RedBirdRizing

It’s actually difficult for me in times like this. Obviously we’ve ran our shows and spaces that get good attention from Louisville fans. Heck myself and my friends that do it have been labeled “The Brohm Camp” by certain local media members. I’m not questioning Jeff’s ability to be a successful HC here at Louisville, because he’s been one and still is. I’m questioning the people around him. A few months ago I asked Jeff point blank at ACC Media Days: “What is your goal for this season” And he responded “To make the College Football Playoff” You can’t do it the way you’re doing things right now. Changes have to be made, and it’s a hard discussion to have. I like Steve, I like Mark, I Brian, I like Greg. But we have to evolve and adapt, and that won’t happen how things are currently going. I know this post will make its way around. If you’re offended by the post, I apologize but certain things have to be said. Please don’t take my credentials. We all want Louisville football to be better and this is the only way I see this becoming a consistent CFP program. Go Cards, see yall in a few days in Raleigh.

Day after coffee thoughts: Yesterday was genuinely the most frustrating experience I’ve had since the Jeff Brohm regime has started. It showed every single flaw with this program and highlighted how ill prepared we are to advance the program in the direction we all want it to go. Long manifesto incoming…. Before I get too far into this, I don’t want to take anything away from Wake Forest. They are an expertly coached team and Jake Dickert will be a big name coach in the SEC in 5 years. They are underfunded and still get more out of their program. I’m not just saying this because they beat us either, go back on our YouTube and in June I said “this is the game where they will beat you if you aren’t ready.” They wanted the game more than we did and they completed coached circles around us, and that’s the problem. I get it, the officials were awful and a lot of those bad calls caused swings in the game, you still should have won. You have a massive talent advantage and you couldn’t get it done. Good teams don’t let officials cause them to lose. Miami, FSU, GT, and SMU deal with these same ACC officials that have “slip ups” every week. If you want someone to fully blame the refs, my show isn’t the show for you, go listen to the radio tomorrow morning and you’ll get plenty of that. The first half defense was truly horrid, it was Brian Van Gorder levels of bad. This is the most talented defense you’ve assembled in ten years and we’ve completely pissed it away. The defense was built in the portal to run a 425 2 high scheme with man tendencies (and that’s what you’ve ran under English). We don’t do that anymore, it’s a 3 high and to be honest you’re really pushing the boundaries of being a true 425. The safeties and DBs are constantly out of position and it’s obvious they aren’t comfortable with the scheme. It’s complete amateur hour of defensive scheming. You know how we could’ve fixed all this? By having an actual coaching search for a DC, the Ron English situation is genuinely one of the weirdest things I’ve seen with Louisville football. It happened but you have to move on. You hitched your wagon to one single guy and he was hired before you really had an option to bring him in. So you did arguably the laziest thing possible and promoted two guys with no meaningful experience. Then you replaced those position coaches with guys with little to no experience. Serious CFP contenders don’t run their program this way. Here’s the hard part for me also, I really like Steve Ellis and Mark Ivey. They were great position coaches, but obviously the spot is too big for them. Now the offense. The freaking offense. Outside of Sark and Lincoln there are very few HC that still call the offense. There’s a multitude of reasons, but the biggest is that you can’t be in the booth and it causes play calls to come in late. Sound familiar? I’m not questioning Jeff’s offense IQ, he’s forgotten more about football in his life than I or the average fan has learned. But the days of Jeff calling the plays need to go away. It’s ran its course. Now the question becomes who calls the plays? Is it Brian? Because just like the DC conversation, serious CFP contenders don’t let a guy who’s never called plays call plays. The final issue with this unholy trinity of the state of the program. Player acquisition. Point blank majority of your “big gets” in the portal have been bad to downright awful. I’m not going to single out a lot of these kids but there’s one in particular I want to highlight. Issac Brown, now this isn’t me going after Issac on a personal level. He’s a great kid and can be a great football player. But the decision to bring him back was such a massive misstep. The amount of money tied into him when you have glaring holes is insane. Especially when you add into the situation that our best RB currently is his “backup”. There’s a reason in the NFL that RBs are under paid, and you’re seeing why in your roster construction.