Louisville Players Getting More Comfortable With New Schemes

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - One of the bigger storylines that has come up this offseason with the Louisville football program bringing in Jeff Brohm to be their next head coach, is the scheme changes on both sides of the line of scrimmage that comes with it. With the 2023 season now roughly two month away, it's only a matter of time before we see these new offensive and defensive systems in action.

Over the course of the offseason, the players - returners and newcomers alike - have been hard at work trying to get a firm grasp of their new roles within their respective schemes. Most of these efforts came during spring ball earlier this year when the Cardinals were actively running practices, but even in the dead of summer when all the program is conducting are voluntary offseason workouts, continuing to learn the playbook has not stopped.

With fall camp and the season itself rapidly approaching, both the offensive and defensive players are beginning to get a lot more comfortable with what they'll be tasked to do in 2023.

"I think it's going pretty good," safety M.J. Griffin said when asked about to overall progress of the team. "Everybody's starting to get the schemes a lot better, more quicker. It's coming very much easier. We’re going over the plays every day, so I feel like we’re doing pretty good with them."

On the defensive side of the ball, as many fans know by now, Louisville shifting from the 3-4 scheme operated by former defensive coordinator Bryan Brown (who is now with former head coach Scott Satterfield in Cincinnati) to a 4-2-5 that is co-operated by Ron English and Mark Hagen, who both followed Brohm from Purdue to Louisville.

The two schemes are radically difference from each other. In the previous system, the base formation was three down linemen and four linebackers - hence the name 3-4. As you can probably guess with this new scheme, the base is four down linemen with two linebackers behind them, with the five being your normal secondary plus a linebacker/safety hybrid position.

Even though the new defense has very little in common with the previous system, it's slowly but surely becoming "second nature" to the players.

"It's becoming second nature (to me). ... I feel like I can be more patient and kind of wait for that gap to be open, and get to read everything," Griffin said.

The changes to the offensive side of the ball this offseason have also been well documented. Out with Satterfield's run-heavy pistol formation based system, and in with Brohm's pass-heavy pro style scheme.

Like with Griffin and the rest of the defense, the offensive players are also getting a lot more comfortable with what they'll be asked to do in year one of the Brohm era, and continuously building chemistry.

"We're just getting better every day," running back Jawhar Jordan said. "Getting along, bonding with the guys and just studying the playbook. That's all it's about."

Jordan says that all of the running backs have been "working really hard" and "coming in day and night" in order to get as much work in as they can. Even in a scheme that will mostly revolve around new starting quarterback Jack Plummer and his retooled wide receiver room, he believes that the system can help him and the rest of the running backs do big things in 2023.

"Of course," Jordan said when asked if the running backs could potentially accomplish even more than they did last season. "Especially with this diverse offense. There's gonna be a lot of opportunities for running the ball and passing."

The Cardinals finished their 2022 season with an overall mark of 8-5 (4-4 in ACC), including a 24-7 win in the Fenway Bowl over Cincinnati. They'll kick off their 2023 season against Georgia Tech in the Chick-Fil-A Kickoff Classic at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Ga. on Friday, Sept. 1.

(Photo of Louisville Players via Jared Anderson - Louisville Report)

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