When Jeff Brohm returned to his alma mater as Louisville’s head coach, he brought elements of his former coach’s philosophy with him. Brohm spent five years, from 1989 to 93, under Howard Schellenberger at Louisville, and in his two seasons as the program’s starting quarterback in 1992 and 1993, the Cardinals, still an independent at the time, played brutally tough schedules.
Now, with Louisville in the ACC, a radically different system for determining a national champion, and incentives from the College Football Playoff committee pushing most programs to chase win totals over playing tough non-conference opponents, Brohm is holding onto the mindset that Schellenberger instilled in him.
“I believe in a lot of things that he’s believed in and taught,” Brohm said of Schellenberger during his media availability at ACC Media Days on Wednesday. “One of them was, we took on all challenges, we played all the tough teams we could, we believed in a tough schedule, and we knew that that was going to make us better in the long run.”
Louisville’s future non-conference opponents reflect Howard Schellenberger’s philosophy
And that’s not just lip service from the third-year head coach of Louisville. The non-conference schedule this season is not particularly daunting, featuring Eastern Kentucky, James Madison, Bowling Green, and Kentucky. However, Louisville has arranged a home-and-home with Georgia for 2026 and 2027, making the trip to Athens in the latter year of the deal. Then, in 2028 and 2029, the program has a home and home with Texas A&M before beginning a four-year series with Notre Dame, including three trips to South Bend.
That philosophy isn’t just about challenging your team; it’s also about elevating the program in the eyes of recruits. Not just to land the highest-rated recruits, but to land the right ones because it’s clear that Brohm wants the players and coaches who embrace those challenges the same way he does.
“We also probably knew that, players wanted to play those games, coaches wanted to coach them, and fans wanted to see them,” Brohm continued at the podium in Charlotte. “So that’s our scheduling philosophy. As much as we can, we’re going to try to play as many good teams as we can every year.”
Through Brohm’s first two years back at Louisville, that mindset has paid off with 19 wins, including a non-conference victory over Notre Dame in 2023 and back-to-back rivalry wins over Kentucky in the final week of the regular season.
While playing SEC powerhouses or Notre Dame every season doesn’t give Louisville the best chance of sneaking into the CFP as an unproven 11 or 12-win ACC Champion or conference runner-up, it does give the Cardinals the chance to play on the big stage consistently as Brohm works to build the program into a perennial CFP contender.