Notes and Observations from Louisville's Fourth Open Spring Practice of 2026

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The month-long spring ball is already right up against the midweek point for the Louisville football program, with six of their 15 sessions already in the books.

Their sixth 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, Louisville Cardinals On SI was there for it all to watch the third 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:

Injury update: Tre Richardson is out for spring, but today, he was at least dressed (had previously been in street clothes) if that means anything. During positionals and team period, Payton Cook, Sam Dawson, Brody Foley, Tyler Folmar and Antonio Watts were all doing weight work as they recover for respective injuries.
With this being the first open practice to be fully padded, during the short time that they spent in positionals, I again wanted to watch the offensive and defensive lines. Starting out practice, the offensive line was working on double teams and getting to the second level, while the defensive line was practicing eating double teams. Again, it's hard linemen to truly stand in positionals unless you're an NFL-caliber player, but I liked what I saw out of both Daylen Russell and Bailey Abercrombie.
The first 11-on-11 scrimmage session came pretty early in the practice. Instead of pitting certain groups against each other (like first teamers vs. first teamers), they mixed in players fairly often on both sides regardless of their status. One thing that stood out during this segment was that, while it was almost exclusively screens, swing passes and runs, the defense seemed to be flying all over the field and hitting with some juice. Hard for any one defender to really stand out since there was a lot of gang tackling - which is great to see. Offensively, while it was almost seemingly a segment designed for them to fail, I did like the mobility from all the quarterbacks. Additionally, there was a play call that was basically a fake jet sweep counter toss. So far in spring ball, there have been a lot of creative play calls that take advantage of the increased mobility at QB.
Following this team segment, practice shifted to a 7-on-7 red zone drill on one end of the Trager Center, with the lines doing more drill work on the other end. The offensive line mainly spent time working on pass protection from what I could see, while the defensive practiced tracking the quarterback in the pocket, screen recognition and their bend while attacking the QB's arm.
That being said, during this time, I watched mainly the 7-on-7 segment. The very first rep was a strike to TreyShun Hurry from Lincoln Kienholz against cover 2, then the next was another to Jaleel Skinner in a window that was just big enough to squeeze through. After a shaky first couple days of spring ball, this is where I noticed that the other three quarterbacks on the roster started to really find their stride. Davin Wydner would have had D.J. Williams in the corner if the latter gave a tick more effort, Ryan Zimmerman had a pretty strike to Jaleel Skinner, and Briggs Cherry is already starting to display solid patience with his reads and confidence on intermediate and long shots. A couple other notable plays during this segment was a great catch by Justyn Reid that showed off his catch radius, a pass breakup by Brycen Scott, and a good hit by Stanquan Clark.
After this was a true 11-on-11 scrimmage style period between good-on-good. The most noteworthy depth chart notes from here was that Myles Norwood is already starting to get run with the twos, and Cameron Gorin is still getting run at right tackle with the ones. The period opened with a fumbled exchange between Kienholz and Isaac Brown, but then Kienholz then threw back-to-back bombs to Jakob Dixon and then TreyShun Hurry. Two of the offensive players that stood out the most in this segment were Jackson Voth and Braxton Jennings. Voth has been very consistent in the slot, and Jennings for sure looks to be a bit faster and stronger. In fact, the running back room as a whole looked very strong in this segment. A few other notable reps here was a cross-body bomb from Cherry, and then a couple from Jerod Smith II where he demonstrated great bend, and also got a PBU at the line of scrimmage.
Prior to the next positionals period was a brief pressure field goal segment where both Carson Hilbert and Nick Keller each got one kick from around the 40-yard line. Hilbert made his easily, while Keller's sailed just over the upright (might have been good?).
Next was a 7-on-7/OL vs. DL segment, and I spent this time watching the latter, since it was almost exclusively one-on-one reps. It goes without saying that Clev Lubin stood out the most by far here - especially when he went up against true freshmen. Joshua Donald showed off his high motor for a tackle, Eryx Daugherty was very consistent in this drill, Eric Hazzard seems to have developed a good bull rush, and Naeer Jackson seems to have shown some real progression since the start of spring ball. It was also evident here Daylen Russell and Demeco Kennedy have extremely violent and heavy hands that cause a lot of disruption. Probably my favorite one-on-one battle was A.J. Green vs. Anwar O'Neal, and both guys each one at least one rep.
Practice then transitioned back to a standard 11-on-11, and the defense picked up their game early in this segment. The pocket collapsed fairly quickly, Lubin had a rep where he had a great block shed to get Keyjuan Brown on a read option, Benjamin Perry went untouched on a blitz, and Jacob Smith nearly had a pick. When this 11-on-11 transitioned to the red zone, the offense started to respond. Marquise Davis showed off both his speed and physicality here and for sure got better as the day went on - including trucking Brycen Scott. There was even a very well executed sprintout shovel option play. However, the defense still got theirs. Blake Ruffin sniffed out a flea flicker, Santana Wilson broke up a pass, and this segment is finally where I saw Kienholz's first "bad" pass.
Practice then ended with an 11-on-11 that was mainly work from the younger guys. Overall, the front seven did a good job against guys like Davis, Jennings and Lekhy Thompkins, while Maurice Davis got a sack, Jaydin Broadnax had a pass break that led to someone else getting a tip-drill pick, and the practice itself ended on a fourth down stop. There were a couple solid plays made, including Gavin Waddell getting open and Thompkins getting roughly 5-6 yards on a 4th and 1. I also noticed here that Montavin Quisenberry was doing a great job of actually getting open, but actually catching passes was a little hit-or-miss.

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