Jeff Brohm has never been one to duck a challenge, and Louisville is leaning into that mindset again.
The Cardinals opened up their 2026 schedule after Georgia backed out of a home-and-home series, and instead of softening the slate, they replaced the Bulldogs with Ole Miss. It’s a bold move, but it fits the coach. Brohm has already built a reputation for taking swings at big-name opponents, and Louisville will now get a chance to test itself against a Rebels team that reached the College Football Playoff semifinals last season under new coach Pete Golding.
That makes this one of the more notable nonconference games on Louisville’s upcoming schedule. It will also be just the third time in the last 10 seasons that the Cardinals play two SEC teams in the same year.
Louisville went 0-2 against Alabama and Kentucky in 2018, then dropped games to Ole Miss and Kentucky in 2021. Neither of those seasons came with Brohm on the sideline in Louisville.
Since taking over, Brohm has been much more effective against the league. He is 2-1 as Louisville’s coach against SEC opponents and 6-6 overall in his head coaching career. Over the past 11 years, his teams have beaten four SEC programs, and Louisville will try to add another when it faces Ole Miss, which entered the year ranked No. 10 in the US LBM preseason coaches poll.
The Cardinals also have a chance to stack another major win onto Brohm’s résumé. Louisville was just outside the rankings and beat No.
2 Miami, 24-21, a year ago. A victory over Ole Miss would give Brohm and the Cardinals back-to-back top-10 wins.
“For us to play a team that went to the (Playoff) semifinals last year and had a chance to win with a lot of quality players coming back and their starting quarterback and starting running back and multiple other ones, it’s just a great test for us,” Brohm said on the C.L. Brown Show.
“I think it’ll be a lot of fun for our players to play such a quality opponent, see how we stack up. That’s really why you work hard.
That’s why you put in the work in the offseason, to play in championship-level games.”
Brohm’s overall track record against the SEC shows he’s been more than willing to schedule up, and he’s had some success doing it. At Western Kentucky, he went 1-3 against SEC teams. He improved to 3-2 at Purdue, and then added a 2-1 mark at Louisville.
His SEC results have included wins over Vanderbilt, Missouri, and Tennessee, plus Louisville’s back-to-back Governor’s Cup victories over Kentucky. The full run of results includes Western Kentucky’s 14-12 win over Vanderbilt in 2015, losses to LSU and Alabama, a 31-30 overtime loss to Vanderbilt, Purdue’s 35-3 win over Missouri, a 40-37 loss to Missouri, an Auburn rout of Purdue in the Music City Bowl, a Purdue win over Vanderbilt, a 48-45 Music City Bowl win over Tennessee, Louisville’s 38-31 loss to Kentucky in 2023, and then the Cardinals’ 41-14 and 41-0 wins over Kentucky in 2024 and 2025.
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The bigger question now is how quickly the next wave fits in around them. Louisville added transfers Tyler Thompson and Jerod Smith II to a room that already has a strong foundation, and the expectation is that the line should still be a strength in 2026 despite the coaching turnover and role changes elsewhere on the staff. If the new faces come along as planned, this could be another season where the Cardinals lean on their front to cover a lot of ground behind it. [Read more 🡒]