Thirty years ago, Jeff Brohm threw for more than 2,000 yards, completed 20 touchdown passes and led Louisville’s 1993 team to a win over Michigan State in the Liberty Bowl. Friday, Brohm will be back on the Louisville sideline, but this time as the program’s coach.
“Without question my nerves will be going,” Brohm said Monday. “You want to do well. You want to try win the football game, you want to please a lot of people, you want to get off to a good start. That’s always going to be the goal. You have to go back and go through things and make sure you’re as ready as you can be.
“But then you just have to go out there and play and coach and be positive with your players and build their confidence and help them achieve their best.”
Brohm has won 66 games in nine seasons as a coach. In three years at Western Kentucky he went 30-10, won two conference titles and two bowl games. In six seasons at Purdue the 52-year-old won 36 games (17 combined in 2021 and 2022) and led the Boilermakers to the 2022 Big Ten championship game.
It had long been a foregone conclusion in coaching circles that Brohm would likely one day return to his alma mater to lead the Cardinals. When Scott Satterfield left for Cincinnati in December, the door opened for Brohm, also a Louisville native, to finally return home.
His highly anticipated coaching debut is at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Mercedes-Benz Stadium when Louisville faces Georgia Tech.
“I think Georgia Tech will be hungry, will be well-prepared,” Brohm said. “(Tech) coach (Brent) Key played at Georgia Tech so he’s going to take a lot of pride in preparing his team. They made improvements while he was the (interim) head coach. They had a top-25 win along the way and without question they’re going to be hungry. Normally the most-hungry team has a chance to win the football game.”
Brohm inherits a Louisville program in relatively good shape. The Cardinals have had winning seasons in three of the past four years and are coming off an 8-5 year and Fenway Bowl victory. Louisville returns four starters in the secondary, running back Jawhar Jordan, three returning starters on the offensive line and wide receiver Ahmari Huggins-Bruce.
Like Tech, Louisville went to the transfer portal to find its starting quarterback. But while Jack Plummer is a new face with the Cardinals, he played 21 games for Brohm at Purdue from 2019-21.
Plummer has thrown for 6,524 yards in his career and is closing in on 50 career touchdown passes.
“Jack’s done a really good job. He’s got game experience, he’s played a lot of football, he wants to win,” Brohm said. “With anybody, you got to get your quarterback to relax, you got to get him in a rhythm early, you got to get him feeling good about seeing things well and boosting his confidence and get him off to a good start. If you do that, normally things will carry over and the game will end the way you want.
“We’ve tried to prepare Jack as much as we can. He’s got to be smart and understand if we get in a situation where we need some big plays, he can’t do it all himself. He’s battle-tested and we feel confident he’ll play a good game.”
Louisville and Tech have met just two times previously, both Yellow Jackets wins in 2018 and 2020. The Cardinals have been outscored 112-58 in those two results.
Brohm’s focused on reversing those fortunes with a team, he said, he wants to play harder, play tougher and play smarter than the opponent each time out. He knows that will be tough Friday against an evenly-matched Tech team.
“Last year they were No. 6 in the turnover margin which means they’re going to give you a lot of different looks, they’re going to try to get the ball out, they’re going to go for the big play. We have to make sure we don’t allow that to happen,” Brohm said. “I think they want to have a sound running game and get the ball to their playmakers and keep the game close and get it in the fourth quarter and find a way to win.
“Coach Key’s a former offensive lineman, he’s going to work his guys hard, he’s going to be tough in the trenches and we have to find a way to gain an edge in that. And any time you go on the road you have to be prepared for anything that can come up and they’re going to play aggressive, they’re going to play to win and they’re going to play confident. We got to match that and figure it out and try to pull out the win in the end.”
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