Jeff Brohm is home at Louisville, and he can’t afford to fail now
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David Hale, ESPN Staff Writer
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — It was the spring of 2022, and despite how his words sounded when replayed on the local news later, Jeff Brohm was just trying to be polite.
Brohm was back in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, speaking to 100 or so alums of Flaget High School — “Where Paul Hornung, Howard Schnellenberger and my dad went,” Brohm noted. He spent the better part of an hour talking football before he got the question — the one he always seemed to get.
“When are you coming back to coach at Louisville?”
Brohm was Kentucky’s “Mr. Football” in 1988, then became a star quarterback at Louisville. He worked as an assistant for the Cardinals under Bobby Petrino for six seasons, too, before moving on to head coaching jobs at Western Kentucky and Purdue. He was offered the head job at Louisville after Petrino was fired in 2019, but he demurred — “Bad timing,” he said — and for the next four years, Cardinals fans longed for a second chance to bring Brohm home.
And so the question came again — this time from a nice gentleman — and Brohm didn’t want to be rude.
“I love this town,” Brohm said. “I’m an alumnus of Louisville. So, anything can happen in the future.”
Now, he might’ve offered a few important caveats before answering — like the fact that Louisville already had a coach and that Brohm already had another job. But the event had been so lighthearted that, truly, Brohm didn’t give his reply much thought. Nor did he think about the reporter with the camera.
“I talked for an hour and 10 minutes and it was the only time I referenced Louisville,” Brohm recalled. “And that’s all I heard about after.”
Brohm insisted he wasn’t insulting Purdue, and he wasn’t angling for the Louisville job. It was a lot of hubbub over nothing. Really.
“And then sure enough,” Brohm said, “it actually happened a year later.”
Yes, Brohm is finally back in his hometown, coaching at his alma mater, much to the delight of the innumerable fans who’d pined for his homecoming for years. When Satterfield left for Cincinnati at the end of last season, Brohm was offered the job again, and this time, it all felt right.
Of course, those dream jobs always feel magical at first, yet it doesn’t always turn out to be such a happy reunion. For every Steve Spurrier or Kirby Smart, who went home and won a national title, there are others, like Scott Frost, who withered under the outsized expectations.
When it doesn’t work out, it’s not just a job that’s lost.
“When you’re coaching somewhere else, you put in the work, but if it doesn’t work out, hey, I can always go home,” Brohm said. “Well, this is home.”
It’s something Brohm said he thinks about nearly every day now. After years of anticipation, he finally has the job he always wanted. He can’t afford to fail.
BROHM ARRIVED TO immense fanfare in Louisville, but he also saw a ticking clock. Everyone loved him the day he was hired because he’d done so much for the city and the school over the years, but eventually, there would be real data points on his job performance, and he can’t afford a misstep.
“All the positivity now is because we haven’t lost a game yet,” Brohm said. “I’ve been around some good days here, and there’s been tremendous fan support at all levels when you’re doing great things. We want to get that going as fast as we can.”
It’s the same balance Mario Cristobal understood when he opted to leave a cozy gig at Oregon to return to Miami with a plan to resurrect his alma mater. The problem, as he saw it, was a massive schism between the size of the job and the optimism of Miami’s fans.
“The clear fact, the fact that’s as clear as the day is long, is Miami didn’t get to this spot overnight,” Cristobal said, “and Miami isn’t getting out of this spot overnight.”
That’s Cristobal’s tagline for the program in Year 2. But when he first arrived, the fan base was so overjoyed at the thought that their prodigal son, who’d won two national titles at Miami as a player, would restore the program’s past glory that there wasn’t much room for the cold, hard truth.
The Hurricanes finished 2022 with a 5-7 record with embarrassing losses to Middle Tennessee and rival Florida State. After the season, a sizable chunk of Cristobal’s first staff departed, as did a number of players. The excitement that followed his arrival in Coral Gables had quickly turned into skepticism.
Cristobal saw most of it coming, the inevitable struggles, and it nearly convinced him to stay at Oregon.
The hours, the pressure, the expectations, he thrives on that, he said, but he knew it would take its toll on his family. It was a big risk.
But it was home.
“I don’t want to go to the grave without Miami winning,” Cristobal said. “I don’t. I would’ve had a lot of regret. I know if I’d said no, the ship would’ve sailed, and the next time it came around, it might’ve been too late.”
It’s the double-edged sword of being a program’s favorite son. The often sizable challenges of the present are viewed through the glories of past success, and when reality sets in, things can get ugly.
Dave Wannstedt had won Super Bowls in the NFL, so he seemed like an ideal hire at Pitt, where he’d starred as a player. Six years later, he was fired after a 7-5 campaign.
Jim Harbaugh has taken Michigan to back-to-back College Football Playoffs, but that success came on the heels of a dismal 2020 campaign that forced him to take a pay cut. That Michigan didn’t fire him rankled a sizable contingent of Wolverines fans who’d once celebrated his return.
Frost was supposed to be the miracle that returned Nebraska to greatness. He’d coached UCF to an undefeated season in 2017, and he had his pick of plumb jobs in the aftermath. But he wanted to go home, to a place where he’d quarterbacked the Huskers to a 24-2 record in two seasons. His coaching tenure there ended after an embarrassing home loss to Georgia Southern that dropped his record at Nebraska to 16-31.
So yes, Brohm isn’t assuming he has an inch of runway at Louisville.
“When you take a little more pride in what you’re doing, it makes you work a little harder, take a little more time figuring it out so you don’t let people down,” Brohm said. “There are a lot of guys on our staff with local connections, and they want to win here, and they want to win now.”
JOSH HEIRD INSISTS he had more than one candidate for the job after Satterfield departed for Cincinnati. Yes, Brohm was at the top of the list — but not just because of his local ties. He was a heck of a coach, had just led Purdue to the Big Ten title game, had been to seven bowl games in nine years as a head coach.
Of course, Heird also admits it would’ve been a problem if he’d gone in another direction.
“If it wasn’t Jeff,” Heird said, “whoever it was would be compared to Jeff from Day 1.”
Heird actually joked at Brohm’s introductory news conference that “for the last 12 months, you’ve made my life miserable.” Yeah, there was a bit of pressure to get the prodigal son back onto campus.
Heck, Louisville defensive lineman Ashton Gillotte had started following a Twitter account with the handle, @BringBrohmHome. The account’s owner has a website, too, with flight tracker data and video of Brohm’s playing days. The account’s bio now notes the success of the initiative: “Destiny typed into existence.”
The Brohm effect has Louisville as excited for the 2023 season as fans have been for any year since Lamar Jackson was on campus, with season ticket sales already up more than 20%. Running back Jawhar Jordan said he gets approached at the grocery store now by fans wanting to talk about the team.
“There’s constant people,” Brohm said. “There’s more speaking functions and going out in the community and it’s all important to do that.”
That’s largely meant his wife and kids have enjoyed the perks of being back in Louisville. Brohm’s been on the clock since the moment he accepted the job.
“I tell them I’m glad they’re having fun,” Brohm said. “I’m working my ass off here.”
If it’s time-consuming, Brohm has at least been met with something akin to a red carpet at local high schools, booster club meetings and fan fests. These people know him, and that brings instant cache. That’s the real value of coming home. There’s no sales pitch needed to convince fans to get excited or donors to write a big check or the administration to buy-in on a plan to get better.
Spurrier remembers arriving at Florida in 1990 to a far less optimistic welcome. The Gators had finished 7-5 the year before — and had actually lost at least five games in four straight seasons before he took the job.
Spurrier’s arrival wasn’t accompanied by lofty expectations, so he invited them.
“Some people thought I was a little cocky or brash,” Spurrier said, “because I told them we could win the SEC.”
In his first season, the Gators went 9-2. In his second season, they played in the Sugar Bowl. And for the next 10 years after that, Florida won at least nine games and finished ranked in the top 12 every season.
“There was the pressure I put on myself and the team,” Spurrier said. “We could be Alabama and Georgia and Tennessee and all those guys, but we had to believe. When you believe you can do it, your chances get a lot better.”
Brohm wants fans and his players to believe, too, so he’s not hiding from expectations. He’s embracing them. He’s seen what the town is like when Louisville’s good, when the whole program is humming and the city is along for the ride. To make that happen again in his hometown — what could be better?
So yes, there’s pressure. No one’s set higher expectations than he has.
He grew up here. His family, his wife’s family — they’re from here, too. His kids love Louisville. There’s nowhere else Brohm would rather be. He can’t mess that up.
“The last thing I want to do is be a failure and lose and lose the name I built there because we didn’t win,” Brohm said. “It motivates me to work harder, so that if for some reason it doesn’t work, I can look in the mirror and say, ‘OK, there’s nothing I could have done more to get this done.'”
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Chris Low, ESPN Senior Writer
Tennessee‘s Nico Iamaleava has been cleared medically to play Saturday against Georgia and is set to return as the Vols’ starting quarterback, sources told ESPN.
Iamaleava, a redshirt freshman, missed the second half of the 33-14 win over Mississippi State last week after suffering a blow to the head. He was listed as questionable earlier this week on the SEC availability report but has been removed in the latest report.
Iamaleava practiced this week, including team periods, and there was optimism among the staff that he was trending in the right direction and would be able to play. But the final call was made by medical personnel. Iamaleava was examined by doctors for what sources told ESPN were concussion-like symptoms after leaving the Mississippi State game. He did not return to the sideline for the second half.
Tennessee coach Josh Heupel said on Monday that he felt like Iamaleava would be in “great shape for Saturday” and noted that Iamaleava was with the team earlier Monday morning for meetings and team activities. The Vols’ first full-scale practice was Tuesday.
Iamaleava was having his most productive outing against an SEC team this season before leaving the game against Mississippi State. He completed 8 of 13 passes for 174 yards, no interceptions and a pair of touchdowns as Tennessee built a 20-7 halftime lead. In Iamaleava’s previous five SEC games, he had accounted for three touchdowns and turned it over five times. He was also sacked 15 times in those five games.
Redshirt senior Gaston Moore filled in for Iamaleava in the second half last week and finished 5-of-8 for 38 yards with no touchdowns or interceptions.
Getting Iamaleava back for the Georgia game is big news for Tennessee, which is right in the middle of the SEC championship race and College Football Playoff picture.
Receiver Dont’e Thornton (hand) has also been given the green light to play for Tennessee after earlier being listed as questionable.
Week 12 is here as we take a look at an SEC matchup that has College Football Playoff implications, learn about three of the nation’s top passers who all played under the same coach and see what’s going on in the Big 12.
No. 7 Tennessee will visit Sanford Stadium as it takes on conference opponent No. 12 Georgia on Saturday night. With so much at stake, what can each team improve on ahead of this SEC showdown?
The Big 12 has six teams in the hunt for a spot in the conference title game. With the final CFP rankings coming out in less than a month, what scenario looks most realistic for the conference in terms of how many of its teams could make the 12-team field?
Our college football experts preview big games and storylines ahead of the Week 12 slate.
Jump to a section:
Tennessee-Georgia | The coach behind three top QB passers
What’s going on in the Big 12 | Quotes of the Week
What has each team done well in conference play? What improvements can be made?
It has been a historic (and dominant) season for Tennessee’s defense, which has yet to give up more than 19 points in any of its nine games. Against SEC competition, the Volunteers lead the conference in scoring defense, giving up 16.7 points per game, and also lead the way in third-down defense and red zone defense. In other words, they’ve given up very little of anything on defense and are buoyed by a line that’s both talented and deep. Tennessee plays a ton of players up front and has been especially good at forcing key turnovers. In 23 trips inside its own 20-yard line, the Vols have forced six turnovers.
The reality is that Tennessee has played to its defense for much of this season out of necessity. The offense has lacked consistency and struggled to generate explosive plays, particularly in the passing game. It’s not all on redshirt freshman quarterback Nico Iamaleava, either. Iamaleava has thrown only five touchdown passes in six SEC games, and the Vols are tied for 10th with an average of 7.5 yards per completion. Iamaleava, who sustained a head injury in a win over Mississippi State last week, has been the victim of poor pass protection at times, and his receivers have dropped some costly passes. Iamaleava has also been shaky when it comes to overthrowing receivers and occasionally holding onto the ball too long.
The bright spot on offense for Tennessee has been running back Dylan Sampson, who has a school-record 20 rushing touchdowns. He has been a constant for the Vols on offense and has an SEC-leading 772 rushing yards and 11 touchdowns in conference play. As good as he has been, the Vols are probably going to need more from their passing game to win in Athens. — Chris Low
The Bulldogs didn’t do much of anything well in last week’s 28-10 loss at Ole Miss, which was the first time in a long time that Kirby Smart’s team was manhandled on the lines of scrimmage.
The good news for Georgia: It’s heading home to Sanford Stadium for the first time in more than a month. Georgia hasn’t dropped back-to-back games in the regular season since 2016, Smart’s first season, and it has bounced back after each of its past eight losses. The Bulldogs have won seven of their past eight games against the Volunteers.
For all of quarterback Carson Beck‘s turnovers, Georgia’s problems on offense probably start up front. The offensive line hasn’t done a good job of protecting him, and the Bulldogs’ lack of a potent running game has prevented them from effectively utilizing play-action passes. Their banged-up offensive line is going to face another formidable defensive front Saturday. Georgia has 27 dropped passes, fourth most in the FBS, according to TruMedia, so its receivers need to become more reliable as well. — Mark Schlabach
The coach behind three of college football’s top passers
Miami‘s Cam Ward, Washington State‘s John Mateer and North Texas‘ Chandler Morris are three of the top five quarterbacks in total offense this season in FBS. All three have the same head coach to thank for where they are today.
North Texas coach Eric Morris coached Ward at Incarnate Word and Washington State, recruited Mateer to the Cougars and signed Morris out of the transfer portal this offseason. All three hailed from Texas and are putting up big numbers this season. Morris, a Mike Leach disciple, knows what he’s looking for when it comes to QBs.
For each one, the journey was different. Ward was a zero-star recruit out of West Columbia, Texas, played in a wing-T offense and had no scholarship offers. But he showed up to Incarnate Word’s camp in 2019 and impressed with his quick release and accuracy. Morris saw appealing traits, too, in Ward’s multisport talents.
“He was such a good basketball player,” Morris said. “He was a bigger guy who could really handle the ball and move with ease. He had a twitch and quickness about him that was almost Mahomes-esque, where he’s not fast but you see him get out of the pocket and scramble and he’s nifty on his feet. He saw the floor great and shot the basketball great.
“It might be easier at an FCS school to take that risk, but it was something we were really confident in.”
Ward came in with extreme confidence, telling coaches he’d win the starting job over their returning all-conference player (and he did). He followed Morris to Pullman, Washington, out of loyalty to the coach who believed in him. Now he’s playing on a big stage, chasing a College Football Playoff bid and a Heisman Trophy with the No. 9 Hurricanes.
“It’s been fun to watch him flourish and get rewarded for being patient all these years,” Morris said.
When Morris left UIW to become Washington State’s offensive coordinator in 2022, he brought Ward but needed another QB. On his first recruiting trip in Texas, he stopped by to check out Mateer. The two-star recruit had a prolific senior season at Little Elm High School but was committed to Central Arkansas. Morris didn’t understand what FBS programs were missing and convinced Mateer to flip.
After two seasons behind Ward, Mateer has emerged as one of the top dual-threat QBs in college football with 2,332 passing yards, 805 rushing yards (excluding sacks) and 33 total TDs.
“I think the sky’s the limit,” Ward said. “He’s just so dang hard to tackle in the open field. Just a kid that loves ball and was under-recruited. The tide’s turned and he ends up being a big-time ballplayer.”
Chandler Morris was not an under-the-radar talent, but he’s having his best season yet at North Texas. He began his career at Oklahoma, won the starting job at TCU in 2022, sustained a knee injury in its season opener and then watched Max Duggan lead the Horned Frogs to the national title game.
Morris had a six-game stint as TCU’s starter last season before injuring the same knee. At UNT, he’s leading the nation’s No. 3 passing offense with 3,244 total yards and 30 TDs. Like Ward and Mateer, he processes information quickly, makes plays with his feet and throws outside the pocket with accuracy. If you ask Eric Morris, those traits are a must in today’s game. When paired with his version of Air Raid ball, you get big-time results.
“It’s been fun to see him get his swagger back,” Morris said.
Eric Morris points to Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson and Jayden Daniels. The QBs thriving at the highest level are becoming unstoppable by creating plays out of the pocket. And so are his guys.
“Everybody obviously watches Cam and the magic he makes,” Morris said, “but I think all three of ’em can make plays when it’s not a perfect play call. There are a bunch of really good pure passers nowadays, but that’s what sets them all apart.” — Max Olson
What’s going on in the Big 12?
Two-thirds of the way through the Big 12 schedule, six teams are still in the hunt for a title-game appearance: BYU (6-0), Colorado (5-1), Arizona State, Iowa State, Kansas State and West Virginia, all of which are 4-2. There are too many variables to discuss all the scenarios, but the conference has a straightforward tiebreaker policy.
It’s possible to come up with scenarios in which the Big 12 could get two bids, one bid or shut out altogether.
For the Big 12 to get two bids, BYU probably would have to finish 12-0, then lose a close game in the championship to a two-loss team (Colorado, Iowa State or Kansas State). A 12-1 BYU team would get consideration, but it would become a question of how far it would fall and what else happens around the country.
The most likely scenario is the Big 12 will get one team in: whichever one wins the conference title game. If BYU wins out, it will have a bye, but if it slips up even once — or if another team wins the title — Boise State might be in position to get a first-round bye, assuming the Broncos win out.
The doomsday scenario in the Big 12 is if the conference champion has two or three losses and Army and Boise State win out. If that’s the case, there is a good possibility both of those schools would be ranked ahead of the Big 12 champion and the Big 12 would be left out. — Kyle Bonagura
Quotes of the Week
“They’re stubborn, man. They’re physical. He is an elite runner. The runs they run are sometimes nontraditional. They run some runs that other people don’t run because of the space in the box. He’s very patient. He hits small creases. He’s hard to tackle. How many touchdowns has he got in the SEC? Twenty-something? That’s crazy. In the SEC? The SEC is the hardest league in the world to run the ball in on because they’ve got the most size defensive lineman, and he continues to do it at a crazy pace to me.” — Kirby Smart on Volunteers tailback Dylan Sampson.
“I never try to take a step back. I try to take a step up. I’m always putting my head out the window. I’m trying to see around the corner, not trying to see straight ahead. It’s normalcy for everybody to see what’s in front of them. I’m trying to see around the corner. That’s the relationship I have with the Lord, to help me see around the corner so I can help navigate these young men as well as the women that’s attached to our program to a better way and a better life. So I don’t get caught up in the ‘You go, boys!’ or the ‘You ain’t nothing.’ You know, if I would’ve listened to you guys earlier, I’ve gotta listen to you now. So I might as well just put some headphones on and block you out. Notice I don’t have a sponsor for headphones, but that would’ve been a good placement for a sponsor.” — Deion Sanders when asked if he takes time to step back and appreciate the magnitude of Colorado’s turnaround.
“I hope anyone who has ambitions about playing in the National Football League, let’s see what you’ve got against Clemson. Let’s see you play your best game here. If you weren’t focused for Virginia, which I can’t imagine you weren’t — and I’m not saying anybody was not focused — but if they didn’t get your focus, I imagine Clemson will get your focus when you put the tape on.” — Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi on whether playing Clemson gets the attention of his players.
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