CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The challenge for Louisville football coach Jeff Brohm in Year 2 of his tenure is to do what no other ACC team that lost in the league’s championship game has done since 2008.
Make it back to Charlotte the next season to play for the title again.
The task is so difficult, it’s only happened once since the ACC began hosting a championship game in 2005.
Boston College pulled off the feat 16 seasons ago when the Eagles lost to Virginia Tech in the 2008 title game after having played for, and lost, the 2007 title also against the Hokies.
Those are quite the odds that Brohm will have to overcome to get the Cards back playing for the league championship.
Brohm does have consecutive championship-game appearances on his resume.
He led Western Kentucky to the Sun Belt championship game in 2015 and 2016 and won both times. He guided the Cardinals to the ACC title game in his first season at the helm after taking Purdue to the Big Ten championship game in 2022.
Brohm is already seeing similar traits in his team that compare to those that played for a championship.
“We’re hungry, and I think one of the reasons is we didn’t finish the season the way we wanted; we lost our last three,” Brohm said.
It was more than just a three-game losing streak. The losses came in three of the Cards’ highest-profile games: the regular-season finale against rival Kentucky; the ACC title game to Florida State; and the Holiday Bowl to a USC squad rife with opt-outs.
The way they closed the season has fueled Brohm’s drive since it happened. And he expects it has been burning in his players, too.
“We made some mistakes at the end that cost us the last three games we played,” Brohm said. “So, if that doesn’t make you hungry and want to go out and reprove yourself, then there’s something wrong with you.”
The Cards don’t have to guard against complacency on offense because they’ve replaced so many key players from last season and the newcomers have something to prove.
Quarterback Tyler Shough, who transferred from Texas Tech, is entering his seventh year of college football, but the most games he’s played in a season is just seven.
Had he not had three major injuries along the way, he might have been completing his passes in the NFL and not at U of L this season. He needs to have a complete season, a healthy one, to show scouts he’s durable.
That’s why defensive end Ashton Gillotte believes if the Cards don’t get back to the title game, it won’t be because of self-sabotage.
“We still have the same hunger, just with new faces,” Gillotte said. “… The goal has always been to win. And the goal is to get back there and amend what we did last year.”
Fortunately for the Cards, history suggests they won’t fall apart. The year after making the championship, the losing team has only posted a losing record in conference play just three times.
Georgia Tech, which won the Coastal Division in 2014 and lost to Florida State in the ACC title game, was the only school to have a losing overall record the year after playing for the championship. The Yellow Jackets went 3-9 overall and 1-7 in the ACC in 2015.
The motivation for returning to the title game is quite a bit higher this season. An appearance would mean a chance to win an automatic berth to the newly expanded, 12-team College Football Playoff. Just by playing in the title game would potentially position U of L to receive an at-large bid.
Brohm knows the road back will be more difficult, and it starts with a conference schedule that is tougher. But in order to do what history says they can’t, the Cards will have to do what history says they can’t.
Reach sports columnist C.L. Brown at clbrown1@gannett.com, follow him on X at @CLBrownHoops and subscribe to his newsletter at profile.courier-journal.com/newsletters/cl-browns-latest to make sure you never miss one of his columns.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Louisville football coach Jeff Brohm has shot at ACC history in Year 2
The Courier Journal
