Louisville football recently held its first scrimmage of its 2025 fall camp, and after the scrimmage, Jeff Brohm met with the media to answer some questions. The 2025 season is just a couple of weeks away, and the Cardinals fans are locked in on a few things.
Early in the press conference, Brohm revealed that if Louisville wants to be successful, then Miller Moss must improve under pressure and not rush throws. The USC transfer had a hard time making good decisions under pressure last season, as he threw nine interceptions and was benched. However, Brohm noted that he is taking strides in the right direction.
The other area of concern that Louisville fans have is for the secondary and their defensive backs. Brohm has made it clear that there is one glaring key that the Cardinals must work on entering the 2025 season and after the first scrimmage.
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Jeff Brohm reveals Louisville’s defense biggest flaw
This defense had a big letdown last season, as many thought they were going to be much better than they were. The Cardinals' 2024 team gave up 24 points per game and 27 points per game in the ACC games, primarily due to the number of big plays they would give up.
When Brohm looks toward 2025, he emphasizes that this team must limit big plays to win.
"The key once again is not giving up big plays," Brohm stated. "Being said, keeping the ball in front of us while we challenge routes as well. I just think that has been the emphasis. If you look at our season last year, big pass plays happened too many times and we got to work hard to get that fixed."
The Cardinals' defense gave up 390 yards per game last season, which ranked No. 74 in the nation. Louisville's defense is expected to help its offense out and step up to limit these big-time plays.
When the Cardinals played Miami last season, Louisville gave up 219 rushing yards, including nine runs that were 10 yards or more. If Louisville wants to go into Hard Rock Stadium this year and beat Miami, they must limit big runs and big plays, and that goes for their showdowns with Clemson and SMU as well.
Brohm revealed the best way to limit these big plays, as he explained the Cardinals' new-looking defensive line must provide pressure, and the Cardinals' secondary must not allow the ball to be thrown over their heads.
"Putting pressure on the quarterback, being in position, occasionally challenging things, and getting up and pressing and guarding things," Brohm stated on what this defense has to do to limit big plays. "But not letting the ball get being thrown over our head and at least making them earn it and not giving up wide open completions is the emphasis, and I think we made improvement but we still got to correct a few things and clean a few things that happened today and hopefully make progress."
This Cardinals defense has a lot of new faces on it, as the secondary lost four of its top five defensive backs, and the defensive line lost its top production in Ashton Gillotte and Jared Dawson. Mark Hagen and Ron English have a tall challenge entering the 2025 season, but transfers like Rodney Johnson and JoJo Evans are stepping up for the secondary, and Wes Bailey and Clev Lubin are emerging as dominant forces for the defensive line.
Louisville enters the 2025 season with the third-best odds to win the ACC Title, and it is clear that if the Cardinals want to return to Charlotte, then this defense has to improve drastically from last season and limit these big-time plays against elite competition.
Related: Louisville 2025 game-by-game predictions: Can Cardinals beat Clemson again?
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