LouLife

Photo by John Nation

On first meeting, his handshake isn’t what you’d expect. It’s not smothering. It’s not an overpowering, vise-like grasp. It’s actually sort of delicate, in a way old-schoolers would say lacks confidence and certainty. As a matter of fact, when your palm grips his, it seems there is simply no way his hand can wrap around a pigskin and rifle it to receivers all over the football field. Instead, you wonder: Is this really the hand attached to the arm that threw for 3,049 yards and 16 touchdowns last season, leading the University of Louisville football team to an 11-1 regular season record, a Big East championship and a victory in the Orange Bowl?

But then again, it would also make sense that quarterback Brian Brohm uses an I’m-protecting-my-hand handshake, especially on an early summer afternoon like this one, still months before his team opens its 2007 campaign at home Aug. 30 against Murray State. “I always try to be careful with my body,” Brohm says. “I don’t want to get injured, especially outside of football.”

With strobes flashing, Brohm and U of L women’s hoops forward Angel McCoughtry are in their red uniforms  — although Brohm sports a pair of brown leather flip flops — posing for a Louisville photo shoot in Cardinal Arena’s lobby. McCoughtry cradles a basketball and Brohm, of course, carries a football. Eventually, after they both force a few uncomfortable smiles, McCoughtry throws out the idea that the quarterback should “do the pose.”

Brohm, an early favorite to win college football’s most prestigious individual award, attempts to mimic the stiff-arming running back on the Heisman Trophy and strikes his makeshift version of the stance. He raises his left knee, extends a stiff-arm, grimaces a bit. It’s a decent try. Others have executed it more precisely, sure, but Brohm still looks good playing the part as Louisville’s 6-foot-4-inch, 224-pound golden boy on this June day. It’s an untarnished image — though he hasn’t had an opportunity to pile up statistics in a quest for perfection during his senior (and final) season, he also hasn’t had a chance to screw things up.

Not that Brohm has revealed a chink in his football pads indicating he’ll screw things up. So far, during his college — and even high school — career, he’s proven just the opposite: He could (and, if things go right, should) win the Heisman after the upcoming season. For starters, he is a Brohm. His father, Oscar, was a U of L quarterback, as was his brother Jeff — now the team’s assistant head coach — who led the Cardinals to a Liberty Bowl victory in 1993 before an NFL career as a backup. Oldest brother Greg played as a receiver for U of L. “Football was something I’ve done probably before I was talking,” Brohm says. “I really don’t remember life before football. That’s like trying to remember your first word.”

Brohm (second from right), still a  high-schooler, with his U of L football family  — (from left) father Oscar and brothers Jeff and Greg.

“The only guy from here to win it is Paul Hornung,” Brohm says of the local football leg/files/storyimages/who won the award at Notre Dame in 1956. “You try not to think about it too much, but it’s definitely a big deal to already be considered.” Although it’s a big deal — words he uses frequently — the Heisman doesn’t dominate his thoughts while he’s watching film or lifting weights or tinkering with his throwing mechanics during summer workouts. It’s a national championship he focuses on, craves even. “I think about winning it every day,” he says. “One day this program is going to get there. Hopefully it’s this year. It’s definitely a possibility.”

Players and coaches alike are quick to give the “we’re-all-in-it-together” speech, and although it’s cliche, Brohm — like the rest of the Cardinals — believes it. He has to. It’s why he put off his NFL career despite many predictions that he would be a highly desired first-round draft pick. Senior wide receiver Harry Douglas had 1,265 receiving yards (a single-season school record) and scored six touchdowns last year and, for his part, is glad he’ll be snagging Brohm bullets once again this season. “The quarterback is the leader of your team,” he says. “You have to have a great quarterback with a nice mind to start everything up, so getting him back was very important.”

First-year head coach Steve Kragthorpe, who was on a cruise and couldn’t be reached to interview for this story, said in a January Courier-Journal article that “it’s an ideal situation for (Brohm), with what we do offensively, to accentuate the talents he has. And we’re going to continue to do things to put him in a position to not only lead this team to championships but to do some things individually that I think can enhance his draft status for 2008.”

In returning, Brohm now has a chance at perfection.

“When you have a guy like Brian, the chance to win every game is possible,” his brother Jeff says.

Last summer, the media burned its Heisman spotlight on U of L’s then-senior running back Michael Bush, who was coming off a junior year in which he led the nation in scoring on his way to setting single-season school records for rushing touchdowns (23) and points scored (144). But in last season’s first game, he broke his right tibia and never played again at the college level. The NFL’s Oakland Raiders still chose Bush with the first pick in the 2007 draft’s fourth round, but he probably would have been a first-round selection barring injury.

“I saw Bush get injured, and it hit close to home. It makes you think about it more,” Brohm says. “Those things happen, and you can’t control them. But you can’t worry about it. An injury can obviously happen, and if that happens I know that I took that risk and I’ll be fine with it.”

Brohm wants an undefeated season, another Big East championship and a national championship, and he’ll talk in team-first phrases when asked to describe how the Cardinals will get there. But it’s not like he’s unaware of what’s at stake for him personally this season. And we’re not talking about a Heisman Trophy. We’re talking NFL money. Lots and lots of NFL money.

When this story went to press, no 2007 first- or second-round draft picks had signed professional contracts. For an idea of the dollars at stake, though, consider 2006’s first overall pick, defensive /files/storyimages/Mario Williams: He signed a six-year contract worth $54 million. Quarterback Jay Cutler, the first player in that draft selected outside the top 10, signed a six-year deal worth $48 million. By contrast, the first round’s last pick, outside linebacker-defensive /files/storyimages/Mathias Kiwanuka, signed a five-year, $6.96 million contract.

“The higher (you’re drafted) the more set your family is going to be for the rest of your life,” Brohm says. “If things go right, I definitely want to be up there in the top 10, be one of those top picks and be called up onstage in New York. That’s what every player’s goal is and dream is.”

According to NFL draft analyst Tony Pauline, who contributes to sportsillustrated.com and other websites, Brohm would have been a late first-round selection at best after his junior season. But if he avoids injury and flourishes under Kragthorpe, a top-10 pick in the ’08 draft is likely.

“He’s got to show a quick grasp of the new offensive system, because with Petrino the team rarely missed a beat when Brohm was out. And even in the past with Petrino, the quarterbacks were almost interchangeable — one guy would get hurt or one guy would graduate and he’d just plug the next guy in,” Pauline says. “Brohm will benefit from the change of coaches in the sense that he can show — or has the opportunity to show — he has the ability to take control and command of a whole new offense.”

In other words, Brohm can show that it’s him, as well as Petrino’s system, that’s successful.

But a — gasp! — Bush-like injury or a couple of bad performances could diminish his NFL payday. For example, Troy Smith, last year’s Heisman winner from Ohio State, in many minds, plummeted down the NFL draft board after one bad game. On the heels of a nearly flawless regular season — completing 203 of 311 passes for 2,542 yards and 30 touchdowns, with only six interceptions — Smith had an atrocious national championship game in which he completed 4 of 14 passes for 35 yards, threw an interception and coughed up a fumble in a 41-14 loss to the Florida Gators. The Baltimore Ravens drafted Smith with the fifth round’s last pick, and now he’ll fight for a roster spot.

Some argue that the national championship game alone did Smith in. But Ken Gordon, who covers the Buckeyes for the Columbus Dispatch, says it was many things, including being overweight at the NFL combine. “He dropped from the second round easily,” Gordon says. “He probably lost several million dollars. A quarterback in the second round is still making pretty good money. End of the fifth and you’re not even guaranteed to make the team at that point.”

Brohm, 21, is aware of these things. He knows that with 50-yard bombs that wow the NFL scouts there will also be the incomplete passes, interceptions and mental mistakes that make those same scouts question how he’ll fare at the next level. “Any little thing that goes wrong they’re going to blame the quarterback, especially a quarterback who has a lot of publicity surrounding him,” Jeff Brohm says.

Rocco Gasparro — whose official title is assistant sports information director, but in a one e-mail wrote, “My job is to manage (Brohm’s) time and that’s what I do” — says it was common even in early summer to get daily media requests for Brohm. This attention — the sit-down interviews and photo shoots — doesn’t seem to pester the young quarterback.

“You don’t all the sudden have all this pressure on you,” Brohm says. “It’s something I’ve had growing up at Trinity. It just keeps escalating each year. It’d be hard if the expectations suddenly shot up to this height, but it’s been a gradual process.”

But why come back to U of L? With all the things that can go wrong — some of which are out of Brohm’s control — why come back? National championship talk aside, his reasoning is rather simple. “You know, this is my hometown, this is the school I always wanted to play for,” he says. “I always envisioned myself playing all four years. I just wanted to have a senior season.”

Instead of focusing on the hypothetical, unfortunate things that could spoil his professional quarterback future, Brohm realizes he’s actually in a perfect situation to impress future employers. Last year’s head coach, Bobby Petrino, left in early January, less than a week after the Orange Bowl win, for an NFL head coaching gig with the Atlanta Falcons. It would have been the perfect curtain for Brohm to shrink behind, an excuse for him to go to the NFL as well. U of L would have held a press conference, Brohm would have said it was a hard decision but, in the end, didn’t want a new head coach for his senior season. Fans would have been upset, but they would have understood.

Athletic director Tom Jurich seemed to understand. Less than two days after Petrino quit, he hired Steve Kragthorpe, an old fri/files/storyimages/and, at the time, Tulsa’s head coach. If Jurich hadn’t worked so quickly to prevent uncertainty from swirling around the program, it’s — in Brohm’s less-than-threatening words — “hypothetically a possibility” that the university would have lost its star quarterback. The quick hire kept the team’s momentum chugging ahead and Brohm on board. (In four seasons at Tulsa, Kragthorpe compiled a 29-22 record and took his team to three bowl games, a shocking turnaround compared to the Golden Hurricane’s 2-21 record in the two seasons before his arrival.) Less than a week after Kragthorpe arrived, Brohm announced his decision to stay in college.

“I met (Kragthorpe) at the airport as soon as he got in, to kind of get a feel for what he’s about. I met his family,” Brohm says. “I just fell in love with the way he presented himself and the way he said he was going to run things.”

There are ways a senior season can help Brohm become a top-10 NFL draft choice. He now has to learn different terminology, different formations and, simply, work with a “different guy calling the plays.” He has to forget about Petrino’s “military-style” of coaching, which he thrived under, and adapt to Kragthorpe’s “looser, more laid-back” approach. And because he’ll have to do it again in the NFL, it only helps that he’s making these types of adjustments now. “To ask a senior to come back and learn a whole new offense, a whole new scheme in his last year — especially when last year’s offense and team was very successful — is a challenge,” says Jeff Brohm, also the quarterbacks coach.

Brohm, as with other subjects, seems relaxed when addressing the changes. “The offense might look a little bit different,” he says. “You might see a little more motion, the receivers might be running the ball a little bit more. You might see more screen plays, more quick-hitters to get the ball into the receivers’ hands. But we’re still going to be throwing the ball around and scoring a lot of points.”

Search for Brian Brohm on YouTube and one of the videos that pops up is titled “Rutgers-Louisville Field Rush Brian Brohm is Sad.” In the footage, filmed by a Rutgers student, time expires during the Nov. 9, 2006, meeting that Louisville lost 28-25. Shrieking Scarlet Knights fans climb over a railing and hop onto their home field, and the fan with the camera beelines to Brohm. In the split second that Brohm’s helmeted head is on camera, it’s clear that, indeed, he is sad.

“That one burns,” says the Heisman candidate, sitting in a chair inside the Howard L. Schnellenberger Football Complex. “The game this year (at home on Nov. 29) will be huge. You definitely want to win that one, since we lost last year to them. We were three points away from being undefeated.”

The Cardinals have just finished a late June afternoon workout and sweat has saturated Brohm’s gray T-shirt and a towel is wrapped around his neck. It’s the day before the team gets a week off, and the players talk about the jet skis they’ll ride and the lake houses they’ll visit. Brohm will go to Panama City Beach, Fla., for his vacation, but when the interview ends he doesn’t join his teammates in the showers. He heads right to the weight room.

After all, there’s that Rutgers game and an undefeated season and a Big East championship and a Heisman Trophy and a national championship. Then, yes, there’s the NFL draft. Perhaps perfection is the word to describe what he’s after. In the weight room, still months away from the season opener, Brohm doesn’t know if he’ll accomplish it all, but right now he’s doing everything he can to get there.     

Staff writer Josh Moss may be reached at jmoss@loumag.com.