experience, and Antonio Harris is a true freshman.
Because of this, Louisville had to hit the portal heavy here – and there are even questions here. Guys like Louisiana’s Justin Agu, FIU’s JoJo Evans, Southern’s Rodney Johnson Jr. and Jax State’s Jabari Mack certainly performed well at their previous stops, but all are coming from lower levels of college football. The lone power conference transfer is Baylor’s Corey Gordon.
Of course, this new-look secondary could very well go out and kill it during spring ball. But on the surface, there are lots of questions revolving around how this largely new group will fare at this level. One could even make the assumption that, depending on how spring ball goes, Louisville will most certainly look to continue building the secondary in the spring portal window.
(Photo of Jeff Brohm: Jeff Faughender – Courier Journal and USA Today Network / USA TODAY NETWORK
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