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

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Spring ball is quickly approaching the halfway point for the Louisville football program. The Cardinals are now two weeks into their over month-long spring practice, with several of their 15 sessions already in the books.

Friday was the third of six practices that were open to both the fans and media. Like we were for open practice No. 1 and 2, Louisville Cardinals On SI was there for it all to watch the third open practice of spring ball.

Also: Notes and Observations from Louisville's Second Open Spring Practice of 2025

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

First, a quick injury update. During the majority of position drills and live periods, Austin Collins and Victor Cutler did work on the side. There was also a third person in a yello non-contact jersey, but I couldn't tell who it was. I don't want to speculate too much on who it was, but I have yet to see Stanquan Clark in any period this spring, so it could have been him.
Another side note: this was a practice that was very install-heavy and walkthrough-like, and one where the defense was very clearly not going at 100 percent speed for large portions of the day. Sure, the players made a handful of plays throughout the day, but this was mainly a session to help ingrain the scheme within the players, and not conduct actual position battles.
After stretches, practice opened up with a special teams segment that focused on punting and punt returning. Caullin Lacy, Bobby Golden, Jamarice Wilder and Antonio Meeks were the main group of returners, with varying degress of success here. As far as the actual punting goes, unsurprisingly, Carter Schwartz stood out the most, but A.J. Vinatieri was solid as well.
During positional drills, I mainly watched the running backs, tight ends and offensive line. Note: I'm waiting to watch the defensive positions until practice is held at L&N Stadium so we can actually have a good look at them. The arrangement on the normal practice field sticks the defensive players on the opposite side, and you can barely see them.
The running backs got in a lot of rope drills to help them work on coordination and keeping their knees high, and as expected, Isaac Brown and Duke Watson looked the smoothest here. There was also a brief segment where the running backs worked with the quarterbacks on options tosses. The tight ends worked primarily with cone and dummy drills, and Nate Kurisky seemed to glide the most here, although Jaleel Skinner didn't look bad either. The offensive line got in a lot of work on the five-man sled, and by the sound of Richard Owens, he was pleased with what he saw from his group. While it's hard to single out individual standouts here, Makylan Pounders, Lance Robinson, Ransom McDermott and Mahamane Moussa seemed the generate the most push.
Before the team periods broke out, the offensive line, running backs and quarterbacks got together for their own segment. It was used mainly to work on blocking for outside zone runs, but there was also practice blocking on screens, running back dump offs and play action.
For the rest of the practice, it was some version of 11-on-11. Before a (relatively) full speed version broke out, there was an extensive 11-on-11 where it was the offense was against scout team defense, working on scheme installs. My main takeaways here were depth chart-related. From left to right on the starting offensive line, it was Pounders, Robinson, Pete Nygra, Naeer Jackson and Rasheed Miller. Antonio Meeks was the primary starting receiver alongside Lacy and Chris Bell. Skinner was the starting tight end, but there was some 12 personnel sets with Kurisky, and walk-on Harrison Atkins got some work at fullback. At quarterback, Miller Moss started things out, but then it went from Brady Allen to Mason Mims. On the second time through the order, Deuce Adams replaced Allen, so it seems there is a real battle for the backup spot.
When it broke into a true 11-on-11 team setting, the starting defense didn't deviate much from what I saw before spring break. Wesley Bailey, Denzel Lowry, Jordan Guerad and Adonijah Green were the starters on the line. T.J. Quinn and T.J. Capers were the inside linebacker duo, with Antonio Watts at STAR. Rodney Johnson and Rae'mon Mosby were the starting corners, while JoJo Evans and D'Angelo Hutchinson were the starting safeties. While they weren't operating at full speed, they did move the ball up and down the field like they were simulating a scrimmage (which would make sense since Saturday will be a scrimmage practice). There was also a lot more work out of a base 4-3 than I can recall in the past, so that's something to monitor moving forward.
While it wasn't a full speed practice, there were a handful of nice plays on both sides of the line of scrimmage during the 11-on-11. Keyjuan Brown routinely made some nice runs up the middle, and the offensive line as a whole opened up some nice holes. Allen actually did a nice job with high pointing the ball early, and going to his check down instead of forcing balls downfield. Adams looked good on some read option work favored tight end Dylan Mesman at times, and also had a great throw on an end zone out route. The staff also mixed in some new play designs - with my favorite being a read option with a fake reverse. The defense also had a few good plays as well, as Trent Carter sniffed out an option toss, Watts blew up a wide receiver screen, and Evans made a great read for a near-pick.

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

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