Louisville Runs 'Productive' First Scrimmage of Fall Camp

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Capping off their second week of fall camp, the Louisville football program kicked things up a notch. Gathering inside of the Trager Center for their ninth practice of the fall, the Cardinals held their first full scrimmage of the 2023 preseason on Saturday.

While the scrimmage did show areas that needed to continue to be worked on before Louisville kicks off the Jeff Brohm era, the head coach of the Cardinals was largely pleased with what he saw.

"I think the first real scrimmage was productive," Brohm said following the scrimmage. "I thought we got a lot out of it. Like everything, there's some good things on both sides of the ball at times, and a lot of things that we need to shore up.

"The key is being able to train yourself to play in game-like situations, put the pressure on yourself to perform, demand the best from yourself, do it every single play, be able to focus and come back and do it. Whether you made a good play before, or a bad play. Those are things you all got to just train yourself to do."

Louisville ran approximately 100 plays during the program's first major in-house display to the coaching staff, with a mix of live tackling and some play where the contact was dialed back a bit. While many of the younger and inexperienced players on the roster have had their chances throughout camp to show what they can do, Saturday's scrimmage was primarily focused on the first group.

"I like to go ones on ones, so we went good-on-good all day long. We've been doing that all camp," Brohm said. "I want us to get the best and hardest look we can, so that's been good for us. As we get close to the game, we'll taper back on some of that, but that was good. ... I think it was productive. Other than a few guys coming up with some ankles and hammies, we got through it pretty good I think to this point."

According to Brohm, the offense seemed to have a better outing than their defensive counterparts during the scrimmage. While Brohm did say that the offensive line had "a few too many penalties" and that the wide receiver room need to continue working on becoming more consistent, he offered plenty of praise regarding how the offense has performed both in the scrimmaged and in camp overall.

'I do think, on offense, our offensive line has improved, and we've added competition," he said. "I think that we've got some young tight ends, we got to push them to keep getting better and growing. ... The receiving corps, when they're on and know what to do, they've been productive. Just got to continue to educate them on all the nuances of what we have to do. The running backs have been solid, so that's been pretty good."

Once again, Jack Plummer was another subject of high praise from Brohm. The graduate transfer quarterback might not have been operating at 100 percent efficiency on this particular day, but at the same time, he continued to show why he has such a stranglehold on the top of Louisville's quarterback depth chart.

“Jack's done a really good job,” Brohm said. “He's a great leader, he understands our system. He can see the field, he can make all the throws. Just consistency, being able to do that all the time, is the goal. That's really for anybody.

"Sometimes, third down, third and long, he'll get a little greedy and force a few things. We've got to just be smart. Take our chances, but also get completions, move the chains, don't turn it over, all those things. I think that is something that he just got has to work on. But he can get hot, and he can make a lot of plays. We just got to get him into rhythm, and let him do his thing."

As for the defense, it seemed like they had more of an up-and-down day than the other side of the ball. But even with the mixed defensive results that Brohm saw in Louisville's first scrimmage, he still wants them to maintain an aggressive attitude and mindset.

"On defense, we've had some good moments. This maybe wasn't our better day," Brohm said. "I thought we gave up too many big plays, so we got to see what exactly happened there. But I do want to be aggressive in how we play defense. Challenge routes, get after the quarterback, makes sure he knows we're going to hit him and go from there, while trying to eliminate all the big plays. I think keeping some certain guys healthy on that side of the ball will be important."

Louisville will resume will be back in action to kick off the third week of fall camp on Monday morning. The Cardinals will kick off their 2023 season against Georgia Tech in the Aflac Kickoff Game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Ga. on Friday, Sept. 1.

(Photo of Louisville Players: University of Louisville Athletics)

You can follow Louisville Report for future coverage by liking us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram:

Facebook - @LouisvilleReport
Twitter - @UofLReport
Instagram - @louisville_report

You can also follow Deputy Editor Matthew McGavic at @Matt_McGavic on Twitter