Louisville, Ky. – Johnny Unitas looks ready to rifle a pass into the end zone of sparkling, $78.1 million Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium. His brass statue stands in midstride in front of the massive brick end-zone complex that houses the football offices and Unitas Museum.
Behind it is the $10 million Trager Center indoor practice facility; facing it are 42,000 bright red chairback seats, the only on-campus facility of its kind in the country.
Yet just a couple of Brian Brohm-led drives away, sitting like the skeletal remains of a dinosaur, is Cardinal Stadium, Louisville’s old claptrap minor-league baseball park that makes Sky Sox Stadium look like Dodger Stadium. Until eight years ago, this was the home of Louisville football.
“The difference is night and day if you look at the facilities and where they are right now,” Oscar Brohm said. “The teams we’re playing, who we’re playing and now what we have going (tonight). It’s unbelievable.”
Brohm, 58, is the patriarch of Louisville football. He played here in the days when Louisville football served merely as the JV game before basketball season started. Then he spawned three boys who helped build Louisville into what we will see at 5:30 p.m. MST today: third-ranked West Virginia (7-0, 2-0 Big East) at fifth-ranked Louisville (7-0, 2-0) with the winner earning a realistic shot at the national title game.
Yes, this town known more for sipping fine bourbon during March Madness and mint juleps during the Kentucky Derby has turned into a bona fide, shot- and-beer football town.
“This is the biggest game ever played in the state,” athletic director Tom Jurich said. “That’s saying a lot. Bear Bryant coached here (at Kentucky).”
Oscar Brohm won’t argue. Sitting over a cup of chili Wednesday at the Cardinal Hall of Fame Café, Brohm was born and raised here.
He was a star quarterback for Louisville’s Flaget High in the mid-1960s, yet, “I didn’t know anything about Louisville football until they started recruiting me.”
What of Unitas, you ask? Don’t. Louisville wasn’t even good when he played here. From 1951-54, the late NFL Hall of Famer was a pitiful 12-22. While the basketball program was running up 20-win seasons even before the arrival of Denny Crum, Louisville football went to one bowl game before 1970. Cardinal Stadium was fine for watching standup doubles but terrible for tailbacks and tailgating. And the interest showed.
At one point in the 1980s, in the middle of six straight losing seasons, the university considered dropping from Division I-A.
“The big turnaround came,” Brohm said, “when they hired (Howard) Schnellenberger.”
He was a Louisville native who coached Miami to the 1983 national title. Big money lured him to the USFL, and when it folded in 1985, he went looking for a job. His hometown team called and asked him to save it.
He did. He instituted an entertaining pro-style attack he learned from nine years in the NFL, and by 1988 Louisville had its first winning season in 10 years. Recruits poured in from Florida but most important, Schnellenberger laid the groundwork for a new stadium.
The Cardinals beat Alabama in the 1991 Fiesta Bowl to finish 10-1, then the Brohms kicked in. The two oldest sons, Jeff and Greg, were Schnellenberger’s quarterback-receiver combo, and Jeff wound up fifth on the school’s all-time passing list, going on to a seven-year NFL career, including 1999 with the Broncos.
However, Louisville still played as an independent and lost Schnellenberger to Oklahoma in 1995. In came Ron Cooper, who wasn’t up to the task and whose players ran harder off the field than on. Louisville suffered a 1-10 pratfall in his third year in 1997.
That fall trumpeted the arrival of Jurich. He came after four years at Colorado State and wondered what he got himself into. How bad was the program?
“Much less than Northern Arizona,” Jurich said of his I-AA alma mater. “My first game, there were 6,000 people there. That was announced.”
Jurich quickly canned Cooper and brought in his old buddy from their years in the Big Sky, Utah State coach John L. Smith, to usher in the new stadium in 1998. His passing attack wowed back the fans, and he won 41 games in five years.
“He brought in an incredible amount of excitement, discipline,” Jurich said.
In 2003, after Smith bolted for an ill-fated Michigan State stint that ends in two weeks, Jurich brought in Bobby Petrino, Auburn’s offensive coordinator. With Jeff Brohm back as quarterbacks coach and Greg Brohm as director of operations, the Cardinals went after the one recruit they needed to play in a game like tonight.
Brian Brohm was the USA Today player of the year after throwing for 119 touchdowns and three state titles at Trinity High, and Notre Dame, Tennessee and Kentucky went after him hard. Oscar and Brian visited them all.
“I said, ‘Brian, tell me if I’m wrong but it looks to me that Louisville, at least in the skill positions, is just as talented as the teams we visited,”‘ Oscar said. “He said, ‘You know, I agree with you.”‘
It’s three years later, and Brohm has 4,971 yards and 29 touchdowns. Every game has been sold out for two years, and there’s a waiting list of 2,800 for season tickets. Plans are underway to expand. With star tailback Michael Bush out with a broken leg, it’s up to Brohm to beat the nation’s 12th-ranked defense.
And near the end zone, and probably elsewhere in his own way, so will Johnny U.
Staff writer John Henderson can be reached at 303-954-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com.
