Adam Mueller Grateful for Promotion to LBs Coach, Eager to Continue Building UofL's Defense

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Like every other program in college football, there are a lot of new faces around Louisville's facility as the program goes through spring ball. But on top of welcoming a fair amount of new players, for the first time since Jeff Brohm took over the program in 2023, there's a decent amount of turnover on his coaching staff - with four assistants moving on in some form or fashion.

With that, comes the opportunity for other coaches to step into newer or bigger roles. One of those coaches is Adam Mueller.

After defensive line coach Mark Hagen was not retained, linebackers coach Mark Ivey was moved back to the D-Line, which is where he previously coaches. Instead of making an out-of-house hire at this spot, Brohm instead opted to promote Mueller - who had been a quality control/assistant linebackers coach during Brohm's first three years at UofL.

It goes without saying that Mueller was incredibly grateful and excited to receive this promotion.

"Getting promoted to that full time role has been nothing short of amazing," Mueller said Tuesday. "I've got eight great linebackers in the room, two really, really veteran guys. Coach likes to throw a lot of football at us, so the things that we do on defense here, it's a lot of fun. We make a lot of plays in practice.

"My role has changed, but what I told the guys was, I'm just going from the back of the room, coach (Mark) Ivey was leading it before, just going to the front of the room. I think the buy-in has been exceptional so far. We've had seven great practices, and it's just been a lot of fun. I've really enjoyed working with these guys."

In the grand scheme of college football, promoting a quality control coach to full-time position assistant isn't uncommon, but it's much more so at the power conference level. Especially for a coach that turns 34-year-old just before the start of the upcoming 2026 season.

But while the Park Ridge, Ill. native might seem "green" in the eyes of some, he already has a solid amount of experience under his belt for a young coach. For starters, Mueller was able to learn under previous defensive coordinator Ron English, who help post a pair of stout defenses at UofL in 2023 and this past season.

He also does have prior experience as a linebackers coach, doing so for DII Lake Erie College from 2019-21, where he was also the defensive coordinator. The Storm went from having the No. 137 total, No. 163 scoring and No. 102 red zone defense prior to Mueller's arrival in 2018; to 76th, 98th and 19th, respectively, in his final year. Not to mention he also has prior stops in the Commonwealth at Morehead State, but also in the ACC with Boston College, following his graduation from UConn in 2014.

"I've been very fortunate throughout my coaching career to be around a lot of really, really good coaches," he said. "People that have been coordinators in the NFL, head coaches at places. I think my experience as a coordinator at a smaller school, position coach before at a smaller Division I school, it's all helped me grow and be ready for this opportunity. All those experiences, my experience before coach Brohm, plus my five years with him have all culminated in this opportunity."

It also helps tremendously that Mueller is allowed the opportunity to grow within the system, vs. having to go elsewhere to climb up the coaching ladder. He's entering year five under Brohm, as he was also a defensive graduate assistant at Purdue in 2022.

Additionally, with new co-defensive coordinators Ivey and Steve Ellis running the same 4-2-5 scheme that English previously ran, it allows Mueller to further the scheme even more and build on the foundation he played a role in establishing.

"A lot of what we've done here on defense, we've developed it as a staff," he said. "I've had a hand throughout the last five years of being able to research things, and stay on top of the trends in football, and hopefully implement it into our system. Seeing our package evolve, some things come full circle. Just seeing year-to-year how things have changed, and different things that we've done and experimented with, I've been here through all of that.

"I'm not going somewhere else to step back in and pick up where we left off. There's that continuous process of me seeing it, and knowing where we're at, what we need to get better at - both from a schematic perspective and from a linebacker perspective. I think it's just made it a little bit more seamless."

It also helped that Mueller is inheriting a linebacker room that is incredibly talented.

Stanquan Clark is one of the top defenders on the team, while T.J. Capers is primed for a breakout season as he steps into a starting role with T.J. Quinn graduating. Behind those two, guys like Trent Carter, Caleb Matelau, Jacob Smith and Cam White have also shown flashes during spring ball.

So far during the first half of spring ball, Mueller has been pleased with what he has seen from his group, and is challenging them to continue playing with a physical edge.

"I think we're playing physical. I've challenged every player to raise the bar for the whole entire team. Everybody's looking at the linebackers. You're in the center of the defense. We want to bring that physicality.

"What Coach Ivey has really emphasized in our defensive unit meetings, and as defense as a whole, you got to bring the physicality. Coach Ivey, he coached a physical, physical group the last three years. I want to do everything I can to keep that mentality going."

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