Ole Miss is two days away from its 2026 season-opener against Louisville in Nashville. Let’s take a look at the Cardinals.
As a Rippee Writes subscriber, LB’s Meat Market will give you three 6 oz. bacon wrapped filets for $25. Just stop by, show proof of subscription and they’ll get you set up. Then go find your own favorites. It’s the best butcher shop in the world.
Jeff Brohm is great as an underdog
Jeff Brohm is one of the more underrated coaches in College Football. A former quarterback at Louisville in the early 1990s, Brohm got his first college head coaching job at Western Kentucky in 2014, where he spent three seasons, went 30-10 (19-5) and got hired by Purdue. Brohm made the Boilermakers as relevant as they’ve been as a program in over 20 years in the six seasons he was there. At Purdue, Brohm went 36-34 and 26-25 in Big Ten play. Since Brohm left, Purdue has gone 7-30 overall, 3-24 in Big Ten play and is currently riding an 18-game conference losing streak.
Brohm can coach, and is masterful at developing quarterbacks. He’s also really good as an underdog. He has won six of his last nine games outright when his team is a touchdown underdog or more. Ole Miss is right around a touchdown favorite over the Cardinals on Sunday. This will be a tough test for the Rebels. Louisville is a good team that will be a legitimate threat to win the ACC this year. It has a talented but unproven quarterback, a tough and aggressive defense that returns a lot from one of the better defensive units in the ACC a year ago and has one of the best running backs in the country.
“This is no different than an SEC game when you watch them on tape,” Pete Golding said earlier this week. I don’t think he was offering up coach-speak in that instance. I think he was offering his honest opinion.
The next step for Louisville as a program under Brohm is winning the ACC. In Brohm’s first year, Louisville started the season 10-1 and was not totally out of the playoff conversation entering the season’s final week (remember, this was the last year of the four-team playoff), only to lose at home to an unranked Kentucky team to close the season, lose the ACC Championship to Florida State who played a back-up quarterback and then lost its bowl game to USC. The last two years, a couple of mid-season slides have cost Louisville dearly, but this is a program that beat Miami last year, at Miami on a Friday night.
A-Stock’s mission is to provide our customers with the power to name their price. Our inventory changes weekly, allowing you to browse products for all occasions. We’ll let you in on our little secret: We buy in bulk from major retailers, which helps us, help you name your price. These items tend to be overstocked, returned, or closeout products. With convenient locations in Tupelo, Memphis, Nashville, East TN, & KY, you can buy from A-Stock in two ways:
1. At one of our many bin stores
2 at AStock.com / A-Stock Bids App. All items online start at just $1. Explore our inventory of items grouped by location and sale events. Each sale has a specific end date and time, so you know exactly when bidding closes. Place your bids on items you want. No shipping or transfers available, all items must be picked up at the specified location.
Isaac Brown is a shifty, dynamic running back
Louisville returns running back Isaac Brown, who ran for 884 yards on 101 carries in nine games last season. He missed three games with a hamstring issue. At 5-foot-9, 190 lbs., Brown has home-run speed and averaged nearly nine yards per carry last season despite his smaller frame.
He rushed for 1,173 yards as a freshman in 2024 at 7.1 yards per carry and won ACC Rookie of the Year and Offensive Rookie of the Year honors. He’s the real deal, and Keyjuan Brown is an experienced complementary back behind him who ran for 700 yards on 96 carries at 7.4 for yards per carry.
The Louisville running game will be a tall test for this Ole Miss defense, particularly when you factor in the mobility of transfer starting quarterback Lincoln Keinholz. More on him in a second.
Watson Turnipseed is a proud Rippee Writes sponsor. Have you been injured in a car accident or at work? Have the insurance companies denied your claim? Get more than one call with Watson Turnipseed. Call 504-636-8217
Keinholz the next transfer QB project for Brohm
Brohm has been at Louisville for three seasons. He’s had three transfer quarterbacks. In year one, Jack Plummer followed him from Purdue, threw for over 3,000 yards and led Louisville to a 10-win season and an ACC Championship game appearance. In year two, Tyler Shough transferred from Texas Tech, led Louisville to a nine-win season, finished 14th in the FBS in total yards and became a second-round pick. Shough is currently the starting quarterback for the New Orleans Saints. Last year, Miller Moss transferred from USC and continued the steady tradition of Louisville being at least a nine-win team.
Now, his fourth transfer quarterback in as many years is Lincoln Keinholz. Keinholz was a highly-touted four-star recruit out of high school who went to Ohio State. Keinholz spent three seasons at Ohio State and barely played. The most significant playing time he got was at the end of the 2023 season in the Cotton Bowl against Missouri when starting quarterback Devin Brown — who was really the back-up to Kyle McCord, who the program ran off after a regular-season ending loss to Michigan — got knocked out of the game with an injury. Keinholz went 6-17 for 86 yards in a loss to the Tigers.
I have no clue what to make of Keinholz because he’s hardly played any football. What makes him different from any of the previous quarterbacks Brohm has had at Louisville is that he is a true dual-threat quarterback that adds a running element to their offense. I have no clue how much he will run or if that will factor into Louisville’s offense at all, but he is definitely a different type of quarterback than Brohm has had the last three seasons.
Louisville retooled its offensive line in the portal this offseason, which is hardly an uncommon practice in this modern era, but four of the five Cardinals projected starters (other than center) are transfers. Louisville feels pretty good about the interior of its offensive line, but, much like Ole Miss, the tackle spots are question marks. This will be a fascinating component of this game as a stout Ole Miss defensive line goes up against an unproven exterior of the Louisville offensive line with a running quarterback in the backfield.
The Cowboy Country Club is a brand that was founded on the basis of building a community that you can not only feel proud to be a part of, but also one that you can make yours. Go to CowboyCountryClub.com and go buy the best merch on the market. Use the promo code “HottyToddy20” for a discount just for being a subscriber to Rippee Writes.
Louisville has a tough, aggressive defense
Louisville has two new minds heading up its defense in Co-defensive coordinators Steve Ellis and Mark Ivey, this comes after last year’s (lead) co-defensive coordinator Ron English took a year off from coaching and Brohm moved on from other co-defensive coordinator (and defensive line coach) Mark Hagen.
The shake-up wasn’t due to performance as Louisville finished 16th nationally in defense and boasted the best pass defense in the ACC. Last year’s philosophy seemed to be: when in doubt, be aggressive, as the Cardinals’ pass rush terrorized opposing quarterbacks.
Edge rusher Clev Lubin returns. He registered 61 tackles, 13.5 tackles for loss, and 8.5 sacks last season, along with 64 quarterback pressures— which was good for 6th most in the FBS.
This defense lost seven starters off of last year’s team, but returns at least one key piece in each level of the defense, and did well with what it added in the portal, particularly in the secondary, to replenish the departures. If there is one weakness in this defense, it is likely the interior of the defensive line. I am curious to see if Ole Miss can exploit this. But this will be a tough test for the Ole Miss offense, particularly for the Rebels’ unproven receiving corps against what should be a pretty good secondary for the Cardinals.
I’ll have more tomorrow on some key matchups in the game, but first I wanted to give you a glimpse at what the Rebels are up against in Louisville.