CHARLOTTE – Ask Louisville’s Lance Robinson to pinpoint where the Cardinals’ 2025 football season went awry, and the starter at right guard doesn’t have to think long or hard. The answer, he said at the 2026 ACC Kickoff preseason event, is painfully obvious.
“The California game,” Robinson said. “That was a big game that we dropped,” a 29-26 loss, at home no less. “We were 15th in the country (after a 7-1 start) and close to getting into the College Football Playoff. On paper, that was supposed to be (a win) on the schedule” – i.e., the Cardinals were heavy favorites against the Golden Bears, then 5-4.
Robinson sighed audibly. “Any loss derails you, of course, but if we’d got that one, or one of those games in that stretch … we had a good chance to get in the ACC Championship game.”
“That stretch” refers to the three-game losing streak that send coach Jeff Brohm’s aspiring conference champs to an 8-4 regular-season finish and consignment to the Boca Raton Bowl. Robinson is correct: as deflating as the Cal game, so were losses to a sub-par Clemson team (20-19, also on Louisville’s home field) and a 38-6 road whipping by SMU. Beating Toledo in their who-cares bowl hardly mollified the Cards, to say nothing of their fan base.
Sadly from Louisville’s perspective, that sort of finish was nothing new. In Brohm’s three seasons coaching his alma mater, his teams are 12-1 pre-October (5-0 in ACC games), but just 16-11 after the calendar flips, and 10-7 post-Halloween. Not exactly the kinds of finishes that would propel Louisville’s hopes to national championship contention.
“We lost three games in a row last year, two of them in overtime,” Brohm said. “We’ve got to find a way to win those. But Clemson was a good team, and the Cal quarterback was outstanding. And Virginia (UL’s other loss, 37-30, after a 4-0 start to the season) had a great year,” the Cavaliers claiming the ACC regular-season title.
“I just think how in college football now, there’s a lot of parity. Every week, you need a good game plan, but also your players have to do the small things not to beat themselves – stupid things,” Brohm said. “All those things come up in a season, but you coach the best you can. And I think we’ve got a great opportunity this year to show what we’re all about.”
So far in 13 ACC seasons, Louisville has been the team that keeps coming up short, the best team never to win a conference crown or earn a CFP bid. Despite records of 10-3 and 9-4 under Brohm prior to last fall – results that would keep many fan bases happy enough – the near-misses are what Louisville remembers.
For Brohm, those are personal. The 55-year-old is Cardinals royalty: a Louisville native, he played quarterback from 1989-93 before a seven-year career in the NFL. His father, Oscar, also played quarterback at UofL, and his brother Brian is the team’s offensive coordinator.
That primed him to become not just the Cardinals’ coach, but someone future quarterbacks want to play for. A year ago, Miller Moss, a transfer from Southern Cal, enjoyed a stellar season with 2,679 yards passing and 16 touchdowns, and is now on the roster of the NFL’s Chicago Bears, following Aiden O’Connell (Las Vegas Raiders), Tyler Shough (New Orleans Saints) and David Blough (Detroit, Minnesota and Arizona before moving into coaching) as former Brohm protégés.
This fall, Lincoln Kienholz hopes to follow a similar path. The portal transfer from Ohio State, where he mostly rode the bench, is quick to admit Brohm’s reputation drew him to UofL.
“Yeah, for sure,” Kienholz said. “It’s always a plus having a coach who played the position. He understands what you see, what you’re going through. Hearing his knowledge, he’s been around a long time, and I’m taking things he says and putting them in my pocket.”
Specifically, Kienholz said, Brohm’s career as a dual-threat quarterback rang familiar. “I’d say hearing about his path, hearing how he did it,” he said. “Being able to stay in the pocket and making a throw, but also when it’s not there, using your other skills.”
And of course, there’s the hoped-for future. “Knowing (Brohm) played in the NFL and the talent he put out there … that’s all of our (quarterbacks) goals.”
Kleinholz had planned to do that at Ohio State, but ran into an impossible task trying to unseat Julian Sayin, who last season threw for 3,610 yards and 32 touchdowns while completing 77 percent of his passes, the third-best single-season mark in NCAA history. “Last year (with the Buckeyes), I’d put in the offseason work to be the starter, but it didn’t go my way,” Kleinholz said.
At Louisville, he sees a way to accomplish what he couldn’t at Ohio State. He spoke with Moss when considering where to go next, and “the quarterbacks they’ve placed in the NFL – that was the biggest thing.”
Kleinholz does credit his time with the Buckeyes as preparing him for this year’s challenges. “Some of the things I learned from coach (Ryan) Day’s offense the past three years, the hard work you have to put in to be a starting quarterback,” helped him take command of the Louisville offense.
He’ll need all of that to help lift the Cardinals from their perennial runner-up status. The offense returns running backs Isaac Brown and Keyjuan Brown (no relation), who rushed for 884 and 704 yard respectively while averaging a mind-blowing 8.8 and 7.3 yards per carry. But the receiver corps is missing Chris Bell and Caullin Lacy, who accounted for nearly half the team’s receptions; also gone are four starters in the offensive line.
That said, Brohm is confident he can reconstruct the offense around Kleinholz, who’ll ride the Browns’ rushing while getting comfortable under center. The coach is equally confident in his continuing ability to mold quarterbacks in his image, within reason.
“I had a chance to play at a high level, around great players in the NFL and great coaches,” Brohm said. “I was exposed to that, so I feel able to give that back to our quarterback every year, and I think it’s important that I do that. That’s not easy, but if you’ve been there, you’ve done it, and you know it’s harder than it looks.
“I try to help them navigate that and my experience I had as a player helps that situation. Whether Lincoln or whoever, they’ve got to do things they’re good at, and you’ve got to make them comfortable so they can get into a rhythm. Then you let them be aggressive in their approach.”
If aggressiveness can help eliminate Louisville’s past tendencies to falter in one or two games per season, Brohm said, the Cardinals are on their way to finally ending their postseason frustration. After 13 ACC seasons, Brohm figures his team is overdue.