LEXINGTON, Ky. — Four years ago, when the University of Louisville was trying to woo native son Jeff Brohm home to clean up the mess left by Bobby Petrino, my column about that attempt ran under a strong headline:
“Brohm at U of L would be bad news for UK.”
Now that Scott Satterfield’s exit, stage right, to Cincinnati has cleared the path for Brohm, the former U of L quarterback and offensive coordinator, to at last return to his old Louisville home, there is no question that his presence back in the commonwealth will make things more challenging for Mark Stoops and the Kentucky football program.
Start with recruiting.
Since the Bobby Petrino 2.0 coaching regime began in 2014 through Satterfield’s four-year stint as U of L head man (2019-22), Louisville has been a minimal factor in the in-state recruiting battles. Over Petrino 2.0’s four recruiting cycles, Louisville signed only six in-state players, all but one (Belfry offensive lineman Cole Bentley) from Jefferson County.
The Satterfield era saw U of L sign four in-state prospects in four completed recruiting cycles, all from Metro Louisville.
Conversely, Brohm, from his time as Western Kentucky head coach (2014-2016) through his tenure at Purdue (2017-2022), has always valued and prioritized products of Kentucky high school football. At WKU, Brohm helped make stars of in-state players such as Anthony “Ace” Wales (Central) and Taywan Taylor (Pleasure Ridge Park).
When Brohm moved north to Purdue, he did not lose his affinity for Kentucky high school football talent. From 2017 through the current 2023 recruiting class, Brohm signed or received verbal commitments from 13 prospects from the commonwealth. At Purdue, Brohm worked the whole state of Kentucky, too, signing players from Christian County, Spencer County, Boyle County and Pulaski County as well as from Louisville.
UK’s ability to “control its own state” in recruiting — which the Wildcats have pretty much done since Stoops assigned recruiting ace Vince Marrow to work inside Kentucky in 2019 —figures to be considerably more difficult with Brohm at The Ville.
Brohm is returning to the commonwealth at a time when Stoops and UK have been in complete control of the Governor’s Cup rivalry on the field. Kentucky has beaten Louisville in four straight meetings (by a combined score of 179-57) and in five of the past six. Satterfield’s 0-3 record against UK seemed to be one of the primary reasons that Louisville fans never really warmed to the coach.
At Purdue, Brohm showed a knack for getting his teams to rise to big occasions. That was evidenced by two different upsets of teams ranked No. 2 in the country — a shocking 49-20 strafing of Ohio State in 2018; and a 24-7 win at Iowa in 2021. Last season, Brohm and Purdue also beat No. 3 Michigan State, 40-29.
In his time in West Lafayette, Brohm was a good “rivalry coach.” He led Purdue to a 4-1 mark vs. archrival Indiana (the teams didn’t play during the COVID-19-shortened 2020 season).
Going forward, the Governor’s Cup rivalry will almost certainly be more competitive than it has been since 2018 (that presupposes that the Kentucky-Louisville football series will survive the SEC’s expected move from an eight- to a nine-game league schedule. It should continue, but comments from UK officials over the past year have made me less confident than I previously was that it will).
Even if you accept that Brohm’s in-state recruiting contacts figure to make life more difficult for Kentucky, if you put stock in the recruiting rankings, the biggest question about Brohm at Louisville centers on overall talent acquisition.
Over the seven recruiting cycles in which Brohm was running the Purdue program, Kentucky’s classes were ranked ahead of the Boilermakers in the 24/7 Sports Composite Rankings five times. Heck, over the same time frame, Louisville’s classes were rated ahead of Purdue’s four times.
Since joining the ACC in 2014, Louisville has never had a double-digit-wins season. Whether Brohm can attract the level of talent to make that kind of success possible for U of L in a Power Five conference seems the key question of his tenure.
Overall, Brohm did a quality job at Purdue. He led the Boilermakers to a 36-34 mark; to three winning seasons out of six; to three bowl games; to a 17-9 mark over the past two seasons; and to a berth in this season’s Big Ten championship game.
Yet the good work Brohm did in a tough job at Purdue is not, in my book, more impressive than the good work in a tough job that Stoops has done at Kentucky.
Stoops has directed the Wildcats to a 66-58 mark in 10 years; to six winning seasons; to seven bowl games; and to two 10-win seasons.
Bottom line: With Jeff Brohm back, Louisville will mount a far-more vigorous challenge to Kentucky football than it has in recent years. Based on the track record, there’s no reason to think Mark Stoops and troops can’t rise to meet that threat.
