Everything Louisville coach Jeff Brohm said ahead of facing SMU

Louisville coach Jeff Brohm spoke with the media ahead of the matchup with SMU. Here’s what he had to say as the Top 25 Cardinals face the Mustangs Saturday.

Opening statement: “SMU’s playing about as good as anybody in the country. They’ve got a  lot of skill on offense. They’ve settled on their quarterback. He’s really good, he can run and throw. They’ve got speed at the skill positions. They’ve scored a lot of points here lately. Defense plays aggressive, leads the nation in turnovers. So, we’ll have our hands full. We’re going to have to play really good football. We’ll have to be very well prepared and come out and execute better. But that’s why you play the game and it will be a good test for us.”

On facing another offensive minded HC: “I think he’s done a really good job settling on a quarterback who is multitalented. He can run and throw. He can throw the ball accurately. He’s athletic. They’ve got speed at the skill positions. You can see that once he settled on this quarterback, this offense has taken off and they’ve put up a lot of points. They get it to their playmakers, they play with good tempo. The defense plays aggressive and they’ve just kind of been playing well the last couple weeks and kind of, I think, put it all together. I think they’re going to play aggressive. That’s their style. We’re going to have to play aggressive and execute well. It will be a really tough test for us.”

On Louisville’s penalties vs. Georgia Tech and mistakes vs. Notre Dame: “We’re always concerned that we need to get better. Now, when you face good football teams you’re not going to win every play. There’s definitely some things we could have done better. I thought we handled the crowd noise pretty well the last game until the end of the game, it got loud and it screwed some things up for us. We’ve had some penalties, but we’ve been pretty good at keeping the penalties down, so we’ve got to try and continue to have as few as we possibly can. There’s all kinds of things to clean up, but you’re going to have that now that we’re facing really good football teams every week. We just have to find a way to be sharper, win the turnover battle, eliminate big plays and execute in critical, timely situations, have a good plan for that, as well, and be better. I just think it’s a lot of small things that add up when you’re facing good teams that you can’t have.”

On feeling like beat yourself at Notre Dame, glass half full during Louisville practice: “I think you analyze every game and you try to improve on your weaknesses and things that you made mistakes on. We got some things going early and then we had some critical turnovers that gave them the ball around the 50, then gave them the ball inside the 10-yard line. Next thing you know it’s 21-7, so now we’ve got to change a little bit of what we do and have a little more sense of urgency. We’re still right in it. Didn’t convert some key short yardage situations, I need to do a better job there to make sure we have the best plan and we’re able to execute it. When you get in a situation where you have to pass a little bit more, you have to be able to protect a little bit better and that affected us for a while until kind of got that cleaned up. Those things happen. I think we’ve got competitive players. I think they want to compete and play and we know that last year we found a way to win a lot of close games. We’re going to have to find a way to win close games this year and that means doing a lot of the small things correctly.”

On Louisville’s aggressive nature: “I think we’ve been aggressive on fourth down the first three games and converted quite a few of them. This game, obviously, it didn’t happen. I didn’t love my option call on the first fourth-and-1. I thought we got the look exactly that we had, I probably would take that one back even though we did get the look exactly what we wanted, we just didn’t get the edge. We were a little aggressive around the 50-yard line. We did have someone open over the middle, but we couldn’t protect long enough, so unfortunately that one didn’t work. Then, at the end of the game, trying to get to first down, changing the personnel and calling the play, the communication took longer, Tyler couldn’t hear and some things made it look out of whack there. But we wanted to get the first down, for sure. We still had a little bit over a minute left to move the ball. Some things we could have done better there, so we’re making sure we’re analyzing that. But we do want to err on being aggressive, but you’ve got to convert those and there are things that we could have done better, especially me. So we’ll try to work hard to fix that.”

On communication issues/tempo/huddle and sideline slower than anticipated: “No, we weren’t trying to work down (the playclock). We were in a no-huddle situation, we were moving the ball somewhat, mixing in some run with the pass. It got to a third down, I thought we got the first down, they said we didn’t, so it’s a matter of fourth-and-less than 1. If you go fast and the personnel you have, which is not conducive to running the ball and they’re bringing everybody, I don’t know that you’re getting the first down. You have to beat the numbers. We decided to change the personnel. It took a long time to call the play. Tyler couldn’t hear me because it was loud and then the communication at the line of scrimmage took too long. Yes, I’d like to have that back and like to go a little faster, but we decided to try and get the first down. Because of being on the road and the noise, it was a little discombobulated and took longer than we’d like, for sure.”

On Teddy Bridgewater’s Hall of Fame induction and jersey honor, legacy at Louisville: “Well, we greatly admire Teddy and his accomplishments here and in the NFL. I think he’s been a great ambassador to this program. He came here and took this program to great heights by not only his ability on the field, but great leadership skills, great person off the field, really set the stage for what being a University of Louisville quarterback is all about. Then he took it to the NFL and was a great player there before he had an injury that was tough to come back from, but he did so you’ve got to give him credit for that, as well. I think his demeanor and his love for this university was definitely displayed. I know as coaches and players, we appreciate all of it. Now he’s into coaching, he’s doing a great job. We’re happy and excited for him.”

On ESPN story about SMU – what happened before is legal “throw their money at the program” – concerns competing long term because of oil money SMU has: “Well, you have more knowledge than me on that. Without question, I’m sure they have access to whatever they need. College athletics now, you can’t predict what’s going to happen. Your question is thorough and I’m not sure I have all the answers to that one. I can speak from the football side of it that, you know what, there’s a ton of talent down in that area, they’ve gotten a lot of transfers from good programs and they’re playing good football. So, for us, we can’t worry about that as much, we’ve just got to try to win the game. I do know that they’re going to be a great addition to the conference, they’re a great football team and they have access to what they need to have great success.”

On Louisville’s depth and injuries at cornerback: “Unfortunately Quincy wasn’t able to play. We’re hopeful to get him back this week, we’ll see, I can’t tell right now. I think Taz was able to play with an injury. I give him a lot of credit, he hung in there and played a long time. Corey Thorton had hand surgery two weeks ago, plays with a cast and he hung in there and played the entire game. So, that position is a little thinner and a little banged up, but they played hard. For the most part I thought we did a really good job at corner. There were one or two times that we could have, maybe, done a little bit better, but they did a pretty good job. We busted a couple man coverage deals. It wasn’t on our corner, it was on some other people that we need to clean up that hurt us. But I really think that we can get them healthier this week. We’ll need every one of them because these guys have speed at the skill positions.”

On Louisville winning close games last year and the common denominator in winning close games: “One, I think is mindset. You’ve got to have tough young men that are going to compete to the end and play hard every snap. We try to build that and force that, really ingrain that in our guys to keep playing as hard as you can – have a good attitude and play hard to the end and good things will happen. We’ll try to be aggressive and if we make mistakes it might be by being overly aggressive and hopefully that wins more than it loses, but it doesn’t always happen. I do think our guys know we’re going to not be scared to adjust and adapt through the course of the game if we’ve got to do things to win. We had our chance in this game (Notre Dame), even with everything that happened, to get the ball back with a chance to go down and at least tie the score with a touchdown. Unfortunately, the short-yardage situation, we weren’t able to convert. But I like our makeup. I know that from here on we’ve got really good teams and teams on our schedule have good records, they’ve played well, some that maybe weren’t – according to experts – supposed to have that type of success, but they have. We’ll have our hands full every week and that starts next week against, right now, one of the hottest teams in our conference as far as scoring points and playing aggressive defense, getting turnovers. They’ve had two dominant wins the last two weeks against TCU and Florida State that are very impressive when you watch it on video.”

On SMU’s past two wins and the big point total: “Right now they’re hot and they’ve got momentum. They’re trusting each other, they’re executing at a high level. Like I said, the quarterback, settling on him has really, the offense has taken off. This is a young man who’s a 6-foot quarterback, but he can throw it. He’s got a great arm, he can run, he throws well on the move, he can escape the rush. You have to affect him or he’s going to get it to those playmakers. He’s got plenty of speed at the playmaking positions. I just think the last two weeks they’ve played as good as anybody in our conference by scoring points and being aggressive on defense, especially on their third-down package. Right now they’re gelling and playing at a high level.”

On SMU’s defense and the turnovers the Mustangs force: “I think they’re very sound on first and second down. They don’t give up a lot of big plays throughout that and then on third down they get very exotic and they come after the quarterback. They affect the quarterback, so they’ve been able to get turnovers in those situations. They do some things that other teams aren’t as aggressive doing, so. I give them credit. They’re well coached. Right now they’re believing in what they’re doing. When your offense is having success it gives you the flexibility to play more aggressive, which they have done and it has definitely shown on video.”