Louisville's Linebackers Working to Improve Efforts in Pass Coverage

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - In this day and age of college football, it's fairly common to see a plethora of moving parts within individual position groups, or even near-complete wholesale changeover.

For the Louisville football program's linebacker position, it has been the opposite.

They bring back T.J. Quinn, who has led the team in tackles in each of the past two seasons, as well as Stanquan Clark, who is coming off of a fantastic breakout season. These two combined for 158 tackles last season, and played a large role in helping the Cardinals limit opposing running backs to just 83.5 yards per game.

Additionally, depth pieces T.J. Capers and Trent Carter are running it back as well. Tennessee transfer Kalib Perry is expected to play a big role in the linebacker rotation, and true freshmen Caleb Matelau and Cameron White have performed well in fall camp. All in all, Louisville has a very strong linebacker room entering 2025.

"The linebackers should lead the defense," linebackers coach Mark Ivey said. "I think right now, we're in the best position to do that since I've been here. I do feel like we have an opportunity,"

There's no denying just how good Louisville's linebacking corps has been when it comes to playing against the run. That being said, last season, they were a bona fide liability at times when it came to dropping back in pass coverage.

Just how big of a liability? In Louisville's 12 games vs. FBS competition last season, on throws between the numbers and less than 20 yards downfield - which is primarily covered by the linebackers - opposing quarterbacks completed 71.1 percent of their throws for 1,245 yards. During those 12 games, 41.5 percent of UofL's total passing yards allowed and 42.6 percent of their total completions allowed came in this area of the field.

According to Ivey, some of this was due to either playing too shallow, or simply biting on too many play fakes. Once the offseason hit, Ivey made sure that this was one of the key things that his guys worked on over the offseason.

"That's one of the things we harped on," he said. "There were lots of times when we didn't get enough depth, and we're playing shallow, One of the things that they bought into, and it has nothing to do with what they want to do, they've decided, 'Hey, we're not gonna bite on every little flash fake.' We would be up there on the line of scrimmage, and and we bit on everything it was to bite on.

It goes without saying that it was crucial for the linebackers to work on this area, not only for themselves, but for the rest of the team. If there's a missed pass coverage assignment in the middle of the field, it forces other position groups to compensate, which can then lead to other potential coverage busts. Considering Louisville is coming off of a season where they posted the 100th-ranked passing defense, stopping that potential domino effect could be one of the little things that builds up and helps the team-wise coverage efforts bounce back.

"We worked very hard to make sure that we're actually using our eyes, and being smart enough to recognize run and pass, and help out. Because we don't do that, then our safeties are going to have to do things that they shouldn't have to do, and now the job that they're doing gets relented to the end zone. We were hurting them at times because we didn't get the proper depth, we didn't get our proper coverage and use our eyes to to to discern between run and pass."

A lot of the improvements the linebackers had to make here was simply becoming both more situationally aware, and becoming better at reading not only the opponents' alignment, but their body language as well. If the other team is in a clear passing situation, or if a player is tipping their hand pre-snap, then the linebackers need to be in a better position to react to it.

"Certain situations, you have to be a lot cautious with the pass over the run," T.J. Capers said. "A lot of it is just reading the demeanor of the guys, so that we won't see a ball fake and instantly think run. We can get into our pass drops, and help the guys behind us get into their drops, and make it better for everyone."

Over the course of spring ball, the summer, and the first half of fall camp, Ivey thinks that his guys have taken meaningful strides when it comes to improving their efforts in passing coverage. Of course, we won't know for sure until live game action rolls around, but he's optimistic based on what he's seen in the offseason.

"I think we've gotten a lot better at that," Ivey said. "Now we won't know until live bullets start showing. But out here, I can tell you that we're doing a much better job. I'll tell you this, if anybody's going to test you on it, it's going to be coach Brohm, and things he does on offense. He is going to find out if the things we said we're going to get better at, and we did. He continues to to check those boxes. I think our guys haven't been perfect at it, but have gotten way better being able to choose between run and pass, and then help coverage wise with the calls."

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