Louisville's Tight Ends Excited for Enhanced Roles in Passing Game

A position that has been mostly blockers for the last few years, the tight ends for the Cardinals are excited at the opportunity to get more involved in the passing game under head coach Jeff Brohm.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - For the last few years, one of the more underrated position groups for the Louisville football program has been the tight ends. With a heavy emphasis on run blocking in former head coach Scott Satterfield's run-heavy, pistol formation based offensive scheme, they helped the Cardinals become one of the more prolific rushing teams in FBS football during Satterfield's tenure.

However, the tight end position is going to be utilized on a much, much different way starting this upcoming season. Satterfield opted to head up I-71 to take the job at Cincinnati, and replacing him is former Cardinal and Purdue head man Jeff Brohm and his pass-heavy, pro-style offense.

Instead of serving primarily as run blockers in the backfield, tights ends will take much more snaps out wide for pass catching opportunities. As you can imagine, Louisville returning tight ends are extremely excited for the this opportunity.

"It's been very exciting to see all the tight ends getting balls every practice. It's been great," Duane Martin said. "The feeling and the excitement in the room has just been better than it has been in the past."

Of course, the transition didn't come easy at first for the tight end room. Over the first couple months of walkthroughs and meetings under new tight ends coach Ryan Wallace, who came over with Brohm from Purdue, there was a large learning curve. Not to mention the fact that Brohm wanted to throw as much of the new scheme at his players as possible.

"It was hard on them, because we're throwing a lot of volume at them," Wallace said when asked about the early first efforts to install the new offense to his players. "And that's not just the tight ends, that's pretty much everybody. You're learning a different system, and even the freshmen that were here last year. For example, Nate Kurisky's learning his second offense in eight months. He's having to relearn everything and in whole new terminology, and all different things. It was very slow at first. You're trying to walk them through."

That's not an indictment on the tight end room's ability to learn the passing game or their ability to actually catch the ball. It's because they had so few opportunities to do so under Satterfield.

Let's look at last season, using stats courtesy of Pro Football Focus. In the final year under Satterfield, Louisville's tight ends played a combined 1,321 offensive snaps, and 823 of them were dedicated either run or pass blocking, which comes out to 62.3 percent. As for Purdue in their final season under Brohm, their tight ends played a combined 1,228 offensive snaps with only 560 - or 45.6 percent - consisting of run or pass blocking.

As you can imagine, Purdue's tight ends were way more productive in the passing game than that of Louisville's. The Boilermakers got a combined 68 receptions for 721 yards and nine touchdowns from the position in 2022, whereas the Cardinals got 39 receptions for 497 yards for five touchdowns.

The Boilermakers' starter at the position in Payne Durham got the bulk of the production, hauling in 56 receptions for 560 yards and eight touchdowns. This easily surpasses Cardinals starter Marshon Ford's numbers from last year at 33 receptions for 434 yards and three touchdowns.

Here's a crazy way to frame it: Purdue's No. 2 tight end, Paul Piferi, had more receptions and yards last season (10 for 143) than all of Louisville's tight ends not named Marshon Ford (6 for 63).

With Ford now pursuing a career in the NFL, Louisville's returning tight ends will have to step up in a massive way. While it's a position group laden with veterans, such as Francis Sherman, Duane Martin and Dez Melton, it's one where a lot of learning will have to occur in a relatively short amount of time. Guys like walk-ons Josh Lifson and Gage Reale plus true freshman Jamari Johnson are also expected to play large roles this upcoming season.

Fortunately, the players at the position have made strides over the course of Louisville's over month long spring practice period, which is set to conclude late this week. Having a couple months to help install the offense before spring ball helped the tight ends out tremendously, and Wallace says that his guys are really starting to play more loose, fast and comfortable over the last week and a half.

"They're doing well. They're coming along," Wallace said. "Obviously, it's gonna be a process with the amount of different routes that we're going to ask them to run, and all that. We're working every day, and those guys have improved. But we got to continue to get better at the position, and that's that's always going to be the case. No matter what the situation is, you've always got to continue to get better and push on. You can't be complacent. Those guys have done a good job putting in extra work, and they're making improvements."

Louisville will conclude their first spring practice of the Brohm era with the spring game on Friday, Apr. 21 at 7:00 p.m. EST at L&N Stadium. With a large and excited crowd expected to be present, the tight ends are excited to give fans an early taste of what they can do in 2023.

"It's definitely cool to kind of be more of a catching tight end," Francis Sherman said. "But, it's a lot of the same stuff. I know everybody in the room is more athletic than maybe we've showcased in the past. I'm excited for some people out there to kind of see what we're capable of. It's really just the learning right now."

(Photo of Dez Melton: Mike Watters - USA TODAY Sports)

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