Louisville’s first ACC test arrives with a familiar problem attached: Kevin Jennings.
The Cardinals open conference play Saturday afternoon against No. 16 SMU, and the challenge is straightforward on paper and brutal in practice. If Louisville can’t slow down Jennings and survive the Mustangs’ tempo, it will be staring at another long day against an offense that has already given it trouble.
That memory is still fresh in the locker room. Louisville was beaten 38-6 by SMU last season, a game tight end Jaleel Skinner didn’t want to revisit and linebacker Stanquan Clark labeled embarrassing.
It was the Cardinals’ third straight loss that year and their second straight setback to the Mustangs after a 34-27 defeat in 2024. For a team trying to reset, the feeling hasn’t gone anywhere.
"The mindset is we can't let that happen again,” Clark said. “We're not going for that.”
That message will be tested at 3:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 19, when Louisville hosts SMU in a matchup that puts the Cardinals’ defense under the spotlight again.
Jennings has been the engine behind it all. SMU enters with the nation’s top passing offense and the No. 7 total offense, and Jennings has put up 767 passing yards, eight touchdowns and two interceptions while completing 76.9% of his throws.
He has also been a problem for Louisville before. In SMU’s past two wins over the Cardinals, Jennings threw for a combined 583 yards and three touchdowns. Louisville did a better job limiting his rushing in 2025, but in 2024 he still ran for 113 yards and scored on a 59-yard touchdown run.
“I think he's really good. I mean, really good,” Brohm said.
“One of the best quarterbacks in the country. He's shown it every year.
He produces; he can make plays on his feet. He can extend the play, get the ball out to numerous playmakers.
They do a good job of spreading the field, going with good tempo, which creates some confusion for the defense.”
That tempo is part of what makes SMU so difficult to manage. Rhett Lashlee’s offense moves fast, and the Mustangs averaged 1:51 per drive and 4.4 plays per series against UC Davis.
Jennings has not always been lightning quick getting rid of the ball, though. He has averaged 2.8 seconds per throw, has been pressured 11 times and has been sacked once.
That gives Louisville a path, even if it’s a narrow one. Through two games, the Cardinals have only one sack and 32 pressures on 145 snaps, according to Pro Football Focus. Some of that came down to the quarterbacks they faced getting the ball out fast, but Louisville also had issues adjusting to what was in front of it.
Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss averaged 2.68 seconds from drop-back to pass, and the Rebels averaged 2 minutes, 13 seconds per drive. Eight of their 13 drives lasted less than two minutes, and half of those ended in points.
Villanova’s Pat McQuaide was even quicker, averaging 1.97 seconds from drop-back to pass. The Wildcats averaged 2:33 per drive, and their lone touchdown drive took only 24 seconds, finishing with a 64-yard touchdown pass.
It was the third time in Louisville’s first two games that it surrendered a touchdown of 60 yards or more.
“Definitely. It’s something we’ve got to fix, something that we harped on our players, and I think we’ve got good plans for that,” cornerbacks coach Steve Ellis said of the Wildcats’ long TD.
“The biggest thing when going against a tempo team, they're going fast. They’re shifting a lot.
You have to be on the same page because (everything) is happening so fast. And if ... 10 guys do it perfectly, but one guy doesn’t, then the defense is not going to be successful.
And that's something that happened on that play.”
Louisville’s answer starts with pressure, but it also has to be about discipline. Brohm said the goal is to keep Jennings from buying extra time and turning broken plays into easy completions downfield.
“We have to not allow him to extend the play, buy extra time and allow his guys to get wide open because he's really good at it,” Brohm said. “So contain him in the pocket, creating some push and pressure. Also, defending things early to not give them easy, simple reads - all that will be important.”
There’s one more factor hanging over the game: the weather. Depth matters in any tempo matchup, and it matters even more with the forecast calling for a high of 93 degrees, a RealFeel of 102 degrees and 48% humidity, according to AccuWeather.
The stakes are early, but they’re real. A win would leave either team in strong shape for a run toward the ACC championship game, a place neither program is unfamiliar with. Louisville reached its first league title game in 2023, and SMU did it the following year.
Before any of that matters, though, the Cardinals have to solve Jennings. That’s the first hurdle, and the one they can’t afford to miss again.
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