Dale Williams Seeing 'Significant Progress' on Louisville's Offensive Line in Spring Ball

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Heading into the 2026 season, the Louisville football program is teeming with talent at the offensive skill positions.

Running back Isaac Brown is one of the best players in all of football, and his backup in Keyjuan Brown could easily be a starter at a lot of places. Wide receiver Tre Richardson is coming off of a fantastic season, while guys like Lawayne McCoy, TreyShun Hurry and Jackson Voth have showed out during spring ball. Brody Foley also gives UofL an option at tight end they have not had under head coach Jeff Brohm. Tying it all together, quarterback Lincoln Kienholz has looked phenomenal in spring ball.

Of course, you can have a wealth of talent at these positions, but as any well-versed football fan knows, it can all for naught if you can't couple it with a good offensive line. Fortunately, through the first half of spring ball, the Cardinals seem to be trending in the right direction with their offensive front.

"They're a good group of kids, a mature group of kids," offensive line coach Dale Williams said earlier this week. "They ask questions, take notes, they're older group - especially with the portal. We got a good group, and I think we got the right group of kids for this team to play offensive line."

It's a group that has a lot of new faces, and not just because they have a new O-Line coach. Of the seven linemen that started at least one game last season, six of them have departed the program in some form of fashion, with the lone exception being Lance Robinson. In fact, the line lost 10 scholarship players due to either graduation or the portal, the most of any position group on the roster.

As you can guess, Louisville placed a massive emphasis on the offensive line in the transfer portal, and wound up bringing in multiple impact guys. Georgia Southern's Johnnie Brown III, Boston College's Eryx Daugherty, South Carolina's Cason Henry, Delaware's Anwar O'Neal and Kentucky's Evan Wibberley - all of whom have starting experience in college - opted to hit the portal earlier this cycle and transfer to Louisville.

With bringing in that many newcomers, especially from a multitude of difference systems, getting everyone on the same page was a work in progress. That being said, it was an endevour that everyone in the room was dedicated to.

"At the end of the day, football is football," Daugherty said earlier this week in regards to the room meshing together. "We all have to go out there and communicate, and be on the same page, but the game is still the game. We all come from different places, but we all have a lot of experience, so most times we're speaking the same thing. We're just trying to find out a way to have the same language, so that we're all saying the same thing."

Considering the up-and-down nature of the offensive line last season, it's great to see the line making as big of an effort as they are to try and get on the same page. Over the first five games vs. FBS opponents last season, Louisville gave up 7.2 tackles for loss and 2.8 sacks per game, while only rushing for 93.0 yards. The line made a stark turnaround over the final five games, giving up just 4.7 tackles for loss and 1.6 sacks while racking up 205.3 rushing yards per game in this span.

The collective efforts from the line has not only helped forge a great bond off the field, but has fostered intense competition through the first few weeks of spring ball.

"Complacency is a big thing," Robinson said. "We try to stay away from that. ... As far as the competition goes, I feel like everybody is really just trying to compete with themself more so than anything, trying to be better every day. We know, in the O-line room, we set the order of the depth chart. It's really one of those things where your play, however you come in and perform on the field, what you put on film, that's what's really gonna determine the order of everything."

Because of this high-level competition, Williams believes that each lineman has made "significant progress" since spring first got underway in mid-March. Williams traditionally likes to establish, at minimum, a 7-8 man rotation on the line during the season, and the level of play during spring has made it difficult for him to have any guesses as to what the rotation will inevitably be.

"For me to say one above the other, I don't know if that'd be fair, because you could see each kid's progression," he said. "That's what Jeff Brohm and the coaches want to see. How much better have we taken this kid from day one, yesterday was day 11, to now. Each kid has gotten better."

Louisville will wrap up spring ball with their annual spring game on Friday, Apr. 17. The Cardinals will kick off their 2026 season against Ole Miss in Nashville on Sunday, Sept. 6.

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