Three takeaways as Louisville football makes Jeff Brohm’s debut a success
Three takeaways from Louisville football’s 39-34 win over Georgia Tech in Atlanta at Mercedes Benz Stadium on Friday night:
1. Jeff Brohm’s first Louisville win is a comeback win
Down 28-13 at halftime, Louisville’s Jeff Brohm won his debut as Cardinals’ coach thanks to a dominant second half. On both sides of the football.
U of L suffered a disastrous second quarter, allowing 28 points to the Yellow Jackets. Georgia Tech scored touchdowns on four consecutive possessions. It had a 23-yard run for a touchdown and a 48-yard pass for a touchdown. It produced five plays of 20-or-more yards in the first 30 minutes.
All that changed in the second 30 minutes. The Cards ripped the Jackets 26-6 over the final two quarters. After failing to score touchdowns on red zone possessions in the first half, the Cardinals started cashing in over the final two quarters.
A 5-yard Jack Plummer-to-Jamari Thrash pass pulled Louisville to within 28-23. A 20-yard TD pass from Plummer to Thrash put the Cardinals up 29-28 with 8:08 remaining. A 74-yard touchdown run by Jawhar Jordan, after the Louisville defense had recovered a fumble off a sack, pushed the advantage to 36-28.
Meanwhile, the Louisville defense held Tech scoreless in the second half until Brent Key’s club finally scored with 1:07 remaining. That was enough to give Brohm his first win as the head coach at his alma mater.
2. Jamari Thrash was as advertised
A 6-foot-1, 185-pound junior from LaGrange, Georgia, Jamari Thrash was considered one of the better receivers in the transfer portal after catching 61 passes for 1,122 yards and seven touchdowns at Georgia State.
Louisville got him. And back at home in Atlanta, Thrash lived up to the billing. He caught seven passes for 88 yards on the night, including those two-touchdowns --— a 5-yarder and a 20-yarder from Plummer. That’s not all.
Thrash caught a 21-yard pass from Plummer on a fourth-and-4 on U of L’s first possession of the second half. That led to a 22-yard field goal by Brock Travelstead, who was 4-of-4 on field goals for the night.
Thrash also made a key 23-yard grab on a third-and-3 on a fourth-quarter drive. Three plays later, a nifty double move freed Thrash for that 20-yard score.
Louisville 2023 football schedule
3. New U of L quarterback Jack Plummer got the job done
After playing three years for Brohm at Purdue before spending 2022 at California, Plummer reunited with his former coach at Louisville and was named the ‘Ville’s starting quarterback before fall camp.
The 6-5, 215-pound senior from Arizona wasn’t perfect. He missed some throws in the first half. The Cards reached the red zone on two of their first three possessions only to settle for field goals. And Plummer threw an interception on U of L’s final possession of the first half. Luckily, Georgia Tech wasn’t able to capitalize. The Jackets missed a 54-yard field goal.
As with his team, the second half was a different story for Plummer. There was that 21-yard pass to Thrash on a fourth-and-4. There was a 33-yard pass to Chris Bell on U of L’s first touchdown drive of the second half. There was a 17-yard pass to Kevin Coleman that began Louisville’s first possession of the fourth quarter, which turned into a scoring drive.
When the night was done, Plummer had completed 18 of 31 passes for 247 yards and three touchdowns with one interception to go 1-0 as Louisville’s quarterback.
This story was originally published September 1, 2023 at 11:48 PM.
