Much of the focus around the Jeff Brohm-led resurgence of Louisville football has been on the offensive side of the ball. For two straight years, Brohm has led transfer quarterbacks to successful seasons and orchestrated one of the more efficient units in the country. However, across Brohm’s brief tenure, the Cardinals had a superstar on the defensive side of the ball, and he’ll be just as difficult as Tyler Shough to replace.
Ashton Gillotte posted a career-high 11 sacks in 2023, and last season he added 4.5 more with 57 quarterback pressures, 28 more than the next closest teammate. At 6-foot-3, 275 pounds, he established himself as a dominant force on the edge before becoming a third-round selection of the Kansas City Chiefs.
Gillotte was the foundation of Louisville’s pass-rush plan, a borderline indispensable player for a team that ranked in the middle of the pack by most defensive metrics and could be in danger of falling off a cliff without him. However, just four practices into fall camp, defensive line coach Mark Hagen feels confident that Jeff Brohm and his staff found a more than suitable replacement through the transfer portal this offseason.
“I think he’s come in and continued who he was,” Hagen said of Rutgers transfer and 6-foot-5, 265-pound redshirt senior Wesley Bailey, after practice on Monday. “When you lose a guy like Ashton Gillotte, and a guy behind him like Ramon, it’s a big void, but I think he’s come in and really solidified that.”
Mark Hagen expected Wesley Bailey to fill a massive role for Louisville’s defense
Louisville is returning the spine of its defense from last year, with leading tackles TJ Quinn and Stanquan Clark both back at linebacker. The secondary, though, was primarily constructed through the transfer portal. Yet, none of those three incoming starters on the end, or Clev Lubin, Bailey’s likely running-mate on the edge, have as big shoes to fill as Bailey.
The Ottawa, Ontario product spent his last four seasons at Rutgers, redshirting last year after playing four games and dealing with injury the entire way. In 2023, Bailey led Greg Schiano’s defense with four sacks and registered 25 quarterback pressures. That mark was just shy of his career high of 32 in 2022, and a far cry from Gillotte’s 57 last year.
While injury limited Bailey’s production in 2024, his pass-rush win rate actually improved from his 2023 season and narrowly edged out his previous career high in 2022. His win-rate of 12.7 percent does not stack up particularly well, though, against Gillotte’s 20.9 percent mark from 2024.
Gillotte didn’t follow up his 11-sack season with another in the double-digits, but that level of disruption has a cascading effect for the rest of the pass-rush, drawing additional attention from opposing offensive lines to allow his teammates to go one-on-one, and forcing quarterbacks to step into muddy pockets or bail altogether. Hagen evidently expects Bailey to be that type of force, but the veteran’s track record would indicate otherwise.
Brohm has done an excellent job navigating the transfer portal and isn’t afraid of running out a new-look roster every season. He’s embraced the roster churn at the most important position on the field, but his team may feel the effects of Gillotte’s departure more than he expects.
Without a force multiplier up front, a defense that fared well against the run but struggled defending the pass and was regularly bailed out by creating pressure on late downs could crater. And if it does, it won’t matter if the QB whisperer does it again with Miller Moss because with Miami, Clemson, and SMU on the schedule, it will take more than just one side of the ball to scrape out nine or 10 wins.