Jeff Brohm: Louisville Has 'A Lot to Learn' From 'Rough Night' vs. James Madison

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - As the old saying goes, you'd rather win ugly than lose pretty. Well, the Louisville football program certainly put that adage to the test on Friday night.

Tasked with hosting James Madison on a short turnaround, the Cardinals were able to overcome a shaky first half against the Dukes, and made enough plays after halftime to be able to capture a 28-14 victory. After trailing 14-6 early in the third quarter, Louisville proceeded to fire off 22 unanswered point to secure the win.

“Definitely proud of our football team," head coach Jeff Brohm said after the game. "We hung in there on a rough night, and just continued to play for 60 minutes and found a way to win. That's the great part."

The win can in spite of the fact that Louisville's put together one of their most offensively inept performances in their two-plus years under Brohm. The Cardinals put up just 264 yards of offense, which is not only the lowest total since Brohm took over in 2023. They also went 5-of-14 on third down, quarterback Miller Moss went 13-of-23 for just 151 yards and only 6.57 yards per pass attempt, and their prolific run game put up only 113 yards on the ground.

"I thought JMU did a really good job defensively tonight," Moss said. "They’re a really good team, they’re an aggressive team, and they emptied the clip defensively in terms of what they threw at us looks-wise. I give them a ton of credit for what they did. It’s always better to learn from wins, and I think that’s the most important thing at the end of the day. But we know offensively, we got some room to grow, and I think this will be a good tape for us to learn from.”

While the execution by the players left a lot to be desired, Brohm himself admits that the actual game plan he concocted did not put his players in the best position to succeed. Throughout the majority of the night, JMU ran an extremely aggressive defensive game plan, one which not only involved stacking the box more often than not, but sometimes blitzing up to six players.

One more than one occasion, Isaac Brown or Duke Watson were stopped dead in their tracks. Additionally, James Madison was able to get a free rusher on Moss because of both the lack of communication from the line and the lack of adjustment from Brohm. Put it all toegther, and it threw a massive wrench into the overall game plan. Outside of a 78-yard run by Brown and a 64-yard catch by Chris Bell, Louisville averaged just 2.39 yards on their 51 other plays on the night.

Despite the near-constant pressure, Brohm and the rest of the offensive staff didn't seem to make many adjustments to it. That's primarily because Brohm didn't anticipate the Dukes to send as much pressure as they did.

"There is a lot to learn from it," he said. "I need to do a better job against the blitz package that we saw today. It was a heavy and extensive blitz package that was bringing the heat. I hadn’t seen a lot of that in video, but they were playing feast or famine, and they got to us quite a bit. Those are things that I, and we have to learn on offense, and find a better package for that.

"But to get a win with it is good. Our guys played hard, even though things weren’t going our way, in the end our receivers blocked, our tight ends blocked, our o-line blocked, and our runners ran hard. It was a tough night for us overall."

But for as inconsistent as the offense played, the defense made up for it to carry Louisville to victory. Despite running 25 more plays, James Madison was held to only 263 yards on the night. 76 of these yards came in the final three-and-a-half minutes when UofL had already taken a two-score lead.

The Cardinals had a fair amount of success getting in the backfield, generating six sacks and seven tackles for loss. They also forced two turnovers, with Clev Lubin's fourth quarter strip sack that was recovered in the end zone by A.J. Green serving as the go-ahead score.

"I thought we were really good vs. the pass for the most part, we gave up one or two up the field," Brohm said. "But they were on the field a lot. I just think our defense, like I said, I had a feeling in camp that these guys are really starting to gel, and they understand the package.

"I think we got some good weapons at a lot of the positions. We have some depth. The D-Line can be disruptive. our linebackers have experience. ... It's great to build on. I think they've raised the bar now, which I told them after the game, a great job, but you raised the bar."

Fortunately for Louisville, they now head into their first bye week of the young season. As a result, they have some extra time to spend in the film room to correct the mistake made by both the players and coaches.

Brohm knows that he and his team have a lot to learn before they face Bowling Green next on Sept. 20, so they'll certainly take advantage of the extra time to iron out mistakes and missteps.

"We're going to do what we normally do, which is get the guys healthy and fresh," he said. "It's only after two weeks. I don't love that, but that's our schedule. But the fact is, we won, and there's a lot to learn from this win.

"I just think that doing that, and having a package ready that can identify and be good vs. everything, and have some adjustments that may be a little bit more successful will be the emphasis. I think we can put our heads together and go to work on that."

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