Jeff Brohm Focusing on Fixing Louisville's 'Correctable' Mistakes Ahead of James Madison Matchup

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - For the most part, the Louisville football program's first game of the 2025 season was a rousing success.

By the time the clock hit double-zeroes in their matchup against Eastern Kentucky, the Cardinals had come out on top with a 51-17 victory over the Colonels. Louisville out-gained them 542 to 150 in terms of total offense, and put up 41 points before EKU even cracked the scoreboard.

From the moment that the ball was kicked off, it was clear that Louisville was simply a much better team. But for as dominant of an effort as they put forth, anyone who watched the game knows that the Cardinals did not play the cleanest brand of football at times.

Against Eastern Kentucky, Louisville was hit with a whopping 12 penalties, although they 13 committed since one was offset by an EKU penalty on the same play. Seven of these penalties were a form of holding, while five of them came on special teams alone. Additionally, the Cardinals turned the ball over three times while the Colonels did not turn it over once.

One of the points of emphasis for Brohm as Louisville prepares for James Madison later this week is simply fixing what he calls very correctable mistakes. In his mind, he's glad that the Cardinals made these mistake against EKU, so that they can be addressed.

"It's disappointing to have that many penalties, but to have them in that type of game is good for us," he said. "Quite a few of them are correctable and things we can fix. Probably over half of them are with new players that have on the team that we’ve just got to teach what is a hold and what’s not. ... Fixing the holding calls will be crucial. We had a face mask on special teams, we had something on the sideline. Those things can’t happen as well.

"Then we just had three turnovers that, when you’re in a good tight game and you lose the turnover battle 3-0, you’re probably not going to win the game. Those things need to be addressed and worked on this week, and I think that’s good."

Despite committing a bevy of mistakes against EKU, Louisville still did a very good job at not letting them get in the way of their overall plan of attack. Of their six offensive drives impacted by penalties, the Cardinals still scored touchdowns on five of them. Of their four defensive drives impacted by penalties, the Colonels scored a touchdown just once.

The biggest positive development was that, on the heels of a 2024 season where Louisville struggled immensely with defensive communication, this was not a problem whatsoever in game one. While there are certainly things to correct, Brohm is still proud of his guys for putting together a mostly positive performance.

"For a first game, I thought we did a good job overall," he said. "We came ready to play. We've made enough plays on offense to score points. We did a good job on defense, getting set and lined up, and making tackles and communicating. That happened throughout the first half, for the most part.

"In the second half, I know what the score is. We're not going to be quite as aggressive, we're going to play a bunch of guys, we're going to do what I believe is right. We did see that. Now, like in everything, it was a good first game to get your feet wet. Now, we've got a lot of really good opponents coming up that are talented, and that can win football games against anybody."

That being said, Louisville will have to actually be successfull this upcoming week in practice when it comes to eliminating mistakes, because their next opponent is much better. James Madison might not be a power conference squad, but they're one of the better Group of Five teams in college football. The Dukes are coming off of a 9-4 campaign a season ago, and are the preseason pick to win the Sun Belt.

EKU might not have had the horses to make Louisville pay for a litany of mistakes, but JMU does, and Brohm knows it.

"I think we're going to play a really good football team in James Madison that knows how to win. They've done it over the years, they've proven it. They play a good brand of football. They give you a lot of things that you got to deal with, both offensively and defensively. They're well coached, and they got really good players.

"For us, improving on our mistakes from last week, which were penalties and turnovers, is going to be vital to success, and making sure we we get that fixed up. We'll definitely have to play our best, and be sound in what we're doing."

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