Notebook: Jeff Brohm on Transfer Additions, Recruiting Trends and More

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - While the Louisville football program's 2023 season ended roughly a month and a half ago, it's still been an incredibly busy early offseason for the head coach Jeff Brohm and his staff.

Roughly a week before the Cardinals' season-ending loss to USC in the Holiday Bowl, Louisville had the task of finalizing their high school recruiting class during the Early Signing Period. In the weeks that followed, Brohm and Co. also hit the transfer portal hard, officially announcing most of their portal commitments as midyear enrollees last month,

The calendar has now flipped into February, and the dust has settled on the Cardinals' roster quite a bit, and spring football is quickly approaching. On Wednesday, Brohm held a press conference for the Traditional Signing Day, and answered various questions regarding Louisville's transfer additions, recruiting trends and tendencies, and more.

Below are some of the more significant takeaways:

Louisville Continuing to Adapt to Ever-Changing College Football Landscape

For those who are unaware, college football has featured a variety of changes over the last few years. From the one-time transfer rule and recent developments on the multi-time transfer front, to the effects of Name, Image and Likeness, conference realignment and an expanded College Football Playoff, the sport looks almost unrecognizable than it did just a few years ago.

The sport continues to change at a breakneck pace like it never has before, and more changes are potentially on the horizon. Those who don't adapt to the times run the risk of falling behind their competitors, and Brohm and his staff are working to make sure Louisville stays ahead of the curve.

"I just think the college landscape has changed quite a bit," Brohm said. "Yes, it will continue to probably adapt moving forward even more. We just try to figure it out, and make the most of it. From our end, I think you always have to be ready for roster change, and that is always going to be guys that graduate. Guys that enter the NFL Draft, guys that are maybe unhappy with their playing time. Then you factor in that these guys can transfer freely basically whenever they want, so you have got to be prepared to add to your roster.

"I think we understood that from the beginning. So throughout the entire season, until the very end, we were working hard to prepare ourselves to adapt and to change our roster to improve our football team. I think we were in a good position, we were on it early. Our coaches and our recruiting staff identified what we thought could help us, and we were active in going to try and get that. In the end, we feel good about what we have brought to the table."

Cardinals Maintaining Balance Between High School and Transfer Portal Recruiting

Even with all of the recent changes across the college football landscape, the lifeblood of a program is still high school recruiting and development of younger players. During the Early Signing Period, Louisville was able to sign all 14 of their scholarship commitments for a class that currently ranks as 247Sports' No. 31 class in the 2024 cycle.

While Brohm recognizes the risks in the current climate when it comes to recruiting high school players, he still wants to be "very active" on that front.

"I do think that we still want to be very active in recruiting high school prospects, and doing right by that, and doing right by our state and the surrounding area," he said. "The best case is bring guys in, develop them and they become great players for you. That's unfortunately not how it always works now."

Of course, while Brohm also recognizes the benefits that come with developing homegrown high school players, he also is fully aware of the "win now" advantage that comes with filling open roster spots via the portal. Brohm doesn't put a ratio of transfer vs. high school additions, but knows that in this day and age, portal recruiting has surpassed high school recruiting in terms of importance.

"There's a lot of factors that go into it," he said. How long is it going to take to develop players? Okay, when they get developed, is someone going to try to poach them from you in a way that you don't like, but it happens. There's a lot of risks that go with that."

As a result, the majority of Louisville's newcomers for the 2024 season have come via the portal, with the Cardinals bringing in the best transfer class in all of college football. Headlined by players like Tennessee edge rusher Tyler Baron and South Alabama wide receiver Caullin Lacy, Louisville's 26-man haul is the No. 1 portal class in this cycle according to On3.

"When you're able to attract someone with experience, who's played a lot of football, that is probably coming here with a purpose, sometimes you feel comfortable with that and say, 'let's go this route, and let's get somebody that can help us win right now that has already played competitive football.'," Brohm said. "That's kind of what I think you're seeing, is you're just seeing teams that understand the importance of winning right now this year.

"Yes, you want to build for the future and all that, but the important thing is always: how can we win this next game? How can we win this next year? I think that's what you got to factor into it."

Defensive Back, Tight End Were Crucial Portal Areas to Address for Louisville

While Louisville added players are every conceivable area of the football field, Brohm revealed that two of of the most important areas that they wanted to address via the portal were at defensive back and tight end.

The Cardinals do return All-ACC cornerback Quincy Riley and will be getting safety M.J. Griffin back from injury, but they still wanted to be very proactive on the talent acquisition front here. Louisville was able to secure commitments from seven defensive backs, including four-star transfers in cornerbacks Corey Thornton and Tahveon Nicholson.

"I do think the defensive back position is very important," Brohm said. "To be aggressive on defense, to stop the run, to get after the quarterback, you've got to be able to play some one-on-one matchups occasionally. When you've got good secondary players that can do that, and can challenge routes, and understand route structure and schemes, and the timing of how certain blitzes and attacks work, you can make plays."

Over on offense, Louisville sought to completely revitalize their passing game. While additions at receiver will certainly have a huge impact in 2024, Brohm's offenses have always operated at peak efficiency with a good tight end room. With this in mind, the Cardinals added three transfer tight ends to the mix: Mark Redman, Izaiah Cummings and Jaleel Skinner.

"That position is vital to our success," Brohm said. "I think when you look at a lot of great football teams, a lot of great NFL teams, they got great tight ends. You got to have somebody that can control inside the hashes, can stretch the field vertically if you have to, make physical catches in between linebackers and safeties, and we want that. We've worked hard to, at least on paper, improve that position."

Injured Safety M.J. Griffin 'Way Ahead of Schedule' in Rehab

Speaking of defensive back, Louisville will be getting a major asset back next season in safety M.J. Griffin. He was lost for the 2023 season after suffering a lower leg injury in fall camp, and while he will be limited in the spring, Brohm expects him to be back to "100 percent" in the summer.

"We're excited to get MJ back. ... He's close to being fully healthy," Brohm said. "We'll probably limit him throughout the spring, but by June he'll be 100 percent full speed. I think he's way ahead of schedule right now, and we're looking forward to getting him back."

The 6-foot-1, 210-pound defensive back played a key role in Louisville's defensive turnaround in 2022. The Temple transfer began that season playing almost exclusively on special teams over the first five games, but was elevated to starting free safety against Virginia when regular starter Kenderick Duncan was injured.

Griffin held this spot for the remainder of the season, and his elevation to starter played a big role in Louisville significantly cutting down the amount of big plays they were giving up. The Cardinals averaged 210.4 passing yards allowed per game before Griffin cracked the starting rotation, and averaged 188.6 afterwards.

Despite seeing meaningful defensive playing time in only eight of the 13 games, the Ypsilanti, Mich. native finished seventh on the team in tackles with 45, while also logging a pair of interceptions and a forced fumble in the process.

Louisville Comfortable with Tyler Shough at QB Despite Injury History

While other transfers have been generating more buzz in the class, arguably the most impactful portal pickup will be quarterback Tyler Shough. Despite a bit of an injury history, Brohm likes what he has seen out of the former Texas Tech and Oregon quarterback up to this point.

"I think you can still add value by gaining experience, especially the quarterback position, which we feel like we did with Tyler," he said. "I think bringing him in, it's his seventh year, he's coming here with a true purpose to prove himself. To prove that he can stay healthy, to prove that he can play an entire year and help this football team win, and he wants to play at the next level. We like all the dynamics that go behind that."

Shough's aforementioned injury history is a bit of a lengthy one, as he was unable to play a full season during his all three of his years with the Red Raiders. He suffered a broken collarbone in both the 2021 and 2022 seasons, then a broken fibula this past season, and injury which he is still in the process of recovering from.

Because of this, Brohm and the rest of Louisville's staff - both coaching and support - made sure they did their due diligence during Shough's recruitment process. They "analyzed everything" regarding his injury, and even conducted a physical during his official visit.

But the reason that Brohm is willing to deal with the perceived risk of re-injury is that, when Shough is healthy, he has more than proven that he is a capable quarterback. In 15 games with Texas Tech, the 6-foot-5, 230-pound quarterback completed 62.4 percent of his passes for 2,922 yards and 20 touchdowns to 11 interceptions, while rushing for 432 yards and eight touchdowns.

The Chandler Ariz. native spent the first three seasons of his collegiate career with Oregon. He redshirted as a true freshman, serving as the backup in 2019, then was named the starter in 2020. In seven games during that COVID-shortened season, which remains his lone full season played as a starter, he completed 63.5 percent of his passes for 1,559 yards and 13 touchdowns to six interceptions, while also rushing for 271 yards and a pair of scores. He helped guide the Ducks to a 31-24 win over USC in the Pac-12 Championship, and a berth in the Fiesta Bowl against Iowa State, where they fell 34-17.

Louisville Not Expected to be Active in Spring Transfer Window

Between adding players from the portal and out of high school, Louisville was incredibly active on the talent acquisition front. In fact, as of this writing, the Cardinals will be heading into spring ball with 90 scholarship players - five over the NCAA allotted maximum of 85.

So, by definition, there are going to be some players defect from the program following the conclusion of spring ball. Louisville could in theory add more transfers depending on how many current Cards decide to leave and who precisely is leaving, but as of right now, Brohm doesn't expect them to be very active in the spring transfer portal window.

"We've added a lot of pieces. so the roster is pretty full right now," he said. "To say we can add, we've got to see what happens on the roster after the spring. ... I don't see us being too active, but at the same time, we will be in position - or prepared - to be in a position if there becomes room, and that always changes. I think when you get through spring practice, and people kind of see where they're at, and see where they're at on the depth chart, things may shake and move, and we've got to be prepared for that."

(Photo of Jeff Brohm: Jamie Rhodes - USA TODAY Sports)

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