LOUISVILLE, Ky. \u2014 Louisville has a long history of high-powered offense. Coach Jeff Brohm has a much more balanced group of Cardinals these days.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
Louisville travels to play Miami on Friday night
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Miami is the No. 2 team in the country
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The Cardinals’ defense is holding opponents to just 262 yards per game.<\/p>\n
Sure, the Cardinals still can light up the scoreboard in Brohm\u2019s third season at his alma mater. While Louisville averages 36 points per game this season, it\u2019s the Cardinals\u2019 defense that has led the way and helped pull out victories when the offense has struggled.<\/p>\n
The Cardinals\u2019 defense is holding opponents to just 262 yards per game. That\u2019s stingiest in the Atlantic Coast Conference and 12th nationally, just ahead of No. 2 Miami, which ranks second in the league and 16th in the country giving up 276.4 yards a game.<\/p>\n
Both defenses will be on display Friday night when Louisville (4-1, 1-1 ) visits the Hurricanes (5-0, 1-0).<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have done just an excellent job forcing negative plays, disrupting the schedule of the offense,\u201d Miami coach Mario Cristobal said about Louisville\u2019s defense. \u201cThey just play really hard, really fast. They communicate really well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although Louisville has played some Football Championship Subdivision and lower-tier Football Bowl Subdivision programs, the Cardinals\u2019 defense has shown its ability against two of the conference\u2019s better offenses.<\/p>\n
In an overtime loss to Virginia on Oct. 4, Louisville held the Cavaliers to 237 yards \u2014 more than 300 fewer than what it was averaging coming into the game. At Pittsburgh, Louisville forced five turnovers with three second-half interceptions as the Cardinals shut out the Panthers after halftime to rally to a 34-27 win after trailing by 17.<\/p>\n
A big key to transforming a defense ranked 64th last season giving up 368.7 yards a game into one of the nation\u2019s best this season has been senior linebacker TJ Quinn. He\u2019s one of the four returning starters from last season.<\/p>\n
Quinn ranks second on the team with 31 tackles and is tied for the lead with two interceptions. Off the field, Quinn likes to watch the \u201cFast & Furious\u201d movies, words that can also be used to describe Louisville\u2019s defense.<\/p>\n
Both of Quinn\u2019s picks came against Pittsburgh, earning him ACC Linebacker of the Week honors for a second time this season. Quinn\u2019s value goes beyond just his production.<\/p>\n
A fifth-year player who has started all 32 games under Brohm, Quinn came into 2025 as the leading tackler the past two seasons. He also serves as \u201cthe quarterback on defense,\u201d according to Brohm, who said Quinn has handled the role well.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we know exactly what to do, when we\u2019re all on the same page \u2026 I think he\u2019s the one who controls that and has to be the vocal leader,\u201d Brohm added.<\/p>\n
That leadership also has extended to integrating players from the transfer portal, a key resource for Brohm\u2019s roster building.<\/p>\n
Kalib Perry, a senior linebacker who transferred to the Cardinals after three seasons at Tennessee, said Quinn\u2019s vocal leadership has been crucial.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know that\u2019s been an area for him, to be able to communicate with the defense,\u201d Perry said. \u201cNot just on the field, but off the field, whatever we\u2019re trying to accomplish. He\u2019s been a huge part, not only in the linebacker room, but just the heart of our defense as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even with the loss to Virginia, Louisville continues working to reach the ACC championship game in Charlotte in December. If that happens, credit likely will go to the Cardinals\u2019 defense.<\/p>\n
Quinn believes their best performance has yet to come.<\/p>\n
\u201cMe personally, I just want this team to continue to get better every week,\u201d he said. \u201cHopefully by the end of the season, we\u2019ve played our best ball.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOUISVILLE, Ky. \u2014 Louisville has a long history of high-powered offense. Coach Jeff Brohm has a much more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4934,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[274,2205,5460,60,2563,5458,123,125,124,115,5459,278],"class_list":{"0":"post-5015","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami","8":"tag-app-top-stories","9":"tag-associated-press","10":"tag-bowling-green","11":"tag-kentucky","12":"tag-lexington","13":"tag-louisville","14":"tag-miami","15":"tag-miami-headlines","16":"tag-miami-news","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-northern-kentucky","19":"tag-top-stories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}