Brown: Jeff Brohm has made almost all the right moves at U of L but ran out of gas vs. UK

In a season where Louisville coach Jeff Brohm has virtually made all the right moves at all the right times, he ran out of answers against Kentucky on Saturday.

The Wildcats handed Brohm his first home loss at L&N Stadium by using two turnovers and a 100-yard kickoff return for a touchdown to capture a 38-31 win.

The loss dashed whatever faint hopes and wild scenarios the Cards would have needed to sneak into the College Football Playoffs. And, even though U of L could still win its first ACC championship next week against Florida State in Charlotte, North Carolina, and play in a New Year’s Six Bowl game, for the next year the Cards have to live with the burn of a loss to their rival.

“This one hurts more than the others,” Brohm said. “We wanted to win this game. We put a lot of emphasis on it.”

Brohm’s coaching acumen had worked U of L out of near defeat plenty of times before this season. It started in the season opener, when he directed a rally from down 15 to Georgia Tech. It continued on the road when they came back after trailing N.C. State by 10. The magic seemed automatic when the Cards pulled out wins the past two weeks against Virginia and Miami despite trailing in the fourth quarter of both games.

The Cards had been 5-0 in one-score games before facing the Cats. But The breaks that had gone the Cards’ way while amassing 10 wins during the regular season worked against them versus the Cats.

UK, which became the first U of L opponent to complete a game without a penalty since Pitt in 2011, proved to be the more disciplined team. Brohm had the Cards focused — in their execution and demeanor — all season, but they lost some of both on Saturday.

And he found that “ridiculous.”

That’s not my word, that’s what Brohm repeated four times during his postgame comments to describe Louisville’s lack of execution that led to several explosive plays for Kentucky.

UK’s Barion Brown went 100 yards untouched for a third quarter kickoff return for a touchdown just as U of L had grabbed a 10-point lead.

Ridiculous.

“We had too many guys into the boundary, he bounced it to the field and he's untouched, so, it's bad,” Brohm said.

UK scored twice in the second half on running back Ray Davis catching touchdown passes on a wheel route.

Ridiculous.

Davis’ burst through a U of L blitz to run untouched 37 yards for the game-winning score.

Ridiculous.

The Cards had limited the Cats to just 47 yards rushing on 23 attempts for the entire game before Davis’ touchdown run with 1:02 left in the game. It surely didn’t help that the run was on the ensuing play after U of L starting safety Cam Kelly left the game with what appeared to be a lower leg injury.

“If one person doesn't do their job, it's going to create a crease so I assume that's what happened,” said Brohm, who added he had to review the game before he could say for certain.

What U of L cornerback Quincy Riley knows for sure is how much the game mattered to Brohm and how disappointed he was by the outcome.

“This the championship game for the fans,” Riley said. “I feel like he maybe feels like he let those fans down more so than himself.”

There was a lot of that feeling to go around the Cards locker room.

Louisville had only lost three fumbles this season in its previous 11 games.

U of L running back Jawhar Jordan had been sure-handed while logging more than 150 attempts and rolling up 1,000 yards. But he and quarterback Jack Plummer lost fumbles on consecutive possessions, which led to 10 UK points and turned the game around.

Those were the little things U of L did well for most of the season. Those were the little mistakes that happen to their opponents.

Remember last week when Miami players got a pair of detrimental personal foul penalties on their final two drives? U of L was the team committing self-sabotage on Saturday.

U of L receiver Chris Bell had a personal foul penalty on the opening kickoff of the game and a second personal foul call for illegal hands to the face that made a second quarter drive end in a field goal. What possibly hurt more was when Bell was unaware the Cards were setting up to spike the ball and stop the clock on their final drive. Because he was out of position, it forced them to call their final timeout with 15 seconds.

Bell’s actions didn’t lose the game, but the collective mistakes of the Cards added in the loss.

This time, Brohm could not make up for their shortcomings like he’d done so many times before.

Reach sports columnist C.L. Brown at clbrown1@gannett.com, follow him on X at @CLBrownHoops and subscribe to his newsletter atprofile.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 vs Kentucky: Jeff Brohm runs out of gas in finale