BBN we’re rolling on with our 2023 Kentucky Football opponent previews and today we’re on to the final opponent of 2023, the Louisville Cardinals. If you’ve missed our other previews, you can check them out here:
Series Outlook
Kentucky and Louisville first met in 1912 (a 41-0 Kentucky win). Kentucky leads the series 19-15 and has won 5 of the last 6 meetings (including 4 straight). Kentucky won last year’s meeting 26-13 with Will Levis throwing 2 TD and the Kentucky defense forced 3 TO that eventually shut the door on Louisville who seemingly came into the game just trying to keep it close after 3 consecutive blow-outs.
2022 Season
Coming into 2022 Louisville there was skepticism around HC Scott Satterfield. Getting blown out three straight times by your rival will do that and there was a social media campaign in December of 2021 to bring back Jeff Brohm (led by a hilarious Twitter account). In typical Louisville fashion that campaign was derailed by administrator drama, and they had to settle for year 4 of Satterfield.
With the vibes being weird Satterfield got out to a 2-3 start with a blowout loss to Syracuse and a bad loss to Boston College. Rumors of Satterfield being fired started circulating but he somehow survived and ultimately righted the ship and won 5 of 7 games down the stretch incluidng blowing out top 10 (at the time) ranked Wake Forest.
Offensively the Cards were led by grizzled veteran Malik Cunningham, but injuries hampered him, and sophomore Brock Domann got significant snaps during the season. Cunningham threw for 1800 yards but just 8 TD while also running for more than 500 yards and another 12 TD on the ground.
Louisville had an impressive running game with RS-Sophomore Jawhar Jordan having a break-out year at RB and rushed for over 800 yards on an impressive 5.7 yards per rush. JR Tiyon Evans added another 500 yards on the ground with 6.3 yards per rush. The Cards also had a 1000-yard receiver in Tyler Hudson but not much else behind him.
Defensively Louisville was at its best when being aggressive and they were able to do that with Mohammed Sanogo, Yasir Abdullah, Yaya Diaby, and Monty Montgomery creating havoc at the line of scrimmage. Those 4 combined for 49 TFL and 29 sacks and the secondary benefited from all that pressure and were able to make plays behind them.
2023 Outlook
Satterfield is gone after his agent was able to hoodwink Cincinnati into taking him and in steps Jeff Brohm. Louisville’s favorite son is back in the 502 after 6 years at Purdue and the excitement is palpable around the program.
That means Louisville is in the midst of a total makeover as Brohm transitions from Satterfield’s running offense to a pass happy approach. He’s brought in his former Purdue QB Jack Plummer from Cal to help the transition. Last year Plummer threw for over 3000 yards and 21 TD in the PAC-12 but most importantly brings familiarity with Brohm’s offense. Highly touted freshmen Pierce Clarkson is also drawing rave reviews coming out of Fall Camp. We know Addidas paid a lot of money for him to be on Louisville’s campus so I wouldn’t be shocked to see him integrated sooner rather than later.
Star RB Jawhar Jordan is back, and sophomore Maurice Turner is coming off a good freshmen season and expected to slot in as his back-up. The Cardinals will have a huge question mark at WR with the only returning production coming from Amari Huggins-Bruce with a bunch of unknowns.
On defense the Cards are replacing a ton of production in the front 7 but a solid secondary is returning. The Cards are radically shifting schemes on defense with Mark Hagen and Ron English taking over. At Purdue they utilized a 4-2-5 which, in theory, should be a good move with all the talent UL has in the secondary.
Nobody has utilized the portal more than Jeff Brohm (except Coach Prime) and it was probably necessary. The culture at Louisville felt soft and Brohm recognized there is a path for Louisville to be competitive if things move quickly. He has revamped both lines through the portal and will be expecting several portal additions at WR to make an impact.
The real story for the 2023 Louisville program is the schedule. The ACC is already weak, and UL avoided the two best teams in the conference in Clemson and FSU. While also getting their two toughest opponents (Kentucky and Notre Dame) at home. Normally there is a lot of grace given to a coach in his first year, but Louisville wasn’t terrible last season, and this schedule presents an opportunity that Louisville might not get again.
Who Wins
Louisville is probably going to be 8-3 and a top 25 team coming into this game and their fans are going to be worked into a frenzy. Kentucky will win this 31-21 and is able to control the game on defense. Louisville has decided to change a lot and Brohm likely isn’t the savior everyone thinks he is. Football is still about having dudes making plays and I don’t think Louisville has enough of them on offense to light up a legitimate SEC defense.
I think Kentucky finishes the season 8-4 which gets the program back into a decent bowl. Might not be the special season some want but it’s still a solid step forward from the mess that was last season.
