Jeff Brohm on Louisville Culture, Transfer Mortal, Howard Schnellenberger and More

New Louisville coach Jeff Brohm got his turn at Atlantic Coast Conference Media Day and here is some of what he had to say about his program.

Kentucky will close the season with a game at Louisville and try to continue its recent domination over the Cardinals

Q. In talking to people up at Louisville, they talk about when you got there, it was so evident you were wanting to change the culture, whether it was even giving tours of the facilities, making sure people are involved, wanted. How important was that for you from day one to instill a Jeff Brohm/Louisville-type culture there?

JEFF BROHM: I think it’s important that just in general, whether you are changing culture or not, that are you invested in the program and that you are doing your part to not only help your team achieve success and get better but also opening the doors to many people that want to be a part of it. Like everything, your fan base is important. I feel like Louisville we have a tremendous passionate fan base that wants to see their team succeed and do well, that wants to feel a part of it, and we want to make them feel a part of it. Like anything, you have your immediate family, you have your team family, but then you have your extended family of anybody that wants to help and experience a great time and help building a program and having success. So we’re excited to get things underway. We’ve got a good nucleus of ball players that work really hard and want to achieve great things. Myself as a head coach, I have to do my part and put in the work to help us have answers to problems, to be able to fix things immediately throughout the season, and our assistants have to do the same thing. Then it trickles down to our team, but I think we all put in the work and we all are invested in our community, and fan base feels that investment that in the end good things can happen.

Q. You took over a Purdue team that was not just a Big Ten, but a perennial Power Five bottom dweller, and you took them to heights that that program hadn’t seen in years, and you come into Louisville with a lot of expectations taking over a team that’s in a much better place, most people would say, than where that Purdue team was. So how do you go about, like, hey, I expect greatness out of this team, I expect a high ceiling, but also being realistic in terms of, like, this is — I wouldn’t want to let down or whatever the case may be in terms of if you are expecting national championship right now, we may not be there. How do you balance that per se?

JEFF BROHM: Well, personally I like challenges. I look forward to them. Even when I took the Purdue job, I remember asking a lot of colleagues of mine when I took it, what do you think? Should I take this job? Probably 95% said, heck no, don’t take that. To me I like building a winning football team. Without question, coming here to the University of Louisville is another challenge. It’s unique, but yes, we have some really good football players on our team, some guys that have had success. We watched a team last year that got better as the year went on, that the last half of the season the defense played at a high level. Really you just take every team that you have, you try to figure out what are our strengths, what are some things we can get better at, how can we do that. Are there things we need to do to develop certain guys here? Do we need to add a few pieces to the puzzle to make things more competitive? In today’s age of college athletics, it’s about winning now. It’s about doing it, in my opinion, with our current football team and any new pieces we’ve added, and we want to do that in year one, and it’s important that you do that. I just think if you build a competitive environment where our guys are working hard every day, where they understand if you put in the work, you’ll have a chance to do great things. They aren’t scared of a challenge or obstacles. They feel like we have a group of coaches that are going to work with them on a daily basis to help them improve and get better, that anything can happen. We’re going to take this challenge head-on and look every opponent directly in the eye and go out there and compete on a weekly basis come game day. I think if you do that, and you are willing going into the season knowing that, you know what, yeah, we could lose a game or two, how are you going to handle those losses will determine how the season goes. If we can find ways to improve, find ways to get better, find ways to win some close games, find ways to win on the road, it can definitely lead to success.

Q. It was a pretty significant transfer portal class, both in terms of the number and also the quality of the players that are coming in. What was your pitch to that group? How do you manage to blend them in with some of the players that are still left over from the last team?

JEFF BROHM: I think we have a lot to sell at the University of Louisville. It’s a tremendous college sports town, great facilities, a passionate fan base. There are no pro sports in our town, but we provide a great city of a lot of things to do even outside of the game. That’s an easy sell. I think we’ve had some great talented football players that have gone on and done great things at the NFL level throughout the entire history. Right now the highest-paid corner in the NFL is from the University of Louisville. Highest paid quarterback, University of Louisville. You can come here and achieve all your goals and do it at a high level. When it comes to our football team and adding pieces, it’s about being honest. It’s about understanding that our goal is to build a championship-level team and for our really good players on the team, they know that in order for them to play well and have success, they can do it a lot better with really good players around them. So you just try to piece that together. Our guys know that the best players are going to play, but if you are ready to play, and you can contribute, we’re going to get you on the field as well, and you can prove to us that you should earn more playing time. I just think the fact that I’m fortunately going on my tenth year as a head coach, you’ve been battle-tested. I’ve been in some tough football games where we found a way to win against opponents that maybe we weren’t expected to win against. We found ways to get to Big Ten championship game at a place that had not done that ever before, and then we found ways to get up on off the ground when we got knocked down when we shouldn’t. How can we piece that together here? I just think it’s about being honest with your guys, being truthful, but putting in the work and then putting in the work. In my opinion, if you do that, you can win football games at a high level.

Q. I have a question. It’s two parts. The first part is that you actually got coached by Howard Schnellenberger from 1989 to 1993 and recently they just announced that Louisville and Miami are going to be competing for that trophy. Can you talk to us about what your relationship is with your old ball coach? Then the second part is you are a former Louisville football player, who is now returning to his alumni to coach. What does that mean to you specifically?

JEFF BROHM: Well, on the first question, Coach Schnellenberger was a Hall of Fame football coach not only at the college level, but also in the NFL. Was the offensive coordinator for the only undefeated team in National Football League team history. He was a builder of programs, whether it be Louisville, Miami, or Florida Atlantic University. He took on things that others were scared to take on, and he found a way to win doing that, and that’s not easy to do. I have a great admiration for him and his wife Beverly.
I got a chance to play for him, coach with him for one year. When it came to developing teams and instilling a work ethic second to none, getting his players to believe that they’re better than they even were, so any time they took the field, they were able to take on that challenge. He was the best at it. I was very close with Coach Schnellenberger. Unfortunately, he passed this past year, but his wife, Beverly, I’m in contact with her. To get the Miami Louisville trophy winner named after him is a great tribute. I’m excited about that. When it comes to coming back to where I’m from and where I played at, it’s a great honor. It’s a great opportunity. At the same time, yeah, it requires some pressure. I don’t want to let people down. There’s a lot of people that may think a certain way about me, and I want to make sure we build on that. In order to do that, you’ve got to win, and you’ve got to play a competitive brand of football, and you have to find a way to elevate the program, and you have to be consistent in your approach and be a good person along the way. I just think you have to learn from your mistakes in the past. You have to piece it all together. You have to be aggressive in your approach, and you have to attack every day in order to win. I think one thing when it’s right in your backyard you have to go to bed every night knowing, you know what, you better work a little extra hard today and this week in order to get to done because you want to be able to look in the mirror when the season is over.

Q. Is there anything about this team that coming in to become their head coach so far throughout spring ball and heading into fall camp that has surprised you that you from afar, from an outside perspective didn’t quite have an awareness of but amongst getting into the weeds and doing the coaching and all of that you are, like, oh, wow, this seem much better at this thing or, you know, very different in their philosophy of doing this thing than I would have imagined coming in?

JEFF BROHM: I think every team — this team when we came in, they’ve been battle-tested. They’ve had some ups. They’ve had some downs. They’re hungry. They want to achieve greatness. We’ve got some really good components to our team, some great experience. They’ve done a lot of really good things mixed in with some youth that maybe is right on the cusp of getting that done. Then we’ve added some new pieces to provide competition and to try to help us win, but this team wants to win. They can smell it. They’ve worked hard every day to get it done. They understand there’s no shortcuts to success. They’re really good teammates to each other. They’re willing to lay it on the line, so I just think I have to provide them with an environment with our coaches that it’s competitive every day. Once we get into fall camp, we’re not only working on a lot of small things, but we’re providing an atmosphere that’s very competitive. It’s almost as much game day as you can make it. So that when they come to the game, that they can play relaxed, they can cut loose, and go have some fun. We love this crew of guys. It’s a good group. We tell them all the time, everybody is happy now, but how are you going to be able to handle the season once it gets going, whether there are some ups and downs and wins and losses and how are you going to be able to refocus and get it done? That’s going to be the key. Our guys have worked really hard. When you come to media day, you know the season is right around the corner, and we’re excited to get game one kicked off.