From the Jump

• Ole Miss chant sucks and sounds like gibberish..

Offense

• Have you ever seen 2 delay of games inside the 10?

• Lincoln has no read progression. Got away with one in the first. Hope that improves or it will cause some trouble.

• Tre could have done cartwheels to the end zone on that open deep ball.

• Really hope to see more Foley and Skinner. Underneath stuff is great for a QB that moves the pocket.

• Turnover-free football is hard to come by. Good ball security, Cards!

• I think this receiving core may actually be pretty special.

• I hope Anwar is ready for SMU, we could use the depth boost.

• Kienholz being a 2-handicap golfer, all-state basketball and baseball is folklore stuff.

• On the call, Brohm saying, “I’m not saying he’s inaccurate but he’s not particularly accurate either,” was interesting.

Defense

• Koen is everywhere and so much fun to watch.

• The D-tackles holding their own is a testament to Mark Ivey.

• This defense will keep us in games.

• Is anything more debilitating than a late hit on a get-off-the-field third down?

• Lubin is so fun to root for.

• Trinidad’s deep ball is legit!

• Nice to see us handle the tempo and may be a good sign for SMU.

• How long is Tayon Holloway out? What do we know about his injury?

Special Teams

• You never want to know the long snapper’s name.

• At the game it was so confusing that they didn’t get the ball down at the 4 in the 2nd quarter. Looked like a great punt!

• The delayed run-out punt may be the most subtle but effective advantage in special teams’ way to punt. I never want a traditional punter again.

• Them missing 2 kicks and our special teams fiasco almost feels like a wash.

• Didn’t know Hilbert’s dad kicked for UofL! Hope we got a gamer!

• I would be perfectly fine if we never try a kick return again (unless trailing late). It feels like injury or penalty much more often than big plays.

One Last Thought

• There was plenty to like, plenty to clean up, and no reason to let one game linger any longer than it should.

• Time to bounce back, get right and keep rolling.

Go Cards!

Week 1 can tear through an entire summer’s worth of expectations pretty quickly.

New faces, transfers, new quarterbacks and rebuilt position groups all come together after months of offseason optimism. Then the ball gets kicked off and sometimes you find out you were right. Sometimes you find out you weren’t even close.

Across 12 season openers as a head coach, Jeff Brohm has seen a little bit of everything.

There have been blowouts, upsets, collapses and comebacks. Games his teams controlled and games they probably should have lost. But taken together, they point toward something that has followed Brohm from Western Kentucky to Purdue and now Louisville.

His teams tend to be ready to compete.

Brohm is 8–4 in season openers. His teams have averaged nearly 37 points per game, and perhaps the most telling number is this: Brohm has never lost an opener by more than seven points.

Louisville fans were actually on the receiving end of that preparation long before Brohm ever became their coach.

In 2017, Louisville entered the season ranked No. 16. Lamar Jackson was the reigning Heisman Trophy winner, the Cardinals had national expectations and Purdue was supposed to be little more than the first hurdle.

Instead, Brohm nearly helped derail Louisville’s season before it ever got started.

Purdue entered as a 25.5 point underdog and had won only nine games over the previous four seasons. Brohm was coaching his first game after taking over the program, yet the Boilermakers led Louisville 14–10 at halftime, stretched the advantage to 21–13 and held another lead in the fourth quarter before Jackson and the Cardinals finally escaped 35–28.

It was terrifying if you were a Louisville fan.

It was also hard not to watch Brohm take over a struggling program, have it ready to go immediately and wonder what that might someday look like at Louisville.

Six years later, Louisville got its answer, although Brohm’s first opener as the Cardinals’ head coach didn’t exactly begin comfortably.

Georgia Tech erupted for 28 points in the second quarter of the 2023 opener. Louisville went to halftime trailing 28–13, and after an offseason overflowing with excitement about Brohm’s homecoming, Card Nation suddenly had plenty to second-guess.

Then his team responded.

Louisville became more physical, settled into the game and outscored Georgia Tech 26–6 in the second half. The Cardinals forced a critical late turnover and found a way to escape with a 39–34 win.

The first half created plenty of doubt. The second showed some of the toughness Brohm has consistently tried to build into his teams.

Brohm in Season Openers

2014 — Western Kentucky 59, Bowling Green 31
Result: Win | Spread: WKU +7.5

2015 — Western Kentucky 14, Vanderbilt 12
Result: Win | Spread: WKU approximately -2

2016 — Western Kentucky 46, Rice 14
Result: Win | Spread: WKU -16

2017 — No. 16 Louisville 35, Purdue 28
Result: Loss | Spread: Purdue +25.5

2018 — Northwestern 31, Purdue 27
Result: Loss | Spread: Purdue approximately -3

2019 — Nevada 34, Purdue 31
Result: Loss | Spread: Purdue -11

2020 — Purdue 24, Iowa 20
Result: Win | Spread: Purdue +3.5

2021 — Purdue 30, Oregon State 21
Result: Win | Spread: Purdue -7

2022 — Penn State 35, Purdue 31
Result: Loss | Spread: Purdue +3.5

2023 — Louisville 39, Georgia Tech 34
Result: Win | Spread: Louisville -7.5

2024 — Louisville 62, Austin Peay 0
Result: Win | Spread: Louisville approximately -38

2025 — Louisville 51, Eastern Kentucky 17
Result: Win | Spread: Louisville -38.5

The spreads add some useful context. Brohm’s teams have entered four openers as underdogs and covered three of them, winning outright twice. His first Western Kentucky team was roughly a touchdown dog against Bowling Green and won by 28, while Purdue upset Iowa as an underdog in 2020.

Even the four losses tell a similar story. Northwestern won by four. Nevada won by three on a 56-yard field goal as time expired. Penn State needed a touchdown with 57 seconds remaining. Louisville won by seven.

There isn’t some secret Brohm Week 1 formula hiding in those numbers. The takeaway is simpler than that.

Brohm is a competitor, and his teams tend to take on that personality. He has shown an ability to bring new pieces together quickly, create belief and have a team prepared to fight before everything is necessarily polished.

That ability will be tested more than ever this week.

No. 24 Louisville heads to Nashville to face No. 9 Ole Miss as roughly a touchdown underdog. The Cardinals enter another season shaped by offseason change. This time, there won’t be much runway to settle in or work through the rough edges. Ole Miss will be ready, hungry and carrying big aspirations of its own.

It is the toughest Week 1 opponent Brohm has ever faced. History suggests Louisville will be ready for the fight.

Now it’s time to put on the gloves and start swinging.

Go Cards!

Ben Perry has entered the transfer portal twice since coming to Louisville.

The first time, he never actually left.

After Scott Satterfield departed following the 2022 season, Perry briefly put his name in the portal. Three days later, with Jeff Brohm taking over his hometown program, Perry made his decision public.

“LOUISVILLE IM STAYING!!!!!”

The second time, Perry did leave. He went nearly 2,000 miles west to UCLA looking for a fresh opportunity.

One year later, he’s back.

There are plenty of transfer stories in college football now. Players come. Players go. Perry has now done both at Louisville.

His story feels a little different.

He arrived at Louisville in 2021 as a four-star safety from Chicago with the size to eventually play closer to the line of scrimmage. Even then, coaches noticed something beyond the physical tools. Former defensive coordinator Bryan Brown talked about Perry sitting in staff meetings as a freshman, trying to absorb installations and learn as much football as he could.

That intelligence helped him grow into the hybrid defender Louisville recruited him to become.

By 2022, Perry was a regular, starting 10 games and making 43 tackles. A year later, he started throughout Louisville’s run to the ACC Championship Game and finished with a career-high 56 tackles and 6.5 tackles for loss.

Some of his value was harder to find in a box score.

During the 2023 season, Card Chronicle’s Keith Wynne highlighted a play against Boston College in which Perry used leverage and positioning to defeat a block and help blow up a run. Wynne’s larger point was that Perry routinely made the type of plays that showed up more clearly on film than they did in the statistics.

Despite this success, his first run at Louisville didn’t end perfectly.

Antonio Watts overtook Perry at STAR in 2024, and Perry’s production dropped from 56 tackles to 29. He still contributed, including five tackles and a sack against No. 6 Miami. he then endured one of the scarier moments of Louisville’s season at Clemson.

Perry went down after making a tackle and eventually left Memorial Stadium in a neck brace and ambulance. Brohm later said Perry had experienced numbness in his legs.The tests were normal. Nine days later, Brohm said he was cleared to play again.

After the season, Perry finally made the move he had considered two years earlier.

And UCLA had plans for him.

The Bruins had lost two linebackers to the NFL, leaving major production to replace. Perry’s experience and ability to move between safety and linebacker made him one of the veterans expected to help fill that void.

Then his season essentially ended before it began.

An undisclosed injury limited Perry to one appearance and just a handful of snaps in 2025. He eventually received a medical redshirt, giving him another year of college football.

He chose to spend it back at Louisville. Ben Perry is a Louisville guy.

He returns with 132 tackles as a Cardinal and a Louisville degree already in hand. He’s healthy again and has spent fall camp moving around the defense, including work at inside linebacker after playing much of his previous Louisville career in a hybrid role.

There isn’t an old starting job waiting for him, either. Watts is established at STAR. Blake Ruffin had a strong spring. Perry returned knowing the roster, the competition and the program.

Brohm summed up the reunion this summer: “We brought back Ben Perry, who’s played for us, so we know what we’re getting.” He gives Louisville something every defense wants more of — experience, versatility and another proven piece to deploy.

Perry left Louisville looking for a fresh start. Instead, one injury-shortened season later, his final chance at college football brought him right back to where most of the story happened.

Now he gets a chance to help write the ending.

Go Cards!

Louisville has played for four national championships since 2022. It has won two of them.

And there is a pretty good chance most Louisville fans couldn’t name a player on the team.

That can start changing this fall.

Louisville Rugby opens its 2026 fall season Friday, Sept. 4, against Tennessee in Nashville, beginning another run through a corner of college sports that operates largely outside the spotlight.

College rugby exists outside the NCAA structure most of us understand. But tucked inside UofL’s club sports program is something worth knowing about: a legitimate national championship rugby program.

Where exactly does Louisville play?

Louisville competes in Division I-AA of National Collegiate Rugby, commonly called NCR.

Forget what I-AA means in football. This is a completely different system. NCR is one of the major governing organizations for collegiate rugby in the United States and includes more than 680 men’s and women’s clubs across its membership.

On the men’s side, Premier sits at the top of the structure, followed by Division I-AA, Division II and Division III. Louisville competes at the D1-AA level in the Mid-American Rugby Conference, or MAC.

The 2025 conference included seven programs: Louisville, Bowling Green, Cincinnati, Dayton, Ohio, Pitt and Western Michigan.

So Louisville isn’t claiming to be the best rugby team at every collegiate level in America. What the Cardinals have become is one of the nation’s strongest programs at the D1-AA level.

That’s an important distinction but still quite impressive.

And yes, they’ve really been winning championships

This isn’t the result of one great weekend.

Louisville reached the national championship match in traditional 15-player rugby in 2022. Then it did it again in 2023, finishing as national runner-up both times.

In the spring of 2024, Louisville broke through in rugby sevens. The Cardinals went 4-0 at the Collegiate Rugby Championship, outscoring their opponents 114-5 on the way to a national championship.

They returned to the national semifinals in 2025 before making another run in 2026. Louisville entered the Division I-AA national sevens championship as a No. 1 seed and worked its way through the bracket before beating South Carolina 26-12 for the title.

That’s two national championships in three springs and four national championship appearances across 15s and sevens since 2022.

At some point, it stops being a nice run. It becomes the standard.

Fifteens and sevens: one program, two versions of rugby

The Cardinals compete in both 15s and sevens.

Fifteens is the traditional version of rugby union, with 15 players per side and 80-minute matches. Louisville’s primary 15s competition takes place in the fall.

Then the game opens up in the spring.

Sevens uses just seven players per side on essentially the same-sized field, with much shorter matches. That creates space. Lots of it. Speed, conditioning and one-on-one tackling become necessities.

These aren’t two unrelated Louisville teams, either. They are part of the same program, with many of the same players moving between formats as Louisville transitions from 15s into sevens.

The roles change. The strategy changes. The jersey doesn’t.

From six players to national championships

Emil Walton’s connection to rugby began long before Louisville. Born in Namibia and raised in South Africa, he grew up around the sport before eventually coming to the United States and settling in Louisville.

He spent years playing rugby locally before becoming involved with UofL and eventually taking over a struggling program in 2016.

Walton has described one of those early training sessions as six players, a bag of dirty rugby balls and two broken pads.

That was about it.

So they built.

The roster grew. Player development became a priority. Expectations changed. Winning followed.

Nearly a decade later, Walton remains a central figure in Louisville Rugby while continuing to coach beyond the college game. In addition to Louisville’s two national titles, Walton has been part of three consecutive men’s senior national championships with National Athletic Village, with two Cardinal players also competing on those championship teams. His experience has also included Major League Rugby academy work and six years coaching professional sevens.

The coaching structure at UofL has grown with the program as well, including John-Henry Carstens leading the men’s 15s side.

Going from six players and broken pads to national championships doesn’t happen accidentally.

For the love of the game

Maybe the most interesting part of Louisville rugby isn’t the trophies. It’s what it takes to chase them.

Louisville Rugby is a club sport, not an NCAA varsity program. There are no rugby scholarships being handed out, no TV contracts, just ball.

The program has described itself publicly as self-funded, relying on fundraising and support to help cover expenses such as travel, lodging, equipment and the costs associated with competing nationally.

Before Louisville’s 2024 national championship run, Walton organized a fundraiser asking supporters to help get the Cardinals to Maryland.

Think about that sequence. Qualify for nationals. Raise money to help make the trip possible. Get on the field. Win the whole thing.

There is something wonderfully pure about that.

Rugby has always carried a certain lore with it. Mud, bruises, taped-up shoulders and bodies colliding without the armor we associate with football. Then the whistle blows and the guys who spent the afternoon trying to drive one another backward shake hands.

There is toughness woven into the culture of the sport, but also respect.

These players go to class. They train. They travel. They help sustain their own program. Then they line up against some of the best teams at their level in the country.

They aren’t choosing the easiest version of the college experience.

They’re choosing rugby.

More than trophies

The clearest evidence of Louisville’s growth might be what has happened to some of its players beyond UofL.

The program has now produced four players who have gone on to professional rugby.

LaRome White has built a lengthy Major League Rugby career and returned to the Seattle Seawolves for the 2026 season. Isaac Bales was selected No. 12 overall in the first round of the 2021 Major League Rugby Draft. Dan Hanson went on to play Major League Rugby with Anthem before moving into coaching and is now a varsity head coach at Trine University.

Terran Meek took another route, playing professional sevens with the Experts and Premier Rugby Sevens while also representing the USA Falcons.

Different paths, but collectively they tell us something important. Louisville isn’t simply putting together good college teams. It’s developing rugby players capable of taking the sport further.

That development has helped attract players, too. In 2024, UofL reported an incoming freshman class of 23 players, with additional transfers planning to join the program.

That’s a long way from six players and a bag of dirty rugby balls.

Winning helps. So does proving that Louisville can be a place where a rugby career grows.

How Louisville fans can get behind it

Here’s the good news: you don’t have to wait long.

Louisville’s opening game is Friday, Sept. 4, against Tennessee in Nashville.

If you’ve never watched rugby before, don’t let that stop you. When Louisville returns home, matches have typically been played at Hays Kennedy Park in Prospect, with most fall dates landing on Saturdays. It’s a different experience than heading to L&N Stadium or the Yum! Center. You’re close to the pitch, close to the collisions and close enough to appreciate just how physical the sport really is. Check the team’s schedule before heading out, grab a chair if needed and make an afternoon of it.

You don’t need to understand every rule, either. Rugby reveals itself pretty quickly. Move the ball. Break tackles. Protect possession. Hit somebody. Get back up. Do it again. The finer points can come later.

Supporting the program goes beyond showing up. Follow University of Louisville Rugby on Facebook, where the program shares team news, results, schedules and updates, and keep an eye on the program’s website as new information is added. Share what they’re doing. If they’re fundraising for another national tournament, help if you can. If they’re selling merchandise, buy a shirt.

For a self-funded program, those things aren’t window dressing. More people following, showing up and paying attention can actually matter.

A program Louisville should know

Louisville is a sports city with a history of finding room for teams that give it a reason to care. College baseball grew. Volleyball exploded. Professional soccer found a home. Rugby doesn’t need to follow anyone else’s path.

There is something uniquely compelling about what has already been built here. These are college students choosing one of the most physically demanding sports in the world without the scholarships, packed stadiums or attention that usually come with wearing Louisville across your chest. They train for it, sacrifice for it and help fund it, then put Louisville on the jersey and go compete for championships.

That deserves some respect. Not because they’re asking to be treated like a varsity program or because rugby needs to become the next big thing in Louisville. Because they’ve earned it.

And the next chapter starts Sept. 4 in Nashville.

So maybe there should be a few more Louisville fans along the sideline this season. Come curious. Bring a chair. Learn the rules as you go. Just don’t be surprised if you leave wanting to come back.

Louisville Rugby has spent years building something worth noticing.

Maybe it’s time we did.

Louisville just got 163 tackles of 2025 production back on its defense.

D’Angelo Hutchinson’s announcement Tuesday made it three. The veteran safety will return for the 2026 season alongside linebacker Kalib Perry and cornerback Jabari Mack, all getting another opportunity to play after the recent court ruling involving athletes who began their college careers in 2022. Hutchinson finished last season with 84 tackles, Perry added 55 and Mack had 24.

For Louisville, that is more than a little extra depth arriving before kickoff. It is experienced production that was no longer expected to be part of the 2026 roster.

And very few teams on the Cardinals’ schedule have received anything comparable.

So, what exactly is 5-for-5?

For years, college eligibility meant four seasons of competition inside a five-year clock, but redshirts, medical waivers and a long list of exceptions created plenty of gray area around how much eligibility a player actually had left. The NCAA’s new age-based model is designed to simplify that into a continuous five-year eligibility window, eliminating traditional athletics redshirts and many of those waivers, while a federal injunction has temporarily extended that fifth-season opportunity to qualifying athletes who began college in 2022 and otherwise would have been finished.

That is how Louisville suddenly found several familiar names back in the equation.

Why these returns matter

Hutchinson was one of Louisville’s most dependable defenders last season, finishing second on the team in tackles while providing size and experience at safety.

Perry became an important piece at linebacker, appearing in all 13 games and finishing with 55 tackles. His best performance came against Boston College, when he recorded a career-high 11 tackles and an interception.

Mack played in all 13 games at corner and intercepted two passes, both against College Football Playoff teams: James Madison and Miami.

They are also coming back to a defense that was already one of the better units in the country.

Louisville finished 16th nationally in total defense, surrendering 303.1 yards per game. The Cardinals ranked second in the ACC in total defense and led the conference in passing defense at 188.8 yards allowed per game. Opponents completed just 59.2 percent of their passes.

This is not about trying to repair a struggling defense. Louisville is adding proven production back to a unit that was already a strength.

Jeff Brohm and Louisville’s athletic staff deserve some credit for recognizing the opportunity early.

By Aug. 7, Brohm was publicly acknowledging that Louisville had potential targets and was working through exactly what the ruling would allow. Less than two weeks later, Perry, Mack and Hutchinson are back in the picture.

And there was reason to move quickly.

An athlete must be enrolled in at least 12 credit hours to compete under NCAA rules. Louisville began fall classes Monday, and Friday, Aug. 21 is the university’s final day to register or add classes for the regular semester. That makes this more than a football decision. Anyone coming back has to get admitted, enrolled, academically cleared and worked back into the program before the door effectively closes.

Louisville struck fast!

Now compare that with the schedule

Syracuse has regained wide receiver Justus Ross-Simmons, who caught 20 passes for 312 yards and five touchdowns last season and returned to practice Tuesday after being cleared for a fifth year.

North Carolina brought back kicker Rece Verhoff, its leading scorer last season, for another year.

Kentucky has a potentially significant addition still hanging in the balance. Linebacker Alex Afari Jr. has rejoined the Wildcats and is practicing after totaling 123 tackles and 18 tackles for loss over the past two seasons, but his eligibility to compete remains under review.

Florida State explored possibilities after the ruling, including former quarterback Thomas Castellanos, but no return has been announced.

As of Tuesday night, that is it among Louisville’s 2026 opponents. No other team on the Cardinals’ schedule has publicly announced a football addition through this fifth-year opportunity.

For most of Louisville’s schedule, the roster has stood still.

Louisville is among the national winners, too

There are some significant additions elsewhere.

Defending national champion Indiana brought back defensive linemen Stephen Daley and Kellan Wyatt. Arizona regained leading rusher Ismail Mahdi and linebacker Max Harris. Texas welcomed back veteran offensive lineman Cole Hutson, who has played 48 games with 23 starts.

There is no official 5-for-5 leaderboard, but Louisville’s group clearly belongs among the more notable Power Four beneficiaries so far.

Now comes the balancing act

Getting proven veterans back is a talent win. Fitting them back into a roster that had already begun moving on without them is more complicated.

Louisville built its roster and went through most of the offseason expecting those snaps to belong to someone else. Young players developed. Transfers arrived. Roles began taking shape.

There are still only so many snaps to go around.

Brohm and his staff now have to blend the experience of Hutchinson, Perry and Mack with players who spent months preparing for larger roles. The returners also have to understand that the depth chart did not freeze when they left.

Handled poorly, that can create frustration. Handled with a winning-first mentality, it creates something contenders covet: experienced players competing for snaps instead of a coaching staff searching for someone capable of filling them.

The 5-for-5 ruling created an unexpected opening across college football. Louisville recognized it, moved quickly and strengthened a defense that was already one of the ACC’s best.

It is another example of a program refusing to let an opportunity pass simply because it arrived late.

College football keeps changing. Brohm’s response rarely does: find the advantage and go compete.

GO CARDS!

Pete Golding’s first major test as a head coach came with almost no runway. He was promoted on Nov. 30 with Ole Miss already headed to its first College Football Playoff, and less than three weeks later the Rebels beat Tulane 41-10. Then they erased a nine-point halftime deficit to beat Georgia 39-34 in the Sugar Bowl before their run ended 31-27 against Miami in the national semifinal.

It was an impressive first audition. It was not, however, a clean preview of what a Pete Golding program would look like. Much of Lane Kiffin’s offensive structure remained in place for the playoff, including offensive coordinator Charlie Weis Jr., who was already headed to LSU but returned to call plays. Golding’s job was to keep a championship contender moving without allowing the coaching upheaval to derail it.

His message fit the moment. “I think this group is focused on the mission, not the man,” Golding said before the playoff opener. Before the semifinal, he went a step further: “I’m replaceable, you’re replaceable, our players are replaceable.” His point was that a healthy program should be bigger than any one person.

That makes 2026 the more revealing test.

Can Golding sustain what Kiffin built?

The offensive staff took the biggest hit. LSU hired away the coaches responsible for Ole Miss’ offensive coordinator, running backs, tight ends/co-offensive coordinator, wide receivers/pass game, inside receivers and quarterback support roles. Defensively, Ole Miss lost its linebackers coach and a pass-rush assistant, but most of the defensive infrastructure remained. The Rebels also retained their offensive line/run-game coordinator and quarterbacks coach.

Golding’s answer on offense was not to start over. He brought John David Baker back to Oxford. Baker spent 2021-23 at Ole Miss, including two seasons as co-offensive coordinator, before leaving to run East Carolina’s offense. In 2025, ECU ranked 15th nationally in total offense at 460.4 yards per game. Baker returns with familiarity with the system and proof he could successfully run his own offense elsewhere.

Golding’s path to this point was much more gradual. He began as a graduate assistant at Delta State in 2006, then worked through Tusculum, Delta State, Southeastern Louisiana, Southern Miss and UTSA before Nick Saban brought him to Alabama. Golding spent five seasons coordinating the Crimson Tide defense from 2018-22, a run that included three SEC championships and the 2020 national title.

He arrived at Ole Miss as defensive coordinator in 2023. By 2024, his defense led the nation with 52 sacks and 120 tackles for loss, both school records.

The football résumé explains why Ole Miss trusted him. The more interesting part is what he is changing now that the entire program belongs to him.

“We don’t sugarcoat things,” Golding said during spring practice. “We tell players exactly how it’s going to be.”

Running back Kewan Lacy described him similarly at SEC Media Days, saying Golding is the same person every day regardless of who is standing in front of him. “It’s easy to play for a coach like that who is going to keep it real with you.”

The most tangible change may be the offseason itself. Golding hired a new strength staff, shifted toward velocity-based training and divided the offseason into more defined developmental phases. When defensive tackle Will Echoles was asked how it compared with the previous setup, he called the structure “very different” and said it was “better on our bodies, as far as the recovery part.”

That matters with the amount of new personnel Ole Miss is trying to integrate. Golding said the offseason roster included 51 newcomers, with 29 coming through the transfer portal. Spring became less about racing through installation and more about teaching the roster, evaluating roles and establishing how the program would operate.

By late April, Ole Miss was running a full mock game week months before playing an actual game. Golding pointed to linebacker, the defensive front and receiver as three of the groups that had made the most progress during spring. Syracuse transfer Johntay Cook said the chemistry in the remodeled receiver room came almost immediately.

“It was kind of like love at first sight, if that makes sense,” Cook said. “We all just gelled so easy.”

There are encouraging signs in August, too. Ole Miss entered fall camp with 49 returning lettermen but must replace 13 starters from last season. Golding has continued emphasizing game-like situations as the Rebels prepare for Louisville, while the program’s transfer class finished No. 2 nationally in 247Sports’ rankings.

What does not appear to have changed is the expectation.

Defensive coordinator Bryan Brown put it plainly during the spring: “It’s not the ‘We hope we can win’ mindset. It’s the ‘We’re going to win every single football game.’”

And that may be the most difficult part of what Golding inherited.

Ole Miss is no longer trying to become relevant. It has won at least 10 games in three consecutive seasons, just finished 13-2 and came within four points of playing for a national championship. There is no rebuilding grace period attached to this transition.

Other programs have shown that promoting from within can preserve momentum, but rarely without some turbulence. Notre Dame faced a similar question when defensive coordinator Marcus Freeman replaced Brian Kelly after Kelly left for LSU in 2021. The Irish went from 11 wins to 9 in Freeman’s first full season before eventually reaching the national championship game in his third.

Continuity can protect a program. It cannot guarantee the transition will be seamless.

Louisville gets the first regular-season look at Golding’s version of Ole Miss on Sept. 6 in Nashville. The Cardinals are not catching a rebuild. They are catching a team that retained much of its core, added one of the nation’s top transfer classes and deliberately preserved much of the offensive DNA that made Ole Miss dangerous under Kiffin.

What nobody knows yet is whether last winter’s playoff run proved Ole Miss had already become bigger than Kiffin, or whether it was one final surge of the program he built.

For the first time, the answer belongs entirely to Golding.

Give me Brohm all day ;)

When Louisville needed new leadership for its defense this offseason, the answer was already inside the building.

Mark Ivey and Steve Ellis were promoted to co-defensive coordinators in February, with Ivey returning to the defensive line and Ellis overseeing the secondary. They inherited a unit that finished 2025 ranked No. 16 nationally in total defense, allowing 303 yards per game. Louisville already had a good defense. Ivey and Ellis were handed the harder task of improving it.

Neither man arrived at this point quickly. Ivey certainly did not. Before Louisville, he spent 16 years coaching high school football in Florida, including 10 as a head coach. Those years were not a detour. They became part of his foundation. He returned to Appalachian State in 2012, coaching outside linebackers, special teams and the defensive line before becoming assistant head coach. When Scott Satterfield left for Louisville after the 2018 season, Ivey took over for the New Orleans Bowl and led the Mountaineers to a 45-13 win over Middle Tennessee.

Then he followed Satterfield to Louisville.

Ivey spent four seasons coaching the defensive line. Louisville went from 11 sacks in 2018 to 27 in his first season, and by 2022 a front led by YaYa Diaby and Ashton Gillotte helped the Cardinals tie the school record with 50 sacks. When Satterfield left, Ivey was handed more again. He called Louisville’s defense against Cincinnati in the 2022 Fenway Bowl, a 24-7 win in which the Cardinals held the Bearcats to 138 total yards.

Diaby offered a concise description of his coach afterward.

“That’s always coach Ivey’s nature: start fast, hit hard,” Diaby said.

Brohm rebuilt nearly the entire coaching staff when he arrived in 2023. Ivey was the lone coach he kept from Satterfield’s staff. By then, calling him simply a holdover did not quite fit anymore. He had spent four seasons at Louisville, coached some of the program’s best defensive players and built relationships strong enough that players went to Brohm and made their feelings about Ivey clear.

As Brohm later recalled, players approached him after he took the job and told him “a lot of great things about Coach Ivey” and why they wanted him around.

He had become a Louisville guy.

Brohm keeping him mattered. What came next may have mattered more. He moved Ivey from the defensive line to linebackers, where T.J. Quinn went on to lead Louisville in tackles three straight seasons, becoming the first Cardinal to do it since Mark Sander from 1988 through 1990.

What looked like position changes had quietly prepared Ivey to see the entire defense.

Ellis arrived at Louisville from a different direction. A defensive back at Nicholls State, he was a three-year starter, three-time all-conference selection and team captain before beginning his coaching career at his alma mater. He eventually became defensive coordinator there, then spent a decade at Middle Tennessee in roles that included cornerbacks coach, recruiting coordinator and defensive coordinator. Stops at South Florida and East Carolina followed before Brohm brought him to Louisville in 2023.

His career has consistently revolved around the secondary, particularly developing defensive backs who find the football. East Carolina intercepted 25 passes over Ellis’ final two seasons there. At Louisville, his cornerback room has produced NFL Draft picks Jarvis Brownlee and Quincy Riley.

The numbers tell one part of it. His players tell another.

Riley, already established as one of the ACC’s better corners, returned to Louisville for the 2024 season and credited Ellis with keeping him uncomfortable in the right ways.

“He’s a hard coach, but it’s all love at the end of the day,” Riley said. “He’s gonna push me, he’s gonna tell me what’s wrong and when I’m right.”

This spring, transfer corner Santana Wilson put the relationship even more simply.

“We know Coach Ellis is a great coach,” Wilson said. “He gets us to buy into what he’s teaching.”

Scheme matters. So does getting 11 players to trust it.

That is where the pairing of Ivey and Ellis starts to make sense. Their backgrounds create a natural blend of expertise. Ivey has worked extensively with the defensive front and linebackers. Ellis built his career in the secondary and has coordinated defenses before. Together, they bring experience at every level.

Those levels have to operate as one. Pressure affects coverage. Coverage can buy the rush another second to arrive. An aggressive call can create a negative play, but it can also put more stress on the secondary. The best defenses make those pieces feel connected.

Ivey and Ellis had a front-row seat to Louisville’s communication fiasco on defense in 2024. That makes collaboration more than a nice feature of this arrangement. The call has to get in cleanly, responsibilities have to be clear and two coordinators cannot become two competing voices.

That may also be why Brohm seems so comfortable with the setup. When he announced the promotions, he described Ivey and Ellis as experienced coaches, team players and men he trusted to build on a system already in place. His tone about the defense since then has bordered on eerily confident, and the first open practices of fall camp have done little to challenge it. The secondary was particularly sharp Saturday, playing tight and aggressively around the football.

The challenge for Ivey and Ellis is not to invent a new defense for the sake of putting their names on it. Brohm has already made clear that the structure that worked in 2025 will remain, with room to become more aggressive, create more negative plays and keep evolving.

That leaves the new coordinators with a more interesting assignment: take something good and make it theirs.

Louisville already knows Ivey can coach the front. It knows he can coach linebackers and handle a defense when responsibility suddenly lands in his lap. It knows Ellis can develop defensive backs, teach technique and earn buy-in from his players.

Now those strengths have to work together.

The real test will come when a call has to change quickly, when an offense shifts late, or when a fourth-quarter problem needs one clear answer from two coordinators.

That is when communication, collaboration and trust stop being ideas.

They become the defense.

Louisville does not have to guess whether Ivey and Ellis can coach. It has watched them do it for years.

Now it gets to see what they can build together.

Dan Meske spent his first season preserving one of college volleyball’s premier programs. The next challenge is proving that success wasn’t simply inherited.

Great programs eventually face the same question: What happens when the people who helped build the foundation are asked to carry it forward?

Sometimes momentum fades. Expectations soften. A rebuild quietly begins.

Louisville chose a different path.

When Dani Busboom Kelly returned to Nebraska after leading the Cardinals to three Final Fours and two national championship matches, uncertainty naturally followed. Replacing one of the sport’s premier coaches is never as simple as changing the name on the office door.

Dan Meske understood that better than anyone.

He wasn’t walking into a rebuilding project. He was stepping into one of the nation’s model programs, one he had spent eight seasons helping Busboom Kelly build. His first responsibility wasn’t to reinvent Louisville volleyball. It was to protect the culture, standards and daily habits that had turned the Cardinals into an annual championship contender.

Louisville finished 26-7, earned a No. 2 seed in its NCAA region and reached a seventh consecutive regional semifinal. The season ended only after the Cardinals built a two-set lead against Texas A&M and watched the eventual national champion win the next three.

Louisville didn’t spend last season proving the program could survive. It proved the foundation was strong enough to keep building.

The questions aren’t about continuity anymore. They’re about how far this team can go.

Four Cardinals were selected to the Preseason All-ACC team. Chloe Chicoine and Nayelis Cabello landed on the AVCA Division I Player of the Year preseason watch list. The conference’s coaches still picked Louisville third behind Stanford and Pittsburgh.

That is not disrespect. It is life near the top of a sport crowded with heavyweights.

Louisville has the experience to challenge both programs and return to the Final Four. It also has an All-American-sized hole in the middle and a schedule that will expose weaknesses before the season has time to settle.

There won’t be much time to wonder what this team is capable of. The schedule intends to answer for us.

For the volleyball-curious

There are plenty of people around Louisville who can explain the difference between Cover 2 and quarters but still spend volleyball matches wondering why one player is wearing a different-colored jersey.

Let’s debrief.

The setter runs the offense. Outside hitters carry much of the attacking and passing responsibility. The opposite attacks primarily from the right side. Middle blockers defend the net and attack through the center. The libero, dressed differently from everyone else, specializes in back-row defense and serve receive.

The rest starts making sense once the ball moves.

The core is already established

Louisville placed Cabello, Chicoine, Payton Petersen and Kalyssa Blackshear on the 18-player Preseason All-ACC team. Only Stanford placed more players on it.

The recognition reflects how much of Louisville’s offense returns intact.

Chicoine led the Cardinals with 413 kills last season. Petersen finished only 20 behind her with 393. Blackshear added 336 while hitting .299 as a freshman. Cabello recorded 1,271 assists while directing an offense that hit .270.

The numbers are impressive. The familiarity may be even more valuable.

Elite offenses depend on timing and trust. A setter must know how quickly each hitter approaches, where each prefers the ball and how to adjust when a pass pulls the offense out of position.

Cabello already understands Louisville’s three primary attackers. She is not introducing them to one another. She is refining how they fit together.

That gives Meske a starting point most teams would happily borrow.

Chicoine is the surest answer

Chicoine transferred from Purdue before last season and immediately became Louisville’s most dependable attacker. Along with her 413 kills, she added 340 digs and earned First Team All-ACC and honorable mention All-America recognition.

Her best work came when the season became heaviest.

Chicoine delivered 28 kills against Marquette in the NCAA Tournament, then followed with 26 against Texas A&M in the regional semifinal.

Louisville does not need to discover a No. 1 option. It already has one.

The challenge is ensuring Chicoine does not have to carry too much of the offense when the opponents become more familiar and the available openings shrink.

That is where Petersen and Blackshear become so important.

Petersen and Blackshear give Louisville more than a supporting cast

Calling Petersen a breakout candidate no longer fits.

She nearly reached 400 kills as a sophomore, added 319 digs and later represented the United States at the U21 level. The more relevant question is whether her junior season moves her from all-conference production into the national All-America conversation.

Her presence keeps opponents from tilting everything toward Chicoine.

Blackshear creates a different problem.

The 6-foot-5 opposite recorded 336 kills and 123 blocks on her way to ACC Freshman of the Year honors. She already showed she could produce against college competition. Now Louisville gets to see what follows a full offseason of strength work, technical refinement and film study.

Opponents have no comfortable defensive choice.

Commit extra attention to Blackshear on the right, and Chicoine and Petersen receive cleaner opportunities. Lean toward the outside, and Cabello can deliver the ball to a 6-foot-5 attacker facing a smaller block.

If Blackshear takes the usual sophomore step, Louisville’s offense can move from difficult to exhausting.

The biggest question sits in the middle

Most of Louisville’s core returns.

Cara Cresse does not.

Cresse led the Cardinals with 179 blocks, recorded 301 kills and hit .343 last season. Louisville finished first nationally in total blocks, and she was central to that advantage.

There is no clean statistical trick that replaces an All-American middle.

Blocking depends on anticipation, timing, footwork and coordination. One late step can open an entire seam, particularly against the kind of setters Louisville will face throughout this schedule.

The Cardinals do return Hannah Sherman, who finished only five blocks behind Cresse with 174. That gives Meske one proven anchor.

The leading candidate to join her arrived from Lexington.

Brooke Bultema brings experience and intrigue

Brooke Bultema spent her first two college seasons at Kentucky. Now she will be wearing red.

The 6-foot-3 middle recorded 92 kills and 55 blocks for the Wildcats last season. She also had 11 kills and eight blocks against Louisville, which amounts to a fairly persuasive in-person audition.

Her spring debut offered another encouraging sign. Bultema produced 14 kills on 23 swings against Tennessee.

Spring volleyball belongs in its proper box. Lineups are experimental, substitutions are flexible and nobody cuts down a net in April.

Still, Bultema looked capable of becoming more than a defensive replacement.

If she provides reliable offense through the middle, Cabello gains another way to keep opposing blockers from waiting on Chicoine, Petersen and Blackshear.

The immediate goal is preserving enough of Louisville’s blocking identity to keep the net as an advantage. The more interesting possibility is that Bultema gives the offense another genuine option.

Her return to Kentucky on September 20 will add its own layer. Nobody will need to manufacture that storyline.

The newcomers do not have to rescue anything

Louisville also welcomes five freshmen: setter Blair Thiebaud, outside hitter Jordyn Gray, defensive specialist Elsi Karjanlahti and middle blockers Amirra Bailey and Elli Strecker.

The class was ranked No. 5 nationally by Volleyball Adrenaline.

The important part is not simply the ranking. It is the situation the freshmen are entering.

Thiebaud can develop behind Cabello. Bailey and Strecker add depth where Louisville needs it most. Gray joins an established group of outside hitters. Karjanlahti enters a back row anchored by senior libero Kamden Schrand, who led the ACC with 489 digs last season.

Louisville is not asking the freshmen to save the season.

They can earn roles based on readiness rather than urgency. That is one of the quieter advantages of a program that has recruited well for years.

Chloe Meester could force the issue

One of the most intriguing additions is not technically new.

Chloe Meester redshirted last season, then made herself difficult to overlook during the spring.

The 6-foot-3 outside hitter recorded nine kills and four aces against Tennessee. One week later, she led Louisville with eight kills on .500 hitting and served seven aces in a win at Kentucky.

Those performances do not guarantee a major fall role. Chicoine and Petersen already occupy the outside positions, and Louisville has no reason to force Meester into the lineup.

But serving can create opportunity quickly.

A player capable of changing a set from behind the service line does not need 40 swings to matter. If Meester carries that form into August, Meske gains another attacker and another option when a rotation begins to turn.

Last season, Louisville relied heavily on three primary scorers. This roster may provide more ways out of a difficult stretch.

The schedule will reveal the answers quickly

Stanford was picked first in the ACC preseason poll with 280 points. Pittsburgh followed with 277. Louisville was third with 257 and received the remaining first-place vote.

The poll is not a prediction carved into the side of the Yum Center, but it gives Louisville a clear target.

Stanford visits Louisville on October 11. The Cardinals travel to Pittsburgh on November 15.

Louisville will play 32 regular-season matches. Eighteen are against teams that reached the 2025 NCAA Tournament, including all four national semifinalists.

There are schedules built to accumulate wins and schedules built to reveal a team. This is the second kind.

Louisville opens August 21 against defending national champion Texas A&M at the AVCA First Serve Showcase in Milwaukee. Wisconsin follows the next afternoon.

Most programs spend opening weekend learning where everyone prefers to sit on the bus. Louisville will spend it facing two teams with championship expectations.

The results matter, but so does the information.

Can the new middle combination hold up against elite size? Does Blackshear look more efficient? Can Cabello establish offense through the center when opponents load toward the outside? What happens late in a close set?

Louisville should have useful answers before Labor Day.

Nashville turns an early test into an event

After home matches against Indiana, Dayton and TCU, Louisville travels to Nashville to face Texas on September 6 at Bridgestone Arena.

The setting makes this more than another neutral-site match.

Texas remains one of the sport’s defining programs. The match will air nationally on ABC. Nashville is also close enough for Louisville supporters to create a legitimate road presence.

There is another local wrinkle.

Louisville football plays Ole Miss at Nissan Stadium later that evening, creating a rare same-day Cardinals doubleheader downtown.

Volleyball against Texas at noon. Football under the lights.

Hydration and pacing will both be important.

For the volleyball team, the environment offers an early taste of postseason scale. Bridgestone will feel different from an ordinary September gym, and the match arrives less than 48 hours after Louisville hosts TCU.

It is another chance to learn how this team handles elite competition, travel and recovery before conference play begins.

September will test the roster’s depth

Three days after Texas, Louisville hosts Missouri at the KFC Yum! Center. Two days later, the Cardinals begin a three-match event in Houston against Rice, Creighton and Northern Iowa.

That creates six matches in eight days across Louisville, Nashville and Houston.

The challenge is not limited to opponent quality.

Short scouting windows, travel and fatigue expose habits that remain hidden when preparation is comfortable. They also reveal how many players a coach truly trusts.

Louisville’s returning stars will carry the largest roles. September should tell us whether Meske has enough support behind them to keep the team fresh and adaptable.

The nonconference schedule then closes with road matches at Western Kentucky and Kentucky.

The Kentucky game brings the rivalry, last season’s five-set result and Bultema’s return to Lexington. It also offers another opportunity for Louisville to demonstrate growth in exactly the type of close match that defined 2025.

Three questions will determine the ceiling

The first is whether Louisville can remain elite at the net.

Cresse’s departure removes the best blocker from the nation’s top team in total blocks. Sherman, Blackshear and Bultema offer a credible foundation, but credibility in August is not production in November.

Louisville does not need to lead the country again. It does need the net to remain an advantage.

The second is whether the offense can develop more answers.

Chicoine, Petersen and Blackshear are proven. Cabello knows how to use them.

But deep NCAA Tournament matches often turn after the obvious options have been identified. Bultema, Meester or one of the freshmen may need to make opponents account for something they did not see last season.

The final question is unavoidable: Can Louisville close?

The Cardinals were close enough to beat Texas, Kentucky, Stanford and Texas A&M last season. Being close is evidence of quality. It is not a trophy.

Louisville’s next step will not be measured by whether it can stand across the net from the best teams in the country. It will be measured by what happens when the fifth set becomes uncomfortable.

What should the expectation be?

The ACC’s coaches picked Louisville third. That is reasonable.

Stanford and Pittsburgh have earned the benefit of the doubt. Louisville has earned the right to chase them.

Meske enters his second season with something he didn’t have a year ago: certainty. He knows this roster. He knows where last season’s team grew, where it stalled and how thin the margin becomes when championship matches reach their biggest moments.

Last season proved Louisville could survive one of the biggest transitions in program history without losing its identity.

This season asks something more compelling.

Can one of college volleyball’s model programs take another step?

The answer won’t come from preseason honors or August rankings.

It’ll come in the fifth sets, the hostile road gyms and the handful of matches that separate a very good season from another December worth remembering.

Here’s a simple rule about college football: if an offense can run the ball straight up the middle when everyone in the stadium knows it’s coming, it’s probably going to have a pretty good Saturday.

If you can’t stop it, the other team gets to dictate just about everything that comes next.

There’s nothing quite as humbling as an inside run on third-and-two. No trick play. No motion. No smoke and mirrors. Just eleven players saying, “We’re coming right here,” and daring you to stop them.

Championships have a funny habit of being decided in those moments.

Which brings us home.

There’s a case to be made this could become the best defense Jeff Brohm has coached.

Jeff Brohm recently said he believes the secondary is better than it was a year ago. If he’s right, that’s saying something. The linebacker room returns with experience, confidence, and continuity under new position coach Adam Mueller. Off the edge, Louisville has proven pass rushers, veteran leadership, and enough depth to make life miserable for opposing quarterbacks.

On paper, this defense has the ingredients to be one of the ACC’s best, which makes the biggest question one of the easiest to find.

It starts in the middle.

There are enough pieces here to believe. There just isn’t enough evidence yet to know.

This room is built on possibility more than certainty. There’s size. There’s athleticism. There are players who’ve produced at previous stops, and there are coaches who believe in the room. What we haven’t seen yet is this group do it together on Saturdays wearing Louisville across its chest.

That’s the challenge.

But it’s also the opportunity.

The players aren’t the only new storyline in the middle.

Mark Ivey is back where he does some of his best work.

Brohm promoted Ivey to co-defensive coordinator this offseason while moving him back to the defensive line, placing him in charge of the position group that may ultimately determine Louisville’s defensive ceiling. Throughout his time at Louisville, Ivey has earned a reputation as one of the program’s most respected defensive teachers and developers. Now he returns to a position group he knows well, with plenty to sort out before Week 1.

The rotation probably begins with Demeco Kennedy.

After developing at Purdue, Kennedy arrives with the kind of résumé defensive line coaches quietly appreciate. Dependable. Physical. Technically sound. He started games in the Big Ten and brings something this rebuilt interior desperately needs: experience against Power Four offensive lines.

His statistics won’t jump off the page. That’s also why they can be misleading.

Interior defensive linemen rarely get paid in tackles. They get paid in chaos. They occupy double teams. They squeeze running lanes. They allow linebackers to play downhill instead of meeting 320-pound guards five yards beyond the line of scrimmage.

If Louisville’s linebackers spend this fall flying around making plays, don’t be surprised if Kennedy deserves more credit than he’ll receive.

Then there’s Joshua Donald, one of the most intriguing variables in the room.

Louisville wasn’t recruiting the Houston version of Donald.

It was recruiting the Appalachian State version.

In 2024, Donald produced 32 tackles, 5.5 tackles for loss, three sacks, a forced fumble, and a fumble recovery. At his best, he showed the ability to create disruption from the interior rather than simply occupy space. His first step is unusually quick for a player his size, and when he plays with leverage, he can become the type of interior defender offensive coordinators have to account for before every snap.

Then came Houston, where Donald didn’t appear in a game during the 2025 season.

That’s what makes him so fascinating.

The Cardinals don’t need Donald to become someone he’s never been. They need him to rediscover the player he’s already shown he can be.

Daylen Russell may have as much upside as anyone in the room.

The former Miami defensive tackle arrived at Louisville with relatively little college experience, but he didn’t spend spring buried on the depth chart. Russell worked with the first unit early and generated positive buzz for his explosiveness before being held out of the spring game.

That distinction matters. Russell wasn’t sidelined by a major injury that should define his outlook. Louisville simply exercised caution, leaving the bigger question unchanged: can flashes of talent become consistent production?

If the answer is yes, Russell has the athleticism to become one of the defense’s biggest surprises.

Tommy Ziesmer brings a different kind of confidence.

The Eastern Kentucky transfer already has meaningful college production behind him, but a lower-body injury limited his spring and prevented Louisville from getting a full evaluation. Assuming he’s healthy this fall, Ivey adds another experienced, physical interior lineman to a rotation that will need fresh bodies throughout the season.

Then there’s Keon Webb, and good luck missing him.

The 6-foot-6, 300-pound transfer from Garden City Community College immediately stands out physically. Webb totaled 37 tackles, six tackles for loss, and two sacks last season while attracting offers from several Power Four programs before choosing Louisville.

Like many junior college transfers, he’s still a projection. But length, size, and athleticism can’t be coached. If his technique continues catching up with his physical gifts, Webb could become one of the more intriguing long-term pieces in the room.

Then there are Bailey Abercrombie, Dillon Smith, and Jerrod Smith II, players whose value may become clearer as the season wears on. Defensive line depth isn’t particularly exciting in July. It becomes fascinating in October when the player across from you weighs 315 pounds and this is your 60th snap of the afternoon.

That’s really what this room is.

Not one superstar.

A collection of players who each have a role in making the whole defense better.

Because if Louisville controls the middle, everything else becomes easier. The linebackers stay clean. The edge rushers become more dangerous because quarterbacks can’t comfortably climb the pocket. The secondary gets another heartbeat for tight coverage to become turnovers.

Funny how football works.

Everyone remembers the interception.

Everyone remembers the strip sack.

Very few remember the defensive tackle who forced the running back to bounce outside two plays earlier.

Coaches remember.

Winning teams remember.

They remember who got off the field on third-and-two.

If Louisville is going to make a legitimate run at an ACC Championship and force its way into the College Football Playoff conversation, it may be decided in the same place we started.

Third-and-two.

Everyone knows what’s coming.

Can Louisville stop it?

The path to a championship runs right down the middle.

Jeff Brohm has spent more than a decade proving he can build elite offenses around quarterbacks.

Brandon Doughty threw for nearly 10,000 yards in his final two seasons at Western Kentucky. Mike White followed with a 4,363-yard season. David Blough threw for 3,705 yards in 2018, the same year Purdue stunned No. 2 Ohio State. Aidan O’Connell went from walk-on to NFL Draft pick.

At Louisville, Jack Plummer threw for 3,204 yards and led the Cardinals to the ACC Championship Game. Tyler Shough followed with 3,195 yards, 23 touchdowns and just six interceptions. Miller Moss became the latest experienced passer handed the keys to Brohm’s offense.

Different quarterbacks, different skill sets, similar formula.

Brohm’s best offenses have almost always been led by quarterbacks who do most of their damage with their arms.

That’s what makes Lincoln Kienholz so interesting

At ACC Media Days, Brohm said Kienholz brings “some dimensions and skills that we have not had before.”

Louisville Knows What Mobility Can Do

This city has had a pretty good education in mobile quarterback play.

Lamar Jackson turned it into one of the most devastating weapons college football has ever seen.

Teddy Bridgewater showed a resourceful version.

Malik Cunningham’s legs were a combination of boom, bust and survival.

Kienholz doesn’t need to resemble any of them. But this fan base understands the possibilities when the defense has to account for mobility at quarterback.

Brohm’s history makes that possibility even more enticing.

Brohm’s Quarterback History Tells a Clear Story

There is an important catch when comparing college quarterback rushing statistics: NCAA totals count sacks as negative rushing yards.

That can make raw rushing totals misleading. Designed carries, rushing touchdowns, explosive runs and a quarterback’s willingness to scramble often tell us more than the final yardage total alone.

Through Brohm’s stops at Western Kentucky, Purdue and Louisville, the pattern is fairly clear.

Quarterbacks run ability in the Brohm Era:

• Brandon Doughty - Western Kentucky - Minimal

• Mike White - Western Kentucky - Limited

• David Blough - Purdue - Capable play extender

• Elijah Sindelar - Purdue - Minimal

• Aidan O’Connell - Purdue - Minimal

• Jack Plummer - Purdue/Louisville - Functional mobility

• Tyler Shough - LouisvilleAthletic, used conservatively

• Miller Moss - Louisville - Encouraged, but inconsistent

• Lincoln Kienholz - Louisville - Legitimate dual-threat potential

None of this is a criticism of Brohm’s approach.

O’Connell helped Purdue reach the Big Ten Championship Game. Plummer took Louisville to the ACC title game in Brohm’s first season back home.

The formula has worked.

But Shough and Moss provide an interesting bridge to Kienholz.

Shough came to Louisville with more rushing ability than we ultimately saw. At Texas Tech, he showed what his legs could add, most notably when he carried 25 times for 111 yards and two touchdowns against Ole Miss in the 2022 Texas Bowl.

It was reasonable to wonder whether Brohm might tap into more of that at Louisville.

He really didn’t.

Given Shough’s extensive injury history, preservation was likely part of the equation. Louisville needed its veteran quarterback healthy far more than it needed another designed run on second-and-6. The approach worked. Shough stayed healthy, produced the best complete season of his college career and became a second-round NFL Draft pick.

Moss presented a different opportunity.

Brohm challenged him to take the easy yards defenses were giving him when the pass wasn’t there. There were glimpses and a few scrambles that hinted at another dimension, but the leap never really came. He left those yards on the field..

Kienholz arrives with a different instinct.

He isn’t being asked to learn how to become a runner.

He’s always been one.

So, What Exactly Is Louisville Getting?

The college sample is still small.

Kienholz spent three seasons at Ohio State behind quarterbacks including Kyle McCord, Will Howard and Julian Sayin. He appeared in 10 games and attempted only 36 passes.

There isn’t enough college film to pretend anyone knows exactly what Louisville has yet.

But there is plenty of evidence that the athleticism is real.

As a senior at T.F. Riggs High School in South Dakota, Kienholz threw for 3,422 yards and 46 touchdowns while rushing for 1,435 yards and 24 more scores.

That’s not a pocket quarterback who happens to be fast enough to scramble.

Kienholz was a legitimate two-way weapon, and football wasn’t his only sport. He also excelled in basketball and baseball, finishing his high school career as one of South Dakota’s top all-around athletes ever.

His time at Ohio State didn’t produce much game film, but it did give him three years inside one of college football’s most demanding programs. The reports surrounding Kienholz consistently pointed to his competitiveness, preparation and willingness to work.

That part of his profile matters almost as much as the speed.

If Louisville is going to use his legs, he’s going to take hits. Being athletic enough to escape the pocket is one thing. Having the strength, toughness and durability to do it over an ACC season is another.

Mobility Doesn’t Have to Mean More Carries

The goal shouldn’t be to find out how many hits he can absorb.

It should be to make defenses respect the possibility.

Louisville doesn’t need Kienholz carrying the football 15 times a game.

Especially with Isaac Brown standing next to him.

The value of a mobile quarterback isn’t always measured by his own rushing total.

Sometimes it’s simply making a defensive end hesitate.

Is he keeping it?

If the answer might actually be yes, the defense has another problem.

The backside defender can’t crash quite as aggressively toward Brown. A linebacker has another responsibility to consider. Man coverage can leave open grass if Kienholz escapes the pocket. Third-and-8 doesn’t necessarily end because the initial reads are covered.

Four or five meaningful quarterback runs can affect how dozens of other plays are defended.

Brohm doesn’t need to rebuild his offense around Kienholz’s legs. He needs to make defenses respect them enough to create opportunities everywhere else.

For a coach already willing to use motion, misdirection, play-action and just about every formation imaginable, a credible quarterback run threat gives him another lever to pull.

And it could make life considerably easier for Brown.

The Balancing Act

Kienholz development as a passer will ultimately determine Louisville’s ceiling.

Brohm’s offense demands accuracy, timing, processing and command. Kienholz will have to prove he can consistently operate within that structure and make the right read. Jeff will get people open. Can he deliver?

Brohm has never needed a running quarterback. His offenses have scored points, won championships and produced NFL quarterbacks without one.

Now he appears to have a quarterback whose athleticism is too useful to simply become an escape hatch when everything else breaks down.

The challenge isn’t turning Lincoln Kienholz into a passer. Brohm has built his career developing quarterbacks and putting them in position to throw the football successfully.

The challenge is doing that without coaching away what makes this one different.

If Kienholz can become the passer Brohm needs while remaining the athlete he’s always been, Louisville may have something Brohm hasn’t often had available on his play sheet.

Not a new offense.

One more problem for a defense that already has plenty to solve.

And we get to find out what the Cards can do with it!

A professional bandwagoner.

Kentucky basketball. The Yankees. The Bulls (but we all loved the Bulls on WGN) Whoever happened to be winning. If there was a trophy involved, chances are I’d convinced myself they were my team. Looking back, it’s hard not to laugh. There’s not much pride in borrowing someone else’s success.

Suddenly a switch flipped, I stopped chasing winners and started appreciating the ones that had to earn their place. The teams that walked into every season with something to prove, the ones that fought for every ounce of respect they received.

Turns out, pulling for Goliath is easy. Pulling for David changes you.

I’d always loved sports, but getting to Louisville games wasn’t something that happened often. Then one night, almost by accident, I ended up at an NIT game in Freedom Hall. Tickets were about eight bucks because Louisville basketball wasn’t exactly at its peak.

Nobody walks into a random NIT game expecting it to change their life. I certainly didn’t.

But somewhere between the roar of the crowd, the history inside those walls and thousands of strangers caring about the same thing at the same time, something clicked. I walked into Freedom Hall curious. I walked out a Cardinal.

There was no looking back.

Years later, I earned both my undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Louisville, soaking up every student ticket I could. Then I married into a family that bleeds Cardinal red. If there was ever a match made in heaven, this was it.

Before long, our family’s schedule was built around kickoff, tipoff and first pitch. Somewhere along the way, Louisville stopped being something we watched and became part of how we lived.

Looking back, I’ve realized something. I don’t remember schedules or records nearly as much as I remember moments.

Sosa breaking Kentucky hearts. Teddy refusing to leave the field against Cincinnati because quitting simply wasn’t an option. Shoni Schimmel delivering a stare that said everything Louisville fans were feeling. The dog piles at Jim Patterson Stadium. Showing up hours before kickoff because half the fun has always been everything that happens before the game. Watching my daughters learn to cheer before they ever knew the score.

Every Louisville fan has a different list. Different players, different games, different eras. The details change, but the feeling never does.

Louisville has never belonged to just one generation. Every group of fans inherits the story, adds a few unforgettable chapters of its own, then passes it along to the next.

We’ve watched football transform from a program hoping it belonged into one expected to compete with anyone in the country. We’ve watched the road to Omaha get rerouted through Louisville. We’ve watched Jeff Walz build one of college basketball’s premier programs through relentless consistency, toughness and an unwavering standard. And we’ve watched men’s basketball reach the mountaintop, endure unimaginable lows and still pack arenas because the roots run deep.

Now another chapter is being written. The prodigal son, Jeff Brohm, is home, and Pat Kelsey has reignited belief on the hardwood. The names change. The expectations don’t.

We’ve celebrated championships and watched banners come down. We’ve stormed fields. We’ve experienced unforgettable highs and endured heartbreaking lows. We’ve got the scars to prove it.

And somehow, we keep showing up.

We don’t love Louisville because the story has always been perfect. We love Louisville because it has never stopped giving us another chapter to believe in.

So why another Louisville sports page?

Because if you’re reading this, there’s a pretty good chance you’re wired like I am. You refresh message boards more than you probably should. You listen to podcasts on the drive to work. You read one more article before bed because maybe someone noticed something you didn’t. You replay press conferences looking for clues. You talk yourself into why this team can make a run, talk yourself back out of it, then somehow end up right back in again.

You care. Not because it’s your job, but because it’s part of who you are.

This page isn’t here to replace the outstanding people already covering Louisville. It’s here to join the conversation, to offer another perspective from another fan who loves this university and the people who represent it.

We’ll celebrate what’s worth celebrating and ask hard questions when they’re deserved. We’ll do the homework before drawing conclusions, appreciate greatness wherever we find it and never forget that behind every jersey is a person carrying the expectations of an entire fan base.

You’ll find optimism here, but not blind optimism. You’ll find criticism, but never cynicism. Those aren’t the same thing.

The goal isn’t to tell you what to think. It’s to make you think, maybe notice something you hadn’t before, and appreciate this place just a little bit more.

Because this is about more than wins and losses.

It’s about hugging and high-fiving complete strangers because a walk-off pick six just happened and, for a few unforgettable seconds, nothing else in the world mattered. It’s about introducing your kids to traditions you hope they’ll someday pass on to theirs. It’s about friendships built in parking lots long before kickoff and losing your voice after a big win, only to somehow get it back just in time for the next game.

It’s about believing this season could be special, even after the last one hurt. Maybe especially after the last one hurt.

Nothing has ever been handed to Louisville. Not our respect, not our place, not our moments. We’ve earned them.

Maybe that’s why they mean so much.

We have a place worth believing in.

If that sounds like you, welcome home.

Welcome to the 502.