Notes and Observations from Louisville's Fifth Open Spring Practice

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Spring ball is nearly in the books for the Louisville football program. The Cardinals have just one week left of their over month-long spring practice, with 12 of their 15 sessions already in the books.

Their 12th practice, which took place on Friday, was the fifth of six practices that were open to both the fans and media. Like we were for the first four open practices, Louisville Report was there for it all to watch the fifth open practice of spring ball.

Previous Open Practice Notebooks: Practice One, Practice Two, Practice Three, Practice Four

Below is our notebook of the more notable happenings that transpired during the afternoon:

First, a couple injury updates. Cornerback Quincy Riley seems to be fully healthy, or at least close to it, considering he was actively taking part in drills. Wide receiver Jadon Thompson got some early drill work as well, but might have aggravated something, as he only participated in the first half an hour of practice. The only player that still looks to be actively rehabbing on the sideline is safety Josh Minkins.
As you might be able to ascertain from that last bullet point, quarterback Pierce Clarkson is finally a full go in the spring after breaking his toe and is no longer wearing a sandal or boot. As of right now, he's low on the depth chart as he works his way back, and didn't get a ton of reps in 11-on-11's, but the tools that made him a highly ranked prospect are there. He had some early rust, as expected, but settled in quickly and regularly displayed pinpoint accuracy on short and intermediate throws. His deep ball was so-so, but that will eventually come around as he gets back in the swing of things.
A couple quick notes from observing drills before I dive into the 11-on-11 section, which was most of spring ball. A lot of attention at wideout has gone to guys like Jamari Thrash or Kevin Coleman, but let's not forget about Ahmari Huggins-Bruce. He looks just as shifty and speedy as ever when going through position drills, and could be in line for a big 2023.
There was a big emphasis on working on the deep ball ahead of the scrimmage. The quarterbacks had a period where they worked with the wideouts on deep ball accuracy, then followed that up with 1-on-1's on the boundary with the defenders. Linebacker Antonio Watts and cornerback Jeremiah Caldwell shined here, each grabbing an interception.
Now for the 11-on-11 period, which was about 75 percent of the afternoon. For this practice, the defense absolutely dominated the offense on almost every single rep. Defenders were absolutely flying to the ball on screens and short passes, intermediate and deep throws were regularly knocked away, and the running game was almost completely non-existent save for a couple decent runs later in the practice. Cornerback Derrick Edwards III set the tone with a pass breakup against Thrash on the first play of the scrimmage period, and it all snowballed from there.
As you can imagine, there was a fair share of defensive standouts. One of the top performers was linebacker Benjamin Perry at the STAR position. He looked tremendous in coverage, logging at least three pass breakups from what I could see, and absolutely blew up a screen early in the period.
One defender who has seemingly made great strides over the spring is cornerback Trey Franklin. He's looked extremely comfortable over the last few open practices, including a couple big PBU's in this past practice, and has held his own against almost every receiver lined up against him. He's shaping up to be a key rotation piece in the secondary.
Adding insult to injury (or vice versa?), the defensive wasn't afraid to lay down some huge hits in this practice. The two most noticeable were from D'Angelo Hutchinson and Jarvis Brownlee Jr., whose hits drew very audible "ooh's" from the fans in attendance.
Some other miscellaneous notes about the defense before I shift to the offense. Like the last couple open practices defensive end Stephen Herron got the majority of the first team reps at Leo, and saw some early success rushing off the edge. Lineman Ramon Puryear actually got a lot of first team reps alongside Herron, Ashton Gillotte and Dezmond Tell in this practice, and has looked consistent this spring.
Even the second team defensive line - which mostly consisted of Adonijah Green, Selah Brown, R.J. Sorenson and Rodney McGraw - had moments where they looked dominant. Jermayne Lole and Jared Dawson got some work in today, but it seemed like the coaches wanted to give a lot of reps to younger guys.
Now for the offense. While the defense was doing a lot of things right, the offense looked out of sorts for a lot of the afternoon as well. The offensive line, no matter which unit was in, seemed to struggle a bit, especially in run blocking. Only Jamari Thrash seemed to really standout amidst the skill position players, having a couple nice plays including a hitch route where he shed the tackle in open space, but even he had a couple drops.
Jack Plummer continues to have a stranglehold on QB1. He continues to look the most mechanically sound out of all the signal callers, and it's not close.
Conversely, most of the backups struggled in this practice. Khalib Johnson took a lot of early reps as QB2, looked good in the first couple plays, but then made several ill-advised throws into coverage. Brock Domann stepped in as the primary backup for a lot of the latter half of practice, but was only marginally better.
The first team offensive line didn't deviate much from what their starters have been all spring, and they looked okay. The second team offensive line - which was mostly Aaron Gunn, Madden Sanker, Sam Secrest, Emmanuel Sowders and Izaiah Reed - really seemed to struggle. Not sure if that's more so a testament to the depth on the defensive line, but something to note.
Early on in the period, freshmen wideouts William Fowles and Cataurus Hicks got a lot of reps with the ones. Later on, the offense did rebound a touch with some good vertical passing plays to Jimmy Calloway and Kevin Coleman. Calloway had a nice play on the sideline where he found the perfect hole in the zone, and Coleman had a good catch-and-run that was accompanied by a nasty juke move for some extra yardage.

(Photo via University of Louisville Athletics)

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