One of the first interactions Archbishop Moeller (Ohio) safety Micah Rice had with Louisville football coach Jeff Brohm was a nearly three-hour conversation.
Junior day had just wrapped up when Brohm pulled Rice to the side to talk to him about football and Rice’s game.
“There were a lot of kids at the junior day. He only held us afterward,” Rice said.
There were no frills, excitement or promises of being a starter. Rice was intrigued by how down-to-earth and realistic Brohm was in their discussion.
The 1-on-1 time and upfront conversations Brohm had with Rice and his family stuck out to the three-star defensive back. Between Brohm paying close attention to Rice, the relationship defensive coordinator Ron English developed with him and prayer, choosing Louisville over Minnesota and Arizona wasn’t a hard decision.
One month after U of L secured Rice’s commitment, the program added four-star edge rusher CJ May , the highest-rated prospect of the 2025 recruiting class . Although the Cardinals’ coaching staff hits the transfer portal hard, the group hasn’t forgotten about high school players. The current class has 13 verbal commits, all of whom share similar experiences about the relationships they built with Brohm & Co.
Although name, image and likeness deals play a major part in schools’ pitches to recruits, it hasn’t been a major part of the Cardinals’ discussions with recruits. Rice said it wasn’t mentioned at all, and Ryle three-star defensive lineman Dillon Smith said it was mentioned briefly.
“I'm pretty sure they said around half their team has an NIL deal,” Smith said, adding that NIL deals didn’t play much of a factor in his decision to commit to U of L. “I know that the NIL stuff will come once I'm able to perform on the field, so I'll worry about performing before all the NIL stuff.”
So, what are Brohm and the coaching staff like on the recruiting trail?
Here’s what’s been the most appealing to members of the 2025 recruiting class:
Rice formed a bond with English when he found out the Cardinals’ DC is from Southern California. Rice spent his formative years in the Los Angeles area before moving to the Midwest in 2020. English was born and raised in Pomona, a city in eastern Los Angeles County, before heading north to attend the University of California, Berkeley.
“The Midwest is a big, big change. The only question people ask me is why would you move from L.A. to Ohio?” Rice said. “(English) might be the only person in the Midwest that I’ve met that’s from Cali. It’s definitely nice.”
Louisville coaches have found commonalities with recruits and used those to deepen their relationships. It’s how they secured their first commit from Texas in a decade in current freshman quarterback Deuce Adams . Brohm remembered playing against Adams’ father, Mike, when Brohm was a quarterback at Louisville and Mike Adams was a receiver for Texas in the 1990s.
A year later, it wasn’t football but volleyball that created a connection between Brohm and North Oldham three-star offensive lineman Gradey Anthony . Anthony’s sister and Brohm’s daughter both play in the KIVA league . It became a point of conversation between the families.
“Not only is he able to build a relationship with me, he also got to talk to my parents a little bit about that,” Anthony said. "... It's really nice to know that I'm going to a personable coach who has real-life stuff going on. It's not just about football. Being able to see behind the scenes and just having a family connection with that, that definitely was nice.”
Cardinal Newman (Florida) three-star running back Jaylin Brown was down to two schools: Louisville and Georgia Tech. What separated the Cardinals was the city’s hyperfocus on the program. There are no professional basketball or football teams in the city, which puts more of an emphasis on the Cardinals. Described as a small, big city by some and a big, small town by others, Louisville is significantly smaller than Atlanta’s metropolitan area but still one of the bigger metro cities in the country.
“They’ve got a lot of other things going on (in Atlanta),” Brown said. “... When I went to Louisville, I saw all of their fans, and that’s something I would like to play (in front of).”
Anthony experienced that firsthand while growing up in Goshen, about 20 miles from Louisville. Some of his best memories centered around going to Louisville basketball and football games with his grandfather. The appeal to not only be close to home but play for a program that’s the focal point of the surrounding area was too good to pass up.
“If you're from here, you know the city rallies a lot around our college sports, and I did as a kid,” he said. “I've been on campus a lot of my life and attended their sports (events). I kind of think every kid has that idea growing up that they want to be the hometown hero for their college team. When presented with the opportunity earlier this year, I jumped on it.”
Like Anthony, Brohm jumped at the opportunity to be the hometown hero not only as a player but as a coach. Though players’ eligibility runs out, Brohm has made it clear that Louisville, where he was born and raised, is where he wants to be for the foreseeable future. It’s a much different trajectory than his predecessors .
Since 2010, Louisville has had four head football coaches. In the program's history, the Cardinals have only had four head coaches stay longer than five seasons per stint. It’s not unusual for coaches to job hop, creating consistent inconsistency in the annual coaching carousel.
But Brohm’s love for his hometown and being in his dream job eases some recruits’ immediate concerns about him leaving for other jobs.
“He could be a lot of other places in the country,” Rice said, “but that he chose there is another (indication) that it would be a good place to go to school, too.”
Reach Louisville football, women's basketball and baseball beat writer Alexis Cubit at acubit@gannett.com and follow her on X at @Alexis_Cubit.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: What Louisville football 2025 commits are saying about Jeff Brohm's recruiting approach
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