A disturbing trend is developing for Louisville under Jeff Brohm. They can’t build on big wins.
In 2023, Louisville beat #10 Notre Dame 33-20, then lost at 3-win Pittsburgh the next week. Recovered got to #10 in the country and lost their final 3 games.
In 2024, Louisville beat #11 Clemson 33-21, then went to 3-win Stanford and lost 38-35.
In 2025, Louisville beats #2 Miami 24-21, then actually won 2 more games after that, and you might think at 7-1, Louisville is ready to take a leap. Nope… they lose two straight home games to unranked team California and Clemson to fall out of contention for the ACCCG.
Jeff Brohm is a fine coach, nobody questions that, but why does this keep happening?
Friday night in a 20-19 loss to Clemson, Louisville was beset by untimely penalties, terrible special teams, and an erratic quarterback.
Frankly, I think Louisville lacks a true identity. They have talent, and when things are going well, they can look great, but what is their identity? What do they learn when things start going sideways?
Honestly, this is hard to pinpoint. If it were easy, I’m sure Jeff Brohm would have figured it out by now.
At the moment, this is what is separating Louisville from being a nice program with potential to one that can reach the playoffs.
Every Clemson pre-season goal is gone, save for trying to beat South Carolina. Dabo Swinney could have easily lost his team, especially after a brutal 1-point, controversial loss to Duke. Since then, Swinney has rallied his team to two straight wins, including Friday’s 20-19 upset of Louisville.
If you are going to criticize Swinney on the year, that’s fair, but his teams never stop playing hard.
They had nothing to play for except pride and the chance to extend their bowl streak. With Furman next week, the bowl streak will continue, and if you knock off South Carolina, then fans at Clemson are going to feel like something was salvaged out of the season.
When Clemson was 3-5, that’s literally all you could hope for. It is that your team kept fighting.
The Tigers were hardly perfect Friday night, but they were less error-prone than Louisville. DC Tom Allen finally seems to be getting his defense to play at a level we thought it was capable of. It held Louisville to 19 points and under 400 yards of offense, after holding FSU to 10 points.
Who knew that in 2 weeks time, Clemson is now feeling better about their November potential than Louisville.
