LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB+WAVE) — Jeff Brohm has a football team that can score from practically anywhere on the field. The 20-yard line. The 50. The parking lot, if somebody would let Isaac Brown take a handoff out there.
Louisville leads the nation in plays of 40 yards or longer. It leads the nation in plays of 60 yards or longer. It has scored 11 touchdowns from at least 50 yards away.
The Cardinals can go 80 yards faster than you can find the remote control. They just can’t always go four quarters. It’s been something of a problem.
Louisville is 4-3, a peculiar record for a team that ranks eighth nationally in total offense and 11th in scoring. Then again, it ranks 124th in total defense and 129th against the pass, so perhaps the mystery isn’t quite as deep as it first appears.
Brohm saw part of this coming. Back in the preseason, he was asked about his team’s tendency to pull the big upset, then suffer the big letdown.
“I think our team’s proven we can win big games,” he said. “We have the ability to do that at any moment. ... Now, just being consistent every week is what we’ve got to work on.”
Seven games and three losses later, he’s still working on it.
“So really, it’s about playing a complete game,” Brohm said Monday. “We haven’t really done that.”
The defense had some preseason expectations of its own. Defensive lineman Clev Lubin put them into words.
“We want to be the reason we win games,” he said.
Well, the defense has been the reason for plenty of things. Winning hasn’t been at the top of the list.
That’s not to say it hasn’t had its moments. Kaleb Beasley has five interceptions, tied for the national lead. Louisville’s defense made some important plays in the second half at Syracuse, helping the Cardinals win their second straight game.
But the unit that was supposed to be a strength has been a liability.
Louisville is allowing 419.9 yards and 27.4 points per game. Opponents are throwing for nearly 269 yards per game. The Cardinals have given up too many big plays, missed too many tackles and failed to get off the field when they needed to.
The offense hasn’t been without its problems. It has started slowly at times. It hasn’t always sustained drives or finished games as well as Brohm would like.
But it has generally produced enough to win. The defense has kept asking it to produce more.
When Brohm talked about consistency in August, he probably didn’t expect to spend so much of October still looking for it.
He has been making changes.
After consecutive losses to Wake Forest and NC State, he handed offensive play-calling duties to his brother Brian, a significant decision for a man who has spent much of his coaching career with a play sheet in his hands. Brohm took a larger role overseeing the entire team, including the defense.
The Cardinals responded with victories over Florida State and Syracuse. They ran for 397 yards against Florida State, with Brown gaining 235 and breaking a 97-yard touchdown run. At Syracuse, quarterback Lincoln Kienholz went 82 yards for a touchdown.
Louisville has a collection of offensive playmakers who can turn an ordinary Saturday afternoon into a track meet. It also has three losses, all by three points. Somewhere between the 80-yard touchdown and the three-point defeat lies the football team Brohm has been trying to find.
And he spent the bye week looking for it.
He said Monday that Louisville has changed the way it practices, emphasizing quality repetitions and going “good on good” — first-team offense against first-team defense — more often.
He and his staff also spent time studying successful teams around the country, looking for things that might help.
They examined their own playbook, including calls they haven’t used. They considered what might be added and what might be discarded. There has been no shortage of adjustments, or of urgency. This season began with expectations considerably higher than 4-3.
Still, Brohm isn’t looking for a new offense. He already has one of the most productive in the country.
He’s looking for an offense that starts games better and finishes them better. And a defense that doesn’t require the offense to keep rescuing it. He’s looking for a team that can do the ordinary things as reliably as it does the difficult ones.
Take the Syracuse game. Louisville won 34-26. Good result. Road victory. Two straight wins.
Brohm spent part of Monday explaining what went wrong anyway.
“We got beat in man-to-man coverage on two simple go routes right over our head, which shouldn’t happen at all,” he said. “We got beat in Cover 2 on third and 17 down the sideline, which shouldn’t happen at all.”
He said it twice. Which shouldn’t happen at all.
Coaches tend to get particularly annoyed when opponents succeed with plays that shouldn’t work. It’s one thing to get beaten by a great player making a great play. It’s another to watch a receiver run down the field while your defensive back apparently has an appointment somewhere else.
Louisville has had too many of those moments.
Defensive line coach Jontavious Morris talked Monday about players who arrived from different programs having learned different techniques and systems. He talked about the difficulty of defeating double-team blocks, getting players comfortable with their assignments and helping them play without thinking so much.
The Cardinals have had injuries up front. They’ve brought in experienced coaches to help. And they’re still trying to get everybody doing the same things at the same time.
Football has become a highly sophisticated enterprise. Teams employ analysts, consultants, specialists and enough assistant coaches to staff a small university. Sometimes it still comes down to tackling the guy with the ball. Or not letting the one you’re covering run past you. Or knowing where you’re supposed to be when the ball is snapped.
That’s where Louisville finds itself as Stanford comes to town Saturday.
Stanford is 4-4. Its offense ranks 125th nationally in scoring. Its defense ranks 132nd. Those are not numbers that ordinarily strike fear into the hearts of opponents. Then again, Stanford just beat NC State, which beat Louisville. And two years ago, Louisville took a 35-21 fourth-quarter lead at Stanford and somehow managed to lose 38-35.
Stanford scored 17 points in the final seven minutes. The winning field goal came as time expired, after a Louisville personal foul penalty helped put Stanford into field goal range. Brohm hasn’t forgotten it. Neither has his staff. Morris said Monday that the coaches and players who were around for that game take responsibility for the loss.
This time, Stanford comes to Louisville, and the Cardinals have had two weeks to rest, study, adjust and look at everything.
Back in August, Brohm said consistency was the challenge. Lubin said the defense wanted to be the reason Louisville won games.
Brohm has five games left to find the first. Lubin and his teammates have five games left to become the second.
The Cardinals have shown they can do big things. Now comes the harder part. Doing the little things.