Jeff Brohm has positioned the Louisville Cardinals for future success with a ten win season in his first year of coaching and it could’ve easily been more, but this program is headed in the right direction.

Louisville opened up the season 10-1 and was on the verge of an Orange Bowl appearance until they suffered back to back losses against Kentucky and Florida State, which allowed the Seminoles to take their spot in the game. Both of these games stung for Coach Brohm and co. because they were winnable games, but crucial turnovers in both outings was the main reason why they fell short.

Even after losing their last two, the Cardinals still were the number 15 ranked team in the country with a Holiday Bowl game against USC without their star quarterback and potential number 1 pick Caleb Williams. Being able to face adversity and have a short memory week to week is what makes good teams great, as Louisville is trying to reach that status, but they fell short of completing the comeback against the Trojans yesterday.

That made it three straight losses for a team that had a slim chance to make the playoffs, but after Florida State missed it as well with a perfect record of 13-0 and an ACC Championship, we now know this team would’ve had to go undefeated to have a real chance at that. Still, not the way you want to end a season after coming out the gates on fire, but the Cardinals were able to have their best year in a decade so there’s the silver lining.

Louisville opened this game with the first punch, getting a quick stop on defense and capitalizing with a 71-yard drive that ended with a rushing touchdown for Isaac Guerendo, who really came on late at the end of this season. Jeff Brohm's recipe for success all year has started with his defense getting stops, which was working almost perfectly until some obvious lapses against the blue team up the road and in yesterday's game. It couldn't have started any better for Louisville, as the Trojans came away with no points again after missing a 38-yard field goal. After the Cardinals got the ball back, it all went downhill from there. Jack Plummer dropped back and attempted to evade pressure, but he was blind-sided by a USC defender and he fumbled the ball, giving the Trojans great field position to tie the game up and that's exactly what they did.

Miller Moss made his first career start yesterday, which seems to be this teams kryptonite as they've lost to three backup quarterbacks this season. In the ACC Championship game Louisville did a great job of making sure Brock Glenn never got comfortable, but that wasn't the case at all yesterday. Once Moss found his rhythm, he picked apart this defense that was considered to be one of the best in the entire country earlier in the year, and he made it look easy. That great start wasn't enough for the Cardinals, they continued to get carved up by Moss, who scored three straight passing touchdowns to give USC a 21-7 lead over Louisville. USC's offensive line was winning the battle in the trenches against Louisville's pass rush that's led by 2nd team All-American Ashton Gillotte. This front seven has played well all season, but nobody could get home while Moss was back there and he took advantage of clean pockets. After struggling to sustain drives in the second quarter, Louisville finally got back on the board with a nine-yard touchdown run from Evan Conley, which they've found success on in almost every game this year. This game became a shootout with a Lincoln Riley led offense, something that this team just isn't built to do. Without their defense making plays and getting stops, Louisville is a completely different team. The Trojans answered back quickly with another passing touchdown with 19 seconds remaining before halftime. This touchdown changed the dynamic of the game, because Louisville was set to get the ball back in the second half with a chance to tie the game if their defense held up, but they struggled to get the Trojans off the field after the first quarter ended. At this point, they were getting whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted it.

Ron English made some adjustments at halftime, holding them to half of their first half total, but the damage was already done and USC converted key third downs over and over again to keep the game out of reach. Jeff Brohm tried his best to protect his quarterback as much as he could in fear of him putting the ball in harms way, but he was going to have to make plays with his arm at some point in the game with his team down by two touchdowns and Plummer can't do that on a consistent level. The rushing attack was working all night, as Isaac Guerendo scored two more touchdowns in the second half trying to chip away at their deficit. Guerendo finished the game with 23 carries for 161 yards and three rushing touchdowns, while adding five receptions for 42 yards. He did all he could to win this game for the Cardinals, but the Trojans had an answer from Moss every time he scored a touchdown. Moss went on to finish the game with six passing touchdowns, a Holiday Bowl record, to just one interception that almost resulted in a pick-six for Louisville.

With less than ten minutes left, Louisville was down by 14 points with one last chance to make a comeback, but they failed to convert a wide-open 4th & six on USC's 16-yard line that should've easily been a touchdown if Jack Plummer threw the ball with better placement. Instead, Plummer threw high and behind an open receiver and he fell down short of the first down attempting to reel it in, which is indicative of Louisville's quaterback play down the stretch of this season. The Cardinals 10-1 start to the year was spoiled by three straight losses to end the year off, but Jeff Brohm has plenty to hang his hat on and a bright season ahead of him next year with Louisville currently having the number 1 ranked transfer portal class in the country according to On3 Sports.

Hopefully, this season was just a glimpse of what Jeff Brohm and his staff can accomplish at Louisville and he'll fill the holes that this ten win team had this season. With a more capable playmakers at receiver and someone else under center, Louisville indeed has playoff aspirations next season with the College Football Playoff expanding to a 12-team format. This team was on the cusp of reaching all of their goals in year one, but there's no doubt that the Cardinals will be back, and this time, they're coming for it all. Congratulations on a successful season for Louisville, but what they showed this year is only the beginning.