So we go again for another night game in ACC land. For the 4th time in history (and 4th meeting in a decade) Notre Dame will face Louisville, a team going through a fresh new start and currently unbeaten. The line from Vegas is awfully similar to last week’s game against Duke but there’s reason for optimism in this matchup for the Irish.

Head coach Jeff Brohm came home to Louisville, a place where he played in college and coached as an assistant in the past, after 7 years as the head man at Purdue. He was a modest 2 games over .500 with the Boilermakers but finished the last 2 seasons at 17-9 with a bit of an upward trajectory. When Scott Satterfield bolted for Cincinnati (a move he may regret) it made sense to bring back Brohm.

Notre Dame (-6.5) at Louisville

Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium
Louisville, Kentucky
Date: Saturday, October 7, 2023
Time: 7:30 PM ET
TV: ABC
Series: 2-1-0 Notre Dame

Coming into Saturday night, Louisville remains a bit of a mystery. They’ve played 4 Power 5 programs but the strength of schedule to date has left something to be desired as those teams are currently averaging out to the 79th nationally according to FEI.

Louisville’s Offense

Jeff Brohm’s little brother Brian Brohm followed him to Louisville from Purdue as the offensive coordinator. They also brought back 6th-year senior quarterback Jack Plummer (6-5, 215) who played for Brohm for 4 seasons at Purdue and will be facing Notre Dame for the 3rd straight season on his 3rd different team (Plummer spent 2022 at California).

Plummer has shown flashes of consistency throughout his career and sits 2nd in the ACC in passer rating, although he’s tied for the conference lead with 6 interceptions and outside of an enormous game against BC has thrown for 1,018 yards at 61.2% completion with 6 touchdowns–roughly bang average for an ACC quarterback in 2023.

Plummer has been in college seemingly since 2013.

Louisville’s main running back will be 5th-year senior Jawhar Jordan (5-10, 185) who is shifty and transferred from Syracuse a few years ago. He led the Cardinals in rushing last year and has 1,596 yards and 11 touchdowns in his career combined with a healthy 6.4 yards per carry while at Louisville. We’ll see backup 5th-year senior Isaac Guerendo (6-1, 225) carry the ball and add plenty of size following a transfer from Wisconsin this off-season.

The Cards have been rotating mostly 5 receivers this season with returning starter and junior Ahmari Huggins-Bruce (5-11, 170) second on the team in catches (13), yards (191), and touchdowns (2). Sophomore Chris Bell (6-2, 225) adds size and is coming off a career high 85 yards last week against NC State.

The team also hit the portal hard bringing in redshirt sophomore Jimmy Calloway (6-0, 190) from Tennessee and sophomore Kevin Coleman (5-11, 180) from Jackson State. The highlight of this transfer group is 5th-year senior Jamari Thrash (6-1, 185) who was All-Sun Belt at Georgia State and has been on fire in 2023 with 444 yards and 5 touchdowns so far.

Both of the Cardinals’ tight ends in redshirt freshman Nate Kurisky (6-3, 235) and 2022 Wofford transfer 5th-year senior Josh Lifson (6-3, 235) are new to their co-starting roles and have combined for 7 receptions and 54 yards this year.

5th-year senior center Bryan Hudson (6-5, 305) returns and multi-year starter and 5th-year senior Renato Brown (6-4, 315) has moved from right tackle to right guard. Redshirt sophomore left guard Michael Gonzalez (6-4, 305) made a few starts in 2021 and returns for 2023.

At the tackle spots, Louisville turned to 6th-year senior Willie Tyler (6-6, 320) in a transfer via Iowa Western CC, Texas, and Rutgers on the left side and 5th-year senior Eric Miller (6-7, 305) comes in on the right side after a lengthy starting career at Purdue.

Louisville’s Defense

This is now the 5th season since Louisville escaped the coaching of Brian VanGorder on defense. Like the offense, Brohm brought with him from Purdue his co-defensive coordinators Ron English and Mark Hagen who are transitioning the Cardinals to a 4-2-5 scheme.

Louisville didn’t return a lot of starters on defense but like other spots on their roster they hit the transfer portal early and often.

Junior defensive end Ashton Gillotte (6-3, 270) is having a big year with 5 sacks and a ton of quarterback pressures so far. Fifth-year senior Ramon Puryear (6-3, 270), redshirt junior Dezmond Tell (6-1, 290), and Georgia State transfer senior Jeff Clark (6-0, 290) are all in the rotation on the defensive line, too.

Gillotte is a name to know for the Cardinals. 

Former Arizona State transfer and 5th-year senior defensive tackle Jermayne Lole (6-3, 310) missed most of last season with an elbow injury and hasn’t played in the last 2 games for Louisville this season.

Stanford grad transfer Stephen Herron (6-4, 240) picked up a pair of sacks against Notre Dame last year and is now starting at Louisville’s pass-rushing Leo position.

Redshirt sophomore Jaylin Alderman (6-1, 230) is holding down the Mike linebacker spot while fellow redshirt sophomore TJ Quinn (6-1, 230) is starting on the weak-side. Both are new starters for 2023.

Louisville suffered a big blow when starting safety M.J. Griffin was ruled out for the season in August due to a lower leg injury. He had transferred from Temple prior to 2022 and was coming off a strong first year with the Cardinals.

Senior safety Josh Minkins (6-2, 200) returns as a starter and had been dealing with a hamstring issue but appears good to go for Saturday night. Redshirt sophomore Benjamin Perry (6-3, 205) has won a starting job this year while Louisville brought in senior Baylor transfer Devin Neal (6-0, 210) and 5th-year senior Cam’Ron Kelly (6-2, 210) for more safety help. Kelly played 4 years at North Carolina, briefly transferred to Virginia for the spring, and ultimately landing at Louisville.

Jarvis Brownlee (6-0, 190) transferred in from Florida State prior to 2022 and returns as starter at cornerback. Fifth-year senior Quincy Riley (6-0, 185) also transferred in prior to 2022 from Middle Tennessee State and has won a starting job for 2023. The Cards also use 5th-year senior Storm Duck (6-1, 200) who transferred in after 4 seasons at North Carolina.

Prediction

For the matchup last week, I had plenty of trepidation concerning Notre Dame’s ability to mow right through Duke. The Blue Devils were bringing a much improved defense and were led by a blossoming dual-threat quarterback capable of doing a lot of damage on his own.

This matchup against Louisville–although with a very similar point spread–feels a lot different to me.

I have a hard time rating Jeff Brohm and how to properly diagnose this Louisville team. He brought so much of his setup from Purdue, including his former quarterback, plus the program is chalk full of transfers from all over the country. Add in a really weak schedule to date and the Cardinals might be pretty good but really haven’t proven they are in that discussion yet.

There are 17 remaining undefeated Power 5 programs and 10 of those reside inside the FEI top 13 rankings. Louisville are the lowest rated of the bunch at 37th overall.

3 Keys to Victory

#1 Avoid the Road Surge

Against Duke, I was worried about a quick start from the home team and the ramifications of trying to claw things back on the road against a defense that could be a problem. Obviously, that didn’t happen. While reports were it was a solid atmosphere in Durham, pretty much any other night game in the Power 5 world will be a little more hostile and difficult to play in comparatively speaking.

It’ll be important this weekend to take the crowd out of the game and establish some momentum early.

#2 Take Away Thrash

This looks to be a fairly promising Louisville offense with one caveat we’ll get to below. Generally, I think the Brohm Brothers do a good job with their scheme and obviously they hit the transfer portal jackpot with receiver Jamari Thrash.

Thrash, great name. 

NC State was by far the toughest defense Louisville played to date and they limited Thrash to a more modest 3 receptions for 44 yards and he didn’t get into the end zone for the first time this season. That was with a game-high 7 targets while allowing a 31-yard completion so the Wolfpack largely kept him under wraps. Hopefully, Notre Dame can do the same.

#3 Score 4 or 5 Touchdowns

Notre Dame is coming off back-to-back games against 2 of the toughest defenses they’ll face in the regular season. Scoring only 35 points felt like a big disappointment and against Louisville hopefully they can get back on track as the pass catching group is now a little healthier.

This is a Louisville defense with a few standouts but overall it’s a pretty average group. That’s why when NC State only managed 3.59 yards per play last week (their lowest since the 2016 hurricane game against Notre Dame and lowest in a non-hurricane game since a 10/4/14 visit to Clemson) it was deemed such a disaster that the Wolfpack made a quarterback change for this weekend.

Jack Plummer has thrown over 1,000 passes in his college career and I think he’s a pretty average quarterback. If the Irish can get a decent amount of pressure on him–and tackle well against some of the smaller, shiftier Louisville pass catchers–I don’t think the Cardinals’ run game (20 yards last week against NC State whoa!) can support a balanced enough attack.

Irish win, somewhat comfortably.

Notre Dame 37

Louisville 21