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

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Spring ball for the Louisville football program is operating at a rapid pace. The Cardinals are approaching the two-week mark of their of their month-long spring practice, with five of their 15 sessions already in the books.

Their fifth practice, which took place on Friday, was the third of six practices that were open to both the fans and media. Like we were for the first two, 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

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

While the players went back to practicing in just shells after playing a couple closed practices in pads, I wanted to spend this practice checking out the offensive line during positionals. Admittedly, this position is by far the hardest to gauge even in padded practices, but I will say this: this year's offensive line does seem to have a little more overall size to it than the first three years under Brohm.
There was one drill where it was a test of their reaction on the snap (as well as reading and reacting to inside pressure), and the one who stood out to me the most here was Eryx Daugherty because of how quick he was. Later on in a pulled walkthrough, here is where I noticed that Naeer Jackson was starting to get additional reps at right guard, and that Jarvis Strickland was starting to get int he mix at left tackle. As for the drill itself, Evan Wibberley is likely the most mobile lineman on the roster, and looked great on pull blocks- although Jimmy Williams III seems to have taken a step forward with his mobility as well.Another takeaway from watching the O-line in positionals is that Lance Robinson seems to be adjusting well as the starting center.
After the positionals opening segment, both sides of the ball conducted a lengthy walkthough-style period. Jackson continued to earn reps at starting right guard, while Cason Henry stepped in as starting right tackle - a spot that has seen some reps given to Cameron Gorin. Early on, the offense was cycling through the various units very quickly running screens on air. After that, the quarterbacks and wide receivers spent several minutes working on snap timing with jet sweeps. There was also a five-minute period that was exclusively taking the wide receivers and tight ends, and testing their alignment knowledge for various play calls. Something else that caught my eye was that, during a traditional walkthough segment, there were a lot of interesting play calls they were testing out. There was a good amount of quarterback power runs, which included a fake toss QB power run, and there was another play call that I can only describe as a "triple option RPO."
This open practice was much shorter than the other two open practices, but after the aforementioned segment, they transitioned to an 11-on-11 that lasted the rest of the practice (about 30-45 minutes, at least). The most notable depth chart notes from this was that D.J. Waller was getting some early run with the ones at cornerback, Gorin rotated back in at right tackle, tight end Justyn Reid got a good amount of work at full back, and Bailey Abercrombie had cracked the second team at defensive tackle.
Both sides of the ball got good work in, but if I had to pick a winner, it was the offense. Lincoln Kienholz continues to look the part, and he not only was throwing dots all day long (with his best play being a rollout to an opposite body strike to Jackson Voth), but his QB power runs gain a lot of yards very quickly. He's quickly developing a repertoire with the top guys like Lawayne McCoy and TreyShun Hurry, but also Voth and T.J. McWilliams. With the other quarterbacks, what stood out the most to me is that Davin Wydner and Ryan Zimmerman both showcases some mobility today as well. With Briggs Cherry, his best play came on a super deep ball that Julius Miles was maybe an inch away from catching. Speaking of Miles, he was incredibly consistent all day long, and is getting very comfortable very quickly. With the offensive line, they actually did a good overall job with run blocking, allowing guys like Marquise Davis and Braxton Jennings to have good days (not that Isaac and Keyjuan Brown didn't).
That's not to say that there weren't a handful of good plays made by the defense. A.J. Green had a "sack" where he displayed some great bend. Antonio Harris showed some great closing speed on a screen, as did Koen Entringer a couple times. Micah Rice seemed to play very comfortable around the box from the strong safety spot, and Jordan Vann snagged an interception off of Zimmerman.

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