Jeff Brohm’s 100th win already has a place in Louisville football’s season. Now the Cardinals are chasing the next one.
Louisville heads to North Carolina on Saturday night with a four-game winning streak intact, bowl eligibility secured and an ACC title chase still hanging around. A win in Chapel Hill would give Brohm No. 101, extend the Cardinals’ streak to five and mark their first trip to Kenan Stadium since 2017, when they left with a 47-35 victory.
The road history in this matchup has tilted Louisville’s way, too. The Cardinals are 3-2 away from home against UNC and will try to build on that edge against a Tar Heels team that has struggled through Bill Belichick’s second season. North Carolina has only one home win this year and has dropped two of its last three ACC games, though it did stop a three-game skid with a 38-21 nonconference win at UConn in Week 10.
One of the most interesting layers to this game is on the sideline. Bobby Petrino, now UNC’s offensive coordinator, will face Louisville for the first time since his 2018 firing.
Petrino’s history with the Cardinals runs deep: in his first stint from 2003-06, he brought Jeff Brohm in as quarterbacks coach and hired Paul Brohm as offensive coordinator and wide receivers coach. Brian Brohm was the starting quarterback then.
Jeff Brohm later worked on Petrino’s staff at Western Kentucky in 2013 before staying behind and landing his first head coaching job there. More than a decade later, Jeff Brohm is leading Louisville, Brian Brohm is the offensive coordinator and Paul Petrino is the tight ends coach.
Paul’s son, Mason, is also on staff as a graduate assistant.
That familiarity gives the matchup an extra edge, with Bobby Petrino going against family members, a former employee and a former player.
Louisville’s offense also has a versatile weapon in Tre Richardson, who has become a key piece of Brohm’s attack after starting out as a running back in high school and then moving to wide receiver in college. The Cardinals have used him much like they once used Caullin Lacy, mixing him into both the passing and running game to keep the ball in his hands.
Richardson showed that burst against Georgia Tech with a 52-yard rushing touchdown, which Louisville statistician Kelly Dickey said was the longest TD run by a Louisville wide receiver since Harry Douglas’ 65-yard score against Boise State in the Liberty Bowl on Dec. 31, 2004.
Richardson leads the team with 685 receiving yards and three touchdowns on 44 catches, and he has added 11 carries for 169 yards and two scores. That kind of speed and flexibility matters against a North Carolina defense that ranks 12th in the ACC and is allowing 377 yards per game.
The ACC picture is tightening, and Louisville is right in the middle of it. With three league games left, Miami sits alone at the top with a perfect conference record, Wake Forest has one ACC loss, and Louisville, SMU, Duke and Clemson are all tied for third with two conference defeats.
This week’s games will shake things up, with Miami facing Duke and Wake Forest taking on SMU. Louisville still needs help elsewhere, but it can keep itself in the conversation by taking care of business against UNC and then finishing ACC play against Pitt on Nov.
There are a few Cardinals worth keeping a close eye on Saturday. Linebacker Stanquan Clark has been a steady force on defense, leading the team with 64 tackles and sharing the team lead with five pass breakups.
He was everywhere against Georgia Tech with a team-high eight tackles. Return specialist Jackson Voth had a rough moment with a muffed punt last week, but he answered with a 68-yard punt return that set up Louisville’s fourth touchdown.
He finished with 81 return yards on three tries and now has 167 yards on 10 punt returns. Defensive lineman Tyler Thompson will also be in a familiar setting against his former team.
The UNC transfer has given Louisville a strong first season with 5½ sacks, 6½ tackles for loss and 25 tackles, and he added five tackles and a pass breakup against Georgia Tech.
North Carolina has its own trio to watch. Quarterback Billy Edwards, a Wisconsin transfer, took over for Gio Lopez and has averaged 236.3 passing yards per game while throwing 18 touchdowns against six interceptions.
Tight end Jelani Thurman, an Ohio State transfer, leads the Tar Heels with eight receiving touchdowns and has 525 yards on 45 catches; he had two scores and seven receptions for 64 yards in the win over UConn. Linebacker Peyton Seelmann, in his first season at UNC after transferring from Richmond, is second on the team with 82 tackles and 4½ sacks while also posting five tackles for loss.
He recorded two sacks against UConn.
Louisville is being picked to keep the run going. The prediction: Louisville 38, North Carolina 24.
When: 7 p.m. Saturday
Where: Kenan Stadium; Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Radio: Louisville Radio Network (93.9 FM and 970 AM)
In Other News...
Jeff Brohms Milestone Win Says Even More About Louisvilles Turnaround
Jeff Brohms 100th career win came with a lot more than a personal milestone attached to it. Louisvilles victory over Georgia Tech stretched the Cardinals winning streak to four games and locked up bowl eligibility, a sharp turnaround for a team that looked unsettled after a 2-3 start. Brohm pointed to preparation and adaptability as the reasons the season has steadied, including changes in coaching duties that helped the staff find a better rhythm.
Now the Cardinals are in position to keep climbing, with a path to the ACC championship game still alive even if the outcome is not fully in their hands. That is what makes the moment feel bigger than the number attached to Brohms rsum. Louisville has gone from trying to stop a slide to playing meaningful football deep into the season, and the next few weeks will determine how far that recovery can go. [Read more 🡒]
Louisville Already Has Early Injury Questions Despite Another Comfortable Win
Louisville kept rolling through another comfortable win, building a 42-27 halftime edge over Southern Indiana and stretching it to 68-39 by the end of the third quarter. Tajianna Robert paced the Cardinals with 20 points, while Imari Berry added 19 points and six rebounds, giving Jeff Walz plenty to like about the way his team handled business on a night when the margin never felt in doubt.
Still, the bigger takeaway may have come after the final horn, when Walz addressed both the teams shooting and the status of injured players Elif Istanbulluoglu and Mackenly Randolph. Even in a game that never got close, Louisville is already dealing with the kind of early-season injury questions that can shape the rotation and test the depth behind its top scorers. [Read more 🡒]
Louisville Just Made The ACC Race A Lot More Interesting
Louisvilles win over Georgia Tech did more than pad the record column. The Cardinals handled the Yellow Jackets 44-17 in a game that still had a few early hiccups, then settled in and showed the kind of big-play punch that can change the feel of a conference race in a hurry. Tre Richardsons 52-yard touchdown and Jackson Voths 68-yard punt return were the kind of moments that can turn a solid road result into something more meaningful.
With the ACC standings still crowded and the leagues title picture getting harder to sort out, every clean finish matters, and Louisville just gave itself a lot more room to stay in the conversation. The conferences revised tiebreaker setup only adds another layer to the chase, which is why a win like this carries more weight than a simple Saturday box score. The Cardinals have put themselves in position to keep pressing, and the next stretch will say plenty about how real that pressure is. [Read more 🡒]