Inside The Huskies

It's Official: Huskies Sun Bowl Bound to Face Louisville

The UW and the ACC team have never faced each other.

Dan Raley

Louisville tight end Mark Redman, a former Husky, reaches the ball into the end zone for a touchdown Jacksonville State.
Louisville tight end Mark Redman, a former Husky, reaches the ball into the end zone for a touchdown Jacksonville State. / Clare Grant/Courier Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK

The University of Washington football team just got invited to a New Year's Eve party.

With an eye on the future -- after recently turning the offensive reins over to freshman quarterback Demond Williams Jr. -- the Huskies appropriately enough agreed to usher out 2024 by meeting Louisville in the 91st Sun Bowl, one of the oldest postseason outings in the country, on Tuesday, Dec. 31, in El Paso, Texas.

It's a new Big Ten member against the Atlantic Coast Conference old guard.

A UW team (6-6) in a concentrated rebuild against one of the nation's unluckiest in Louisville (8-4).

Two football schools that have never met before.

For the Huskies, this football game likewise represents a reunion wit tight end Mark Redman, a highly touted player who spent two seasons at the UW and transferred out following the 2021 program meltdown that brought about Jimmy Lake's firing. He's at his third school, with San Diego State his buffer school.

Coached by offensive-minded Jeff Brohm, Louisville has dealt with an overly frustrating season full of near-misses, losing by a touchdown each to Notre Dame (31-24), SMU (34-27) and Miami (52-45), and by a field goal to Stanford (38-35) on a 52-yarder that cleared as time ran out in Palo Alto.

That latter game memorably brought together the Cardinals and the Cardinal.

Brohm is in his second season with Louisville, his alma mater, where he was a record-setting quarterback in 1989-1993 and later an NFL player. He's known for his high-powered offense, one that brought four bowl bids to Purdue, his previous coaching stop. With the Boilermakers, he employed JaMarcus Shephard as his co-offensive coordinator and receivers coach.

The Cardinals are a family affair, with Brohm working alongside two siblings. Brian is his offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, Greg his chief of staff.

Louisville coach Jeff Brohm greets Clemson counterpart Dabo Swinney after beating him 33-21 this season.
Louisville coach Jeff Brohm greets Clemson counterpart Dabo Swinney after beating him 33-21 this season. / Ken Ruinard / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

His quarterback is Tyler Shough, who played 16 games for Oregon in 2018-2020 but never got on the field against the Huskies. The 6-foot-5, 221-pound Arizona native went from the Ducks to Texas Tech to the Cardinals. He connected on 244 of 389 passes for 3,195 yards and 23 touchdowns, with 6 interceptions.

The 6-foot-6, 255-pound Redman has been a frequent target, ranking fourth among the Louisville pass-catchers with 23 receptions for 239 yards and 3 scores. Twenty-one of his 2021 Husky teammates are still on the roster entering the Sun Bowl.

Brohm beat Notre Dame last season and upset ACC champion Clemson this season, so the UW will be hard-pressed to beat him.

Making their fifth Sun Bowl appearance, and first in 22 seasons, the Huskies have lost their last three visits to El Paso at the hands of Alabama, Iowa and Purdue.

For the latest UW football and basketball news, go to si.com/college/washington

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.