There is sad news today as one of the greats of Louisville football, quarterback Browning Nagle, passed away at 57 after a battle with colon cancer. Nagle is known as the quarterback for the Cardinals' first great season in the post-Lee Corso era. Louisville came out of nowhere in 1990, won 10 games and smoked Alabama in the Fiesta Bowl with Nagle throwing for over 400 yards and leading the Cardinals to a top-15 finish in the polls.
In many ways, that 1990 season changed the course of Louisville football. The Cardinals had some good teams in the past, but the sport was heading into the modern era where conference affiliations and broadcast TV was going to mean so much more.
We are saddened by the passing of Browning Nagle, former Fiesta Bowl MVP quarterback and Louisville great.
— Louisville Football (@LouisvilleFB) April 10, 2026
His leadership on the field and passion for the game left a lasting mark on our program.
Our thoughts are with his loved ones and teammates during this difficult time. pic.twitter.com/06FGVTppyw
Louisville football was mostly a run-of-the-mill program under Howard Schellenberger. He had a long run with the school that was defined by up-and-down seasons until he left for Oklahoma, but the 1990 season proved that the Cardinals could compete in this fast-changing college football landscape.
Nagle, who started out at West Virginia, but transferred to Louisville in 1987, was the first in the new line of great Cardinal quarterbacks. Jeff Brohm was his backup and took over in 1991, and then you had the guys we all know — Chris Redman, Dave Ragone, Brian Brohm, Teddy Bridgewater and, of course, Lamar Jackson.
Before that Fiesta Bowl season, Louisville was considered just a basketball school and after that they began focusing more on football. By the late1990s, John L. Smith was hired as the coach and the Cardinals were truly off and running. Since that remarkable Fiesta Bowl win, Louisville has had six conference titles, 23 bowl appearances, three 11-win seasons, two 12-win seasons, a Sugar Bowl championship, a Fiesta Bowl championship, multiple top-20 finishes and top-ten finishes in 2004 and 2006.
Nagle went on to be a second-round pick of the New York Jets in the 1991 NFL Draft and had five years in the league as a backup journeyman with the Indianapolis Colts and Atlanta Falcons. But Nagle's legacy will always be as a Louisville Cardinal and long-time fans know how big a factor his run in 1990 was in shaping the program as it stands today.Â