Jeff Brohm on Louisville's QB Situation: 'There's Always a Plan to Help Us Win'

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The Louisville football program suffered a massive blow to their hopes of making both the ACC Championship Game and College Football Playoff this past weekend. Despite being an 18.5-point favorite over Cal, the Cardinals dropped another overtime game at home, falling 29-26 this past Saturday.

While the defense didn't have a great day at the office against Cal, arguably the single-biggest reason why Louisville lost was the play of quarterback Miller Moss. The redshirt senior finished the game completing 20 of his 38 pass attempts, throwing for just 203 yards and no touchdown, plus an interception. His pocket awareness was far from elite, and it was evident as the game went on that Brohm didn't have trust in Moss to stretch the ball vertically down the field.

During his weekly press conference, Louisville Cardinals On SI asked Brohm if there was a world in which he would go in a different direction at quarterback if Moss continued to struggle. While he expressed his belief in Moss, he admitted that there are contingency plans in place at the quarterback spot should the need to implement them arise.

"We believe in Miller, and we believe in all of our quarterbacks," he said. "We'll always have a plan ready for all of them, at some point in different aspects, which we've done before. At the same time, we just got to continue to work through these things, and be as effective as we can. Without question, there's always a plan to help us win. So we'll have that ready to go."

Joining Louisville as a transfer from USC, Moss certainly has had and up-and-down season to say the least. While the 6-foot-2, 210-pound signal caller has completed 63.8 percent of his passes and thrown for 2,132 yards, that has come with only 11 touchdowns and seven interceptions. His QB rating of 128.93 ranks just 88th in the FBS among qualified players (75 percent of games played, 15.0 pass attempts per games), and 50th among power conference teams.

In recent weeks, Moss' play has taken a sharp downturn, only amplifying calls from the fanbase for Brohm to make a change at quarterback.

Over the first six games of the season, Moss completed 66.2 percent of his attempts and averaged 267.7 passing yards per game, while having nine touchdowns against four interceptions. But over the last three games, he has completed only 58.1 percent of his attempts, averaged 175.3 yards per game, and had more interceptions (3) than touchdown passes (2). Moss went from having a 138.7 QBR over the first six games of the year, to having a ghastly 106.2 QBR over the last three weeks.

During his weekly press conference, Brohm expressed that his team as a whole needs to do a better job honing in on the "small details" so that they can rebound and have a strong end of the season. This includes Moss, who only had 14 pass attempts go 10 yards or more past the line of scrimmage, and had multiple balls batted at the line of scrimmage.

":I think we always work on ways to get him easy completions, and get him in a rhythm, and get him feeling good," Brohm said of Moss. "We've got to work on getting open vs. press and tight coverage. We've got to be able to throw the ball over their head more. All those things come into play. When that happens, you just got to take care of the football as best you can.

"Playing quarterback at a high level is not easy. You've got to just continue to work hard, and put in the work, and we'll take some things that we saw on video, and work them hard this week as much as we can. Miller works extremely hard, and I know he'll put in the work to continue to improve and get better. We've got to continue to improve and get better as an offense, and put the best plan together for those guys so that they can excel at it. If that means changing some things up here and there, we've got to be ready to do that, and be aggressive in our approach.

If Brohm does opt to bench Moss, he has two options to go with in Brady Allen and Deuce Adams. Both have seen action in four games, and the two are listed as co-backups on the depth chart.

Allen, a redshirt junior, has been the first backup to enter the game when Louisville has gotten to the point where they empty the benches in blowouts. However, Adams, a redshirt freshman who is the most mobile QB on the roster, has been incorporated into a handful of read option and wildcat looks. Allen has gone 6-of-9 for 69 yards and a touchdown this season, while Adams is 3-of-4 for 18 yards - but also has five rushes for 11 yards.

Louisville will be back in action this Friday night when they host Clemson. Kickoff between the Cardinals and Tigers is set for 7:00 p.m. EST.

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