LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The 2024 college football season is finally here. Louisville will make their long-awaited return to L&N Stadium this Saturday, taking on FCS foe Austin Peay.
Here are some of the more notable storylines heading into Saturday’s game:
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In this current climate of college football where players can freely transfer as much as they please, most programs are entering the 2024 season with a fair amount of roster turnover in some form or fashion. Well, Louisville and Austin Peay are no different.
For the Cardinals, they are welcome 41 scholarship newcomers to their 2024 roster. 27 of these fresh faces are transfers from other collegiate programs, while the other 14 are incoming freshmen joining Louisville out of the high schools ranks.
While nearly half of Louisville’s roster are players that are new for the 2024 season, the aforementioned newcomers provide a large boost to the team overall. The incoming crop of transfers are regarded as the No. 15 portal haul in college football, while their high school class ranked No. 38 overall. Altogether withe returners, the Cardinals boast the 36th-most talented team in the FBS, according to the 247Sports Talent Composite.
As for Austin Peay? Well, their roster flip is a lot more dramatic than Louisville’s. The Governors are bringing back just 43 players overall
from last season’s roster, including just two starters: offensive lineman Chandler Kirton and defensive lineman Hosea Knifeley Jr.
The two returning starters – and the other 41 players that are coming back – were part of a successful Austin Peay squad last season. The Governors went 9-3, and won the United Athletic Conference to clinch a berth in the FCS Playoffs.
A New Head Governor in Town
The reason that Austin Peay lost so many players from last season is because they found themselves in the same situation Louisville did last offseason. Not long after the end of the season, head coach Scott Walden left to take the vacant respective position at UTEP.
With that, most of the Govs’ top playmakers from 2023 – such as All-UAC running back Jevon Jackson – wound up entering the portal to either follow Walden or go somewhere else. A handful of others, such as quarterback and UAC Offensive Player of the Year Mike DiLiello, simply exhausted their eligibility.
In place of Walden, Austin Peay went with Jeff Faris as the next head coach of the Governors. Faris had spent the last two seasons as the tight ends coach at UCLA, and in his final season in Westwood, Bruins tight ends recorded 32 receptions for 613 yards and seven touchdowns.
Faris had spent the previous ten seasons in various capacities at Duke. He was a graduate assistant for two seasons, spent the next four years as their wide receivers coach, then the next three coaching the tight ends, and spent his final seasoin in Durham as their co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. The Tennessee native and safety played for four seasons with the Blue Devils before kicking off his coaching career.
Of course, with a new head coach comes a brand new coaching staff. Former Jackson State quarterbacks coach Quinn Billerman is taking over as the Governors’ offensive coordinator, while East Carolina safeties coach Tripp Weaver is now Austin Peay’s defensive coordinator.
WR Ahmari Huggins-Bruce Returns to Town
In a surprising turn of events, one the players who transferred away from Louisville following the end of the 2023 season has returned to the program just days before they kick off their season. On Thursday, the Cardinals announced that wide receiver Ahmari Huggins-Bruce had officially rejoined the program.
Huggins-Bruce transferred to South Carolina this past January, but last week, rumors had flooded social media regarding Huggins-Bruce’s status with the Gamecocks, as well as his potential interest in returning to the Cardinals. This past Thursday, he officially re-enrolled at Louisville, and South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer confirmed that Huggins-Bruce was no longer part of the Gamecocks’ football team.
During Huggins-Bruce’s three years as a Cardinal, he was a regular fixture of Louisville’s passing attack, if not a touch under-utilized. Across 39 career games and 12 starts, the 5-foot-11, 170-pound speedster hauled in 80 receptions for 1,121 yards and 10 touchdowns, along with 11 rushes for 67 yards and a score.
Huggins-Bruce’s return comes at a great time considering recent developments in the wide receiver room. On the final day of fall camp, Caullin Lacy suffered a broken collarbone and is set to miss an “extended period of time.” It remains to be seen what Huggins-bruce’s acclimation back to action will be like, but he is already taking part in practice.
Louisville Confident in Game Plan, But Ready to Make Adjustments When Necessary
On paper, Louisville should have very little problem taking care of Austin Peay this weekend. As is the case with most FCS vs. FBS matchups, the latter is entering the matchup as a multi-touchdown favorite, with the Cardinals standing at a 36.5-point favorite.
Of course, FCS squads still come out on top from time-to-time. Part of this is because FCS vs. FBS matchups typically happen in the beginning of the season, when there is no or very little game tape to scout on each other. It’s hard to plan and prepare for any opponent whenever you aren’t 100 percent sure what they’re going to throw at you.
Game-planning is even more difficult whenever you have a brand new coaching staff on the sideline and very few returning playmakers from last season, such is the case with Austin Peay. That being said, Louisville head coach Jeff Brohm and the rest of the Cardinals’ staff went to great lengths to try and prepare for what they anticipate Faris and Co. to throw at them.
“We’ve studied the history and the past of the people that are supposedly calling the offense and defense, and what they’ve done in the past,” Brohm said. “Do we know for sure that’s what we’re going to do? No, we do not. The good thing is, we have prepared for a lot. When we go against ourselves, we go against a lot of different looks and things as well. You’re hopeful that you can just adjust to what you see along the way, and have at least maybe an idea.”
Additionally, Brohm and the coaching staff are very prepared to abandon their original game plan if it is not working, and are more than willing to make the necessary adjustments. That being said, Brohm feels confident that he and his staff have put together a game plan that is ready for anything and everything that Austin Peay could run.
“I feel confident that we’ve seen a lot to this point, and both of our offense and defense does a lot,” he said. “I think we’ll have a general plan and ability to react quickly.”
Cardinals Taking Austin Peay Incredibly Seriously
It would be easy for a team like Louisville to overlook Austin Peay. But as week zero showed us this past weekend, teams need to be prepared for anything and every.
Of the four games played this past weekend, the underdog covered every time, with two outright wins. The most significant outcome happened to come in the very first game of the 2024 college football season, when No. 10 Florida State was upset by Georgia Tech over in Dublin, Ireland.
Head coach Jeff Brohm used this past weekend of football as an example to his team that they need to be 100 percent ready at all times – no matter who they line up against.
“We’ve stressed to our team that that’s how football works,” he said. “As you look at the three main games that were played this past week, and I told them even before this weekend, if you don’t come ready to play in college football, you’re not going to win.
Based on both first hand and second hand experiences, players seem to have to gotten Brohm’s message of staying locked in loud and clear.
“Obviously, upsets happen every week, so you got to stay locked in,” defensive lineman Ramon Puryear said. “Doesn’t matter who the opponent is, doesn’t matter the ranking. Just got to come locked in.”
Louisville Expecting the Best Version of Tyler Shough ‘Right Away’
Arguably the biggest question on the entire team revolves around Tyler Shough’s health and his ability to play an entire season. The Texas Tech transfer quarterback suffered a broken collarbone in both the 2021 and 2022 seasons, and a broken fibula early last season. Having not played an in-game down of football in roughly 11 months, there also could be mental hurdles that Shough has to overcome.
But if you ask offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Brian Brohm, he believes Shough will be full steam ahead right out of the gates.
“He’s been through this before,” he said. “Obviously, he’s a seventh-year guy, very veteran, played a lot of football. He’s come back from injury before. … The first time come back an injury, you can be a little hesitant, you can be looking forward to that first hit- which I’m sure he’s still looking forward to. He’s been through this process before. I think he’s a veteran that’s experienced in that way. I really expect him to come out just ready to go, and you’re going to hopefully see the best of him right away.”
Getting the best version of Shough could be the difference in Louisville having another special season. In 26 career games both with Texas Tech and Oregon where he started his career, the 6-foot-5, 230-pound signal caller has completed 63.2 percent of his throws for 4,625 yards and 36 touchdowns to 17 interceptions, along with 714 yards and 10 scores on the ground.
All throughout spring ball and fall camp, Shough regularly put on display his upper tier arm talent. While he has shown a slight tendency to be over-aggressive, the staff and the players have their full trust in him.
“To have the other guys within the offense – the receivers, the linemen, the running backs, the tight ends, everybody – just feeling really good about who’s pulling the trigger, who’s calling the plays when they step into the huddle, that’s important,” Brian Brohm said during fall camp.
