Louisville's Returners, Early Enrollees and New Coaches Meshing Together Well Early

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - For the Louisville football program, there are a lot of new faces around the Howard Schnellenberger Complex.

The first domino came when head coach Scott Satterfield opted to pack his bags and head up I-71 to take the vacant job at Cincinnati. As a result, nine of his 10 position assistants at Louisville opted to move on as well. The only one to stay for the new regime under Jeff Brohm is now-linebackers coach Mark Ivey.

Of course, that's just on the coaching staff side of things. On top of the defections Louisville was expecting either via graduation or the NFL Draft, the Cardinals have seen a fair amount enter the portal. In fact, as previously mentioned, 33 scholarship players have left the Cards, with 32 of them coming since the end of the regular season.

But since his hiring, Brohm has both completed his 10-person assistant coaching staff and brought in 27 newcomers to counter the players that left. Even in this current day and age of college football, that's a bit of a hefty overhaul.

Brohm and his staff, admittedly, spent a lot of their first several weeks on the job out of the office and on the recruiting trail, so there wasn't a lot of early time spent getting to know the players who opted to stay. Even if they hadn't, with so many new faces around, it will be a little bit of an acclimation period around the program, especially for the players and coaches who opted to return.

Fortunately, the integration of all these newcomers has already long begun. So far, things have been going smoothly in terms of everyone meshing together.

"It's been good to kind of get back, and get in front of them, talk to them and meet with them and do those things," Brohm said during a press conference for the traditional signing day. "We're excited about getting the chance to do that. I think our newcomers have added competition. I think things are competitive here, and everyone understands the best guys will play, no matter who that is. A lot of people step up their game when the competition rises, others who don't like it, maybe it's not the place for them.

"But these guys have meshed well. They're all here with a purpose. As we continue to develop the relationship and the bond with them, we hope to push them to do great things."

The vast majority of Louisville's newcomers on the player roster are already on campus. All 12 of their Division I transfers, as well as eight of their 15 high school signees, are early enrollees. They've helped set the tone for what is expected as the Cardinals transition to the start of the Jeff Brohm era, especially considering the coaching staff believes they have the talent to be competitive in year one.

"I think we got a great nucleus of guys that all get along," Brohm said. "They want to come here with a common purpose of trying to win a championship, achieve your goals become great at what they do, get a great degree and hopefully get a chance to play the next level.

"As coaches, we're going to be committed to helping them do that. I think we have a staff that that loves to coach, and loves to develop and loves to win. We want to try to do it year one, and that means we're going to have to work hard at it, and our players are going to have to learn what we're doing as fast as they can get out there on the field and execute."

Spring practice for the Cardinals is set to begin sometime next month. Spring ball will conclude with Louisville's annual spring game, which will take place on Friday, Apr. 21 at 7:00 p.m. EST. The game will be streamed on ACC Network Extra.

(Photo via Brett Davis - USA TODAY Sports)

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