The football world is a believer in the Brohm era at Louisville.
Jeff Faughender/Courier Journal and USA Today Network / USA TODAY NETWORK
The local hype for the Jeff Brohm era of Cardinal football has been percolating since, well, like four year before he actually took the job.
A little over two months before Brohm leads Louisville onto the field for a game for the first time, the Derby City native and U of L alum is getting some serious national love as well.
First up was this post from Brandon Marcello of 247 Sports, who used a formula to rank the 10 best coaches in college football at the present time. The list is made up of all the usual suspects — Saban, Smart, Riley, Day, etc. — but right there at No. 10 is our guy.
10. JEFF BROHM, LOUISVILLE (78.86 RATING)
Experience: 9 seasons
Star rating: 4
Jeff Brohm lifted Purdue off the mat, leading the Boilermakers to the 2022 Big Ten Championship Game and winning a combined 17 games in his last two seasons at the helm.
After six seasons that included 36 wins, he was approached by his alma mater for the second time and found it difficult to turn down Louisville again. The former Louisville quarterback has long been one of the brightest offensive minds in the sport, dating back to his days as a coordinator at Louisville and his three years as head coach at Western Kentucky, where he won two conference titles.
Brohm’s passing offense has ranked in the top 20 in eight of nine seasons as a head coach. Two receivers were selected in the first three rounds of the NFL Draft in the last two years. He is 66-44 in nine seasons as a head coach.
Brohm’s record isn’t elite but it is considering the context of the competition and talent at those schools. Remember, the CRI grades coaches on their win-loss records but also weigh the “difficulty/importance” of those games in nine distinct categories ranging from expected close-margin games to how they perform in games with equivalent talent profiles.
While that mention certainly turned some heads, a list that Brohm appeared on that drew significantly less attention was this one from Cody Nagel of 247 Sports, who ranked the top 15 quarterback developers in all of college football.
14. JEFF BROHM, LOUISVILLE HEAD COACH
With two decades worth of coaching experience in college, Louisville head coach Jeff Brohm knows a thing or two about developing quarterbacks and operating a high-powered offense. Prior to returning to his alma mater, Brohm was the head coach at Purdue for six seasons. In his final two years with the Boilermakers, Brohm helped quarterback Aidan O’Connell rank inside the top-15 nationally passing yards per game, totaling nearly 7,200 yards through the air in 14 games. Throughout his nine seasons as an FBS head coach, his passing offenses consistently secured a spot in the top 20 nationally, ranking 13th on average during that period. As head coach at Western Kentucky from 2014-16, the Hilltopers were one of the best offensive units in the country, averaging 44.6 points, 356.6 passing yards and 526.2 yards of total offense in three seasons. Western Kentucky ranked in the top 10 nationally in scoring offense, passing offense and total offense each of Brohm’s three seasons as head coach.
Louisville hired Brohm as head coach in December. He reunites with former Purdue and California quarterback Jack Plummer, who transferred to the Cardinals shortly after Brohm made the move to Louisville.
Lincoln Riley topped the list.
The hype is there, the excitement is back, and now there’s only one thing left to do: Win some football games in a few months.
