Brown: Jeff Brohm's hands-on approach to defense should be a win for Louisville football

It took Jeff Brohm’s defenses to be at their worst for him to become his best as a head coach. Now, Louisville is poised to benefit from it as he enters his first season at the helm of his alma mater.

Brohm used to be like many head coaches with offensive backgrounds in that he strayed away from putting his stamp on the defensive side. After all, that’s what he hired his defensive coordinator to do.

But that changed during his last two seasons at Purdue and U of L players are learning just how involved Brohm can be.

“I know what hurts us, I know what hurts other offenses, so really it’s just important that you give that information to your defensive coaches,” Brohm said. “It’s important that they hear what makes us uncomfortable and what doesn’t.”

The Cardinals are unequivocally Brohm’s team, for better or worse. If his tenure ends up a rousing success, it’s because his input is in every aspect. If the Cardinals fail, it’s also because his input is everywhere.

Either way, both the credit and the blame belong to Brohm.

“I do feel like it’s important that the team has the personality of the head coach and — that’s on offense and defense and special teams — that I have my hands involved,” Brohm said.

Brohm endured three straight losing seasons at Purdue from 2018 to 2020 while taking a bit of a hands-off approach to defense. He’d always allowed his defensive coordinators a large amount of autonomy to run the unit.

His long-time coordinator Nick Holt, who led his defenses at Western Kentucky and followed him to Purdue, had to be replaced in 2019 after giving up too many big plays and being too inefficient on third downs.

Bob Diaco only lasted the COVID-19 shortened 2020 season. In retrospect, Brohm tried to make hiring a “big name” work even though on paper Diaco’s philosophy and scheme didn’t mesh with how the head coach wanted his defenses to play. Now, Brohm takes a different approach.

“I used to allow those guys to take the reins and run with it,” Brohm said. “I had a couple of negative experiences so two years ago I went full circle. The next hire, we’re going to run my defense. We’re going to call what I want.”

It’s not just the scheme. It’s Brohm’s defense right down to the terminology.

He’s not likely to change anytime soon. After all, it worked. The success the Boilermakers had defensively the past two years allowed them to win the Big Ten West Division and reach the league’s championship game for the first time ever.

The last two seasons of Brohm's time at Purdue were the two best seasons in terms of total defense, with the team allowing about 366 yards per game, and the second- and third-best years of scoring defense. 

Co-defensive coordinator Ron English admitted as a young coach he would have been uncomfortable with the premise of an offensive-minded head coach running the defense like, ‘He don’t know how to coach defense.’

It helped that English has known Brohm for years. Both served on U of L's coaching staff in 2008 under Steve Kragthorpe.

Once English joined Brad Lambert and Mark Hagen as co-defensive coordinators at Purdue in 2021, he understood exactly how Brohm envisioned the arrangement working. Both English and Hagen came with Brohm to U of L to continue their work.

“Most important thing about coach Brohm, he’s good at what he does,” English said. “He’s really good. When he tells me how they think and how they’re going to do things, I’m like, ‘Thank you God.’ We try to have answers for what offenses like to do.”

The answers came in the form of how aggressive Brohm’s teams became in attacking offenses. After finishing last in the Big Ten in sacks and 12th in interceptions in 2020, last year at Purdue his team ended up eighth in sacks and third in interceptions. The numbers were similar in 2021, with the Boilermakers finishing ninth in sacks and fourth in picks.

The Cards are bringing back six starters from last year's unit, although starting safety M.J. Griffin might miss the season with a lower body injury. They finished tied for first in the ACC in scoring defense, first in sacks, second in interceptions, and the 331 yards they allowed per game finished fifth in the league.

If the unit puts up similar stat lines this season, it'll mean the Cards defense has matched the aggressiveness of their offense. And for the second year in a row, Brohm should find himself coaching in a conference championship game.

Reach sports columnist C.L. Brown at clbrown1@gannett.com, follow him on Twitter 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 column.

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This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Louisville football: Jeff Brohm's approach to defense is win for Cards