The Louisville Cardinals beat the FSU Seminoles 44-20 on Friday night in L&N Federal Credit Union Stadium, but it was the Seminoles who had control of the game early.
FSU won the first quarter 14-0 and looked good on both sides of the ball. They were unable to keep it going, with Louisville scoring 35 unanswered points to complete the comeback. Louisville head coach Jeff Brohm thinks it was a testament to his teams ability to keep believing in themself and not get affected by the score.
"Whether you're going up by 21 or down by 21, can you still have that same mental toughness and ability to believe and stay focused and disciplined and not do dumb things? So, I mean, you've just got to talk about it. You've got to believe in it," he said in his
post-game press conference Louisville posted on YouTube.
"And it's not easy. It's not, everybody wants to do well. Dominating is not easy to do at this level. So you've got to just stay steady, keep the belief. Our guys kept the belief. So, like I said, I credit our coaches and players, they did a really good job."
Brohm also talked about their long touchdown, helping the defense, and more. Here is everything he had to say after beating FSU.
Opening statement
Really proud of our football team, I thought they hung in there. When you lose, it’s not real fun and they’ve been able to practice hard, work hard, and improve. Didn’t look good early on, they were up 14 to nothing and getting ready to go down 21 to nothing. Tremendous fourth-down stop when neither side is playing well, then we take the ball and run for a 90-plus-yard touchdown, and from there we had the momentum.
I think it’s just a credit to our guys, when you think things are looking as bleak as they can, our guys hung in there. And we talk all the time, work all the time, its just hard to do.
So you've got to give our guys a ton of credit for playing hard, for finishing the game, for sticking together, for believing in themselves and their teammates. That's not easy to do. It's a competitive sport, competitive teams, and you've got to come ready to play. And every little thing matters.
I thought we had a great week of practice. Did we adjust things up? Yeah, we did. We did. I think things aren't going the way you want. You've got to tweak some things.
That's my responsibility to do whatever I can to help us improve. Definitely this week, the goal was to get with the defense and help them, assist them as much as I can, help them put a plan together. We understand and we know that it's simple, but yet it has enough ability to get aggressive and to strike and allow our guys to play, but also not give up big plays.
So I spent a whole lot of time doing that. Our defensive coaches did a great job with it, put it on paper. We had Coach Abbey, Coach Ellison, Coach Cassidy upstairs kind of working together to do the best job they could, and I thought they did a great job.
On offense, I wasn't as involved. Brian and the offense staff took it and ran with it. They did a great job. Worked really hard. Of course, I was in there some and assisted as much as I can. I always do, but it was theirs. They took it and ran with it. So, you've got to give a lot of credit. Great job coaching by our offense and defense staff. Great job by our players.
On the momentum swing of their fourth-down stop and 97-yard touchdown run
Well, it's all about momentum, and it was. I mean, I'm not blind. I saw the first quarter. It wasn't going our way. We were passive on defense, not aggressive enough. We moved the ball, but we just got a little more aggressive. We were getting knocked back. They were getting yards. Offensively, we moved a little bit, but got stalled when we needed to get yards.
We were not quite as aggressive as well, so when we got the fourth down stop, we just played our guys. We can't execute the one run for 90 plus yards for a touchdown. Then from there, I think our guys said, okay, we can do this. Let's amp it up a little bit. The aggressiveness on both sides, even though we didn't pass the ball a lot, we were able to find areas to run the ball and get yards early on. I thought we were a little stagnant in the middle.
Needed to get off-tackle a little bit, have a little bit of misdirection here and there and some things. Get on the perimeter and take a couple shots. I thought all that paid off executed really well. So, great job by our coaches and players.
On how much better Isaac Brown makes the offense when he has a good game
Well, we got weapons. I applaud Lincoln and our receivers. They want the ball, they want a bunch of catches. Today, we kind of had the running game going a little bit.
It was kind of popping in there, and the offensive line felt it. It felt good. I think after we hit the big run, it was like, okay, let's continue to do this and run the ball out and make them defend that.
It's our offensive line. We've got a big nap here in the locker room after the game, and to have to run for 400 yards in ACC play is more than difficult. It's very difficult.
Obviously, we have a great runner and great running backs, but the offensive line, tight ends, receivers, quarterback all did a tremendous job of running the ball, being physical, taking care of the ball, and making big plays.
On the offensive having better communication, wearing wristbands
Well, we want to make sure we have everything covered. I hate to not be live at the second ball step or the other at one tempo, so that's a big reason for the wristbands. The other is sometimes if you're signaling, they can catch on to your signals after a while, so you have to have a different way to signal things in. On offense, that's probably the big reason we huddle, just so people can't see our signals.
So I just think every little thing matters, and I thought if one or two times they had called timeout because we weren't set ready, which I didn't like. But other than that, I thought we were getting things in. We knew what the call was.
That's where it starts with, and you've got to have a great stance, a great start, and then just let them go play. So I thought all those little things mattered. Having a group of people upstairs together, working in conjunction, and then just what you mentioned as well, and then I do think the plan to be a little more aggressive, but yet not give up plays over our head worked for us.
On Isaac Brown having so much success
Well, you know what, Isaac really is a great young man and wants to please everybody. I think most of our guys on the team are the same way. He wants to please everybody. He wants to do a great thing for his team, for the university, for the city.
He really does. I think sometimes when things are going your way, it's not fun. You just kind of have to hang in there and listen to people talk about you. But he persevered. He worked hard the last couple of weeks. I thought he ran well last week for the most part. You saw him make some big plays. We just try to find ways to create some open space for him. The different types of runs are important to use.
Just to throw the defense off, I thought we had a good mix of that. Our offensive line did a great job. They did. They're coming off the ball. They strike people. Sometimes the pass protect on you. Just think about it. Going backwards and having to block someone is a lot harder than going forwards and having to block someone. They loved doing it. Our tight ends did a great job. Receivers were very unselfish to run block today.
On giving up offensive play calling, helping the defense
It's been about 14 years. You know what? Look, when you lose two games, it's not fun. I thought we could play a lot better overall. I thought we could play a lot better overall on defense.
So it was time to get heavily involved and try to help it. They embraced it. We worked hard at it. We did. We put in a plan together, going over it, going over it, going over it, going over it, making sure it's simple enough. Make sure also there's a couple of wrinkles that we can hire if we need to to get some stops be aggressive.
So I thought they worked with me very well, did a great job. Our plan to have those three guys upstairs working together paid off, did a great job. Our guys on the sideline communicated well.
Of course, Brian has been with me forever, so he's smarter me. He knows football, our offensive staff has experience. They know what we're doing.
I think it was important that I coach everything as well as I can, penalties, discipline, defensive and offensive special teams, and just try to do the best job I could to assist those guys.
On if he will keep doing that moving forward
Well, look, I think we've got the experience on offense, so I'm always going to give them my thoughts and opinions and give them plays and things I like. But at the same time, a lot of times we work together so much that a play call is a play call.
Somebody has to take charge of all the plays and have a feel of when to do that. I do think being a quarterback, former quarterback, having Brian have a little bit of a feel how to get things going and help the quarterback feel comfortable. Brian can get the other assistants on that staff, our staff as well, doing a good job.
But I think, look, we want to win, so we do have a little – Mark's a little – doesn't have a ton of experience calling plays, so we've got to continue to assist him as well as we can. And I have to assist and support him, it’s important I do that.
I've been around a long time, too, so I study the game, both sides have a special team and all that. Coach Elson has been a head coach and former defensive coordinator. Coach Cass has been coaching for a long time.
Other guys on our staff have experience. I just think you've got to use all that. So, you know, it was different for me to be that heavily involved and all that. But it was needed. I don't know if it was going to work out. I don't know for sure. But I do think that we spent a lot of time trying to improve our team, and it's my responsibility to do that.
On them limiting their self-inflicted mistakes
Well, you're correct, penalties have hurt us. I thought as we got to the Wake Forest game some of those penalties were questionable, but they still hurt us and we had them. So we finally got those cleaned up for the last game, and then unfortunately we had turnovers that were costly, that pretty much cost us the game.
Giving up big plays on defense wasn't good for our team as well. So I think what everybody sees, we all see as well. So you just put your head down and go to work. And fixing problems isn't just snapping your fingers. You've got to work at it.
You've got to go talk to your players and say, ‘Hey, why are you doing this? What makes you think this? Tell me what was the problem. Why was the communication there? How did you do that?’ And you've just got to talk it through. You'd be surprised how many little things come up.
Like, oh, my gosh, it sounded like what? So everything can pop up. So whether it's wristbands, whether it's getting the calls in, whether it's simplifying, whether it's knowing what to get to faster, because we talked it through. I thought it helped on defense.
Once we got the stop, I thought our calls got more aggressive. I thought the small tweaks we had to be aggressive, but given that, given up balls over our head, really hit. And once they started hitting, man, we played very well,for the most part and made great strides. So we've got to continue to work hard at it.
Their mindset before the long touchdown
Well, I mean, I was internally not happy. You know, I'll give our coaches credit. There was no panic. Our players had no panic. And really, that's the way you have to be. We talk about it all the time.
I mean, the game's going to have some flows, some momentum shifts. Who's going to be mentally tough enough to just play to the end? Talk about not looking at the scoreboard. Don’t worry about your record.
Worry about can I execute this play better than I've ever executed and then move on to the next one. Stick together while you're doing it. Play to the end.
Whether you're going up by 21 or down by 21, can you still have that same mental toughness and ability to believe and stay focused and disciplined and not do dumb things? So, I mean, you've just got to talk about it. You've got to believe in it. And it's not easy.
It's not, everybody wants to do well. Dominating is not easy to do at this level. So you've got to just stay steady, keep the belief. Our guys kept the belief. So, like I said, I credit our coaches and players, they did a really good job.
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This article originally appeared on FSU Wire: What Louisville head coach Jeff Brohm said after beating FSU
