Notes and Observations from Louisville's Fourth Open Spring Practice of 2025

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Spring ball is at roughly the halfway point for the Louisville football program. Concluding their second week of their five-week long spring practice, the Cardinals now have seven of their 15 sessions already in the books.

Their seventh practice, which took place on Saturday, was the fourth of six practices that were open to both the fans and media. Like we were for the first three open practice, Louisville Cardinals On SI was there for it all to watch the fourth open practice of spring ball.

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

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

During and after warmups, there was an extended period where the special teams unit worked on field goals. However, there was varying success considering it was super windy early in the morning, and a bulk of the kicks looked like sliders and knuckleballs. That being said, it got better as time went on, and there were a handful of long kicks made. Nick Keller was the primary kicker here, with Cooper Ranvier right behind him.
With practice still not having moved to the stadium (hence the defensive players being stuck in the back for positional drills), I watched primarily the wide receivers during the positional segment. During the various three-cones drills where they worked on making their breaks, Caullin Lacy and his short area quickness stood out, but surprisingly, so did Antonio Meeks'. Kris Hughes and JoJo Stone where right behind those two as well in individual drill work.
After that, there was another brief 11-on-11 offense vs. scout team defense like there was the day before. Just like yesterday, it primarily served as a blocking exercise on screens, play actions and outside zone runs.
Before it shifted to the normal 11-on-11, it was another brief positional segment. Wide receivers ran routes on air to warm up ahead of one-on-ones against the defensive backs, but who really stood out here was Miller Moss, as he regularly displayed a much more snappy ball than everyone else in the quarterback room. Lacy had good body control on a couple slightly offline throws from others, and Chris Bell had an impressive one-handed catch. During the actual one-on-ones, there was some good back and forth action. Bell had a nice high point catch and Shaun Boykins smoked a DB covering him on one rep, while Jaden Minkins had a nice pick and Rodney Johnson Jr. regularly stayed on his man's hip.
Then practice transitioned to 11-on-11. While it wasn't a true scrimmage, it was as close to it as it can get, as players were going full speed and an officiating crew was even out there during this team period. It was during the first few minutes of the segment - which last roughly 45 minutes - that I started to notice that the front seven/defense as a whole was doing a fantastic job of swarming to the ball carrier and getting in the backfield. Very rarely did quarterbacks get more than a second of time, or running backs were able to find a crease - especially with the first team defense.
As far as my biggest takeaway on the offensive side of the ball, as much as I've been critical of Brady Allen during his time at Louisville, he had a phenomenal practice. He had some darts to Meeks and Dylan Mesman, got to show off his legs a couple times on some keepers (on QB power a couple times as well), and even was able to draw an offsides call thanks to his cadence alone. I was very pleasantly surprised, and it made sense as to why he has been getting more reps with the twos as of late.
Of course, during this first normal 11-on-11 segment, both sides of the line of scrimmage made plenty of plays. Bell had a nice comeback route and catch, Deuce Adams looked physical on some QB power runs as well, and Moss had a quick decision shovel pass. Defensively, Louisville continued to get after it. Caleb Matelau snagged an interception, T.J. Quinn was able to shoot the edge and catch Isaac Brown, Maurice Davis blew up a right tackle on one rep, as did Jordan Guerad and William Spencer on the interior. The biggest depth chart takeaway here was that corners Jaden Minkins and Antonio Harris got a lot of run with the second team.
For several minutes, the 11-on-11 segment also got in some red zone work. Here, the offense seemed to find their stride the most. Kris Hughes made multiple catches in traffic, Allen threw a dart to Bell against tight coverage from Harris, Isaac Brown had a great one-cut run for a score, Adams had a nice bootleg throw to walk-on tight end Hamilton Atkins in the corner of the end zone, Bell had a great tumbling/diving catch in the back, and there was a well excuted reverse flea flicker screen. Of course, the defense got theirs, too. Micah Rice and Johnson both made physical pass break ups, as did Kalib Perry, C.J. May and Clev Lubin both had reps where they came screaming off of the edge, and Antonio Watts had a TFL.
Smack in the middle of the red zone work, there was a brief break to get in some punt return work. It was the same returners from yesterda, although Minkins got into the mix as well. Carter Schwartz had the most booming kicks, but something to note was that there was some long snapping issues here.
Practice then ended back with a normal 11-on-11 session. Keeping up with the theme of the day, the defense made the most plays. Adonijah Green made a great read on a speed option, Selah Brown shot the gap well to make a play on Jamarice Wilder, Johnson had what would have in-game been a pick six, Minkins had a pick after making a good read while deep in coverage, Rice delivered a big hit, and there were a couple batted balls at the line of scrimmage. There were also a handful of noteworthy plays by the offense, such Moss doing a great job navigating a collapsing pocket, Jaleel Skinner making a play after lining up in the backfield, Meeks finding the hole in the zone for a sideline catch, and Keyjuan Brown breaking loose for one of the few big runs of the day.

(Photo of Louisville's practice fields: Matt McGavic - Louisville Cardinals On SI)

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