Louisville Looks to Continue Winning Ways in ACC

© Jim Dedmon-USA TODAY Sports

The 2023 season saw the Louisville Cardinals compete for the Atlantic Coast Conference title. How will they build off that success in the 2024 season?

Louisville coach Jeff Brohm and quarterback Tyler Shough were on site today for ACC Media Days.

Louisville Pursues Success

After reaching the ACC Championship Game last season against Florida State, Brohm was asked what steps the Cardinals are taking to get there again.

"I think you build a team that likes to compete, that loves football, that loves to work hard and win at a high level," Brohm said. "We want to provide that atmosphere and that environment for our guys that they want to come to the building and put the work in.

"I think we have a group of guys that do that every day," he said. "While we had some good success last year, 10-1 at one point, we lost our last three games. I think because of that, there's a lot of things to learn, a lot of areas to improve. I think it's caused the hunger to get back in right away and understand if you want to be really good, you have to beat big-time opponents and find a way to win close games."

With success in the Transfer Portal to bring in Shough and wide receiver Caullin Lacy, Brohm was asked about what stood out to make them look like a fit for the Cardinals.

"Well, we're excited about Tyler and what he brings to the table," Brohm said. "Any time you can bring in a veteran quarterback that's been there and done that, handled adversity, had ups and downs, been able to experience that, has had great success but also a few failures along the way. He's battle-tested. We're excited about it."

As for Lacy, Brohm said, "Caullin brings a ton of experience to the table. He's played a lot of football as well. But he's strong, he's fast, he's tough. He's made great strides even (in) the little bit we've had him. He works really hard."

Sizing Up Shough

Originally at Oregon, then transferring to Texas Tech before arriving in Louisville, Shough has had an interesting college career. When asked about the differences between the schools, Shough said, "I think for Louisville, especially the whole city, I think there's just a lot of avenues that you can grow, the community is so vast, a lot of really good people. I think Lubbock, Eugene, smaller college towns, have its own benefits.

"Here the networking opportunities on the coaching staff, they're all from here, have a lot of pride in this place, what they bring to the table," Shough said. "I think there's a lot of pride in the whole city. You want to go out there and play well for them and do everything that you can. So far it's been great. We've loved living here. There's a lot of good things to do, good food spots, places to go out and spend time with your teammates. I have no complaints so far."

© ACC Media

With such a journey to finish at Louisville, Shough was asked what would success look like for himself. "I think, for me, team success brings individual success," he said. "If we can go out there and win an ACC Championship, get in the Playoff, win a national championship, like coach Brohm was saying, having those high standards of goals, I think that's going to hopefully bring some individual success as well."