What Louisville coach Jeff Brohm said about 'top-quality' Notre Dame football

Many moons ago Louisville head coach Jeff Brohm had a scholarship offer to play quarterback at the University of Notre Dame. Only one problem: so did Rick Mirer, the No. 1 QB recruit in the country in the class of 1989.

“Even though I’m not real smart, I knew I probably shouldn’t go there if I want to see the field,” Brohm said this week. “So that ruled that one out.”

Brohm, who ultimately chose to sign with Louisville, spoke glowingly about Notre Dame regardless in his press conference previewing No. 10 Notre Dame (5-1) and No. 25 Louisville (5-0). He said any time a program like Louisville gets to play the Fighting Irish, it’s exciting for the players and fans.

Here is everything else Brohm said about Notre Dame.

Opening statement

“We’re definitely looking forward to this week. I know our fans are looking forward to playing a top-quality opponent like Notre Dame in front of a great atmosphere at our stadium. It’s just a tremendous opportunity for our football team this Saturday night.

“Once again, we got to learn from the last game and how to correct some mistakes, get better, be more efficient and try to play as solid as we can for 60 minutes. We’ll work hard this week on doing that and also preparing for Notre Dame.

“When you look at Notre Dame, extremely talented, very good on film. Very, very strong on defense. Strong, athletic, they’ll cover you. They rank in the top of the nation in a lot of categories, so it’ll be a challenge for us to be efficient and move the football.

“On offense, they’re going to pound you and run the football and utilize their experienced quarterback, really good running back and tight end and then work from there. So we’ll have our hands full. We’re going to have to win a lot of the small battles, not turn the ball over, be efficient, be good in the red zone, find ways to get turnovers. That’s going to be the recipe for trying to come out with a victory. But I know we’re looking forward to playing a really high-quality opponent on our home field.”

On what went wrong in only scoring 13 points in a win over NC State

“Well, NC State blitzed us and blitzed us a lot. Had everybody up there stopping the run and getting after the quarterback. Obviously we didn’t have enough good answers to counter that. As we look back on it, finding ways to have answers for all-out pressure. This was all-out pressure. Cover-zero pressure. I could have done a better job of helping us protect some things up and throw the ball over their head. When we finally made plays it was throwing the ball over their head because they were sitting on routes, stacking the box and coming after the quarterback.”

On blocking out the fanfare that comes with playing a team like Notre Dame

“I actually don’t think it’ll be a distraction. Our guys have worked really hard. They know what’s ahead of us. We try to treat everything as a one-game season. Without question, this is an unbelievable opportunity for our football team to go out and play a high-quality opponent.

“As I said earlier this season, the schedule just continues to get tougher and tougher and more challenging which means we got to get better and better. We have to get better each and every week in order to win. That’ll be a constant throughout the rest of the season, and it’ll start this week.

“But when you have your fans behind you and on the field and loud and in the stands, you got to feed off that. We got to find ways to be efficient, make some plays, get them behind us, affect the other team and use that as ways to gain an advantage.”

On Notre Dame quarterback Sam Hartman

“Anytime you have that experience, it’s a plus, and he definitely utilizes that. He’s very calm in the pocket. He’s played a lot of football. He’s played in a lot of different offenses. This offense fits him very well because they run the football, utilize the tight ends, ask him to do enough but not carry the football team on his back. But when he has to, he could do that for sure. So I think as you watch him play, just like every quarterback, and just what they did to him here last year, if you can apply some pressure, get after him, and make the decisions harder for him, cover receivers tighter and get in the backfield, it affects everybody. It definitely affected him this past year when they played him.

“So that’s a key for everybody, and definitely for a guy with his type of experience. If you look at the last game against Duke, he was very efficient. There was a period there where they got after him and blitzed him quite a bit and they had him on his heels, and then when they dropped eight on fourth and 16 to try to seal the game, he made them pay for it. I just think he’s very smart, he’s very intelligent, he’s played a lot of football. And if you make one or two mistakes, he’s going to capitalize and turn it into a touchdown.”

On the Notre Dame defense

“This will be the most talented defense we’ve played to date without question. They’ve got talent and size and athleticism at all the positions. Up front, they’re big and stout and stop the run and get after the quarterback. The linebacking core is athletic, they can run and tackle and it shows up on film.

“In the secondary, some really, really good players led by a dominant corner on one side. And they don’t give up many yards in the passing game so they’re going to guard you and man you up and going to apply pressure at the same time and not give up a lot of easy completions. This is going to be a great challenge for us on offense to be efficient, move the ball, get points.”

On if he considered retaining former Purdue assistant Marcus Freeman on the 2017 Purdue staff

“Sure there [I did]. I think Marcus is a really fine coach. He has coached a lot of football. He was a great player. Anytime you come in as a new staff, you talk to everybody and see where everything stands. He had opportunities and things didn’t happen where we kept him on there. He went and had success since.

“He’s done a great job as a defensive coordinator and as a head coach. He’s at one of the most prestigious schools in the country leading them right now and they’re playing really good football at a high level. He’s done a fantastic job. He has really good coaches on his staff. We’re going to have our hands full. We’re going to have to coach well, play well and really be efficient in how we do things in all three segments because this is a well-coached football team led by Coach Freeman.”

On Louisville being 5-0 and No. 25 in the nation

“For our fans, our players, families, anything like that, it’s always great. For us, the ranking at the end is what matters and we understand that. I’ve been on teams where we started 6-0 and we lost the next six games. I’ve been on other teams where we’ve started bad and we found a way to win a lot of big games. So this thing can change really fast. As soon as you think that you’re comfortable and going in the right direction, you’re going to get hit in the mouth and knocked to the ground.

“We got to push forward. This team we’re playing, if we are not ready to play and hitting on all cylinders, it’ll be a long day. We have to play really good football in order to win. I think we know that some mistakes we’ve made in the last few weeks, we’ve got to correct them and try not to allow them to happen again. We need to play a tough brand of football if we want to win against Notre Dame.”