Louisville Getting 'Great' Competition from Offensive Line in Fall Camp

When most fans and nationals/local pundits discuss the Louisville football program heading into the 2025 season, the bulk of that discussion revolves around the offensive skill position players. Of course, it's understandable why this would be the case.

Isaac Brown and Duke Watson combine for one of the top rushing attacks in all of college football. Chris Bell and Caullin Lacy anchor one of the best wide receiver units in the ACC. Transfer QB Miller Moss has also performed very well in spring ball and fall camp up to this point.

But as any well-versed football fall knows, it all starts in the trenches. If you don't have a good offensive line, it doesn't matter how many weapons you amongst the skill positions. Fortunately, the Cardinals have been getting great reps from their linemen in the early goings of fall camp.

"Competition's been great," offensive line coach Richard Owens said. "We're trying to move some pieces around, trying to see what the best fit is, who's going to play at the highest level of ball, then get them to start gelling so we can start moving forward. Then you gotta find out who's six, who's seven, who's eight, and we just keep building it as we go along. They're competing, and every day, it's a new day."

The offensive line is coming off of a 2024 season where at face value they had a great year, but one where advanced stats suggest it wasn't as good as people think.

Sure, Louisville did rank 17th in sack allowed per game and 18th in tackles for loss per game. Though part of this was a product of having a much more mobile quarterback than the year before, and having two phenomenal running backs. In fact, per Pro Football Focus, Louisville's pass block grade of 67.2 ranked 72nd nationally, while their run block grade of 65.1 ranked 57th.

And this is a unit that does see a lot of roster movement from that 2024 season. Long time veteran guard Michael Gonzalez graduated, while Austin Collins (Syracuse), Joe Crocker (Baylor), Monroe Mills (Virginia) and Madden Sanker (FAU) all hit the transfer portal.

That being said, Louisville was very aggressive in the portal when it came to the offensive line. They wound up bringing in FAU's Jordan Church, Old Dominion's Michael Flores, SEMO's Carter Guillaume, FIU, Naeer Jackson, Purdue's Mahamane Moussa, Mississppi State's Makylan Pounders, and Houston's Sam Secrest.

For Owens, simply figuring out who was going to be running with the main rotation was something he started to consider long before fall camp started.

"Every day we're trying to evaluate, we're moving pieces, we're grading the practice film, we're grading the individual film, when we have scrimmages we'll grade the scrimmage," he said. :Then at the end of the day, it's going to be about production. Guys that are getting it done, and are getting it done at a high level. Those are the guys who will get in there from the outside looking in."

As you can imagine, Louisville has rotated their various linemen at a near breakneck pace. Trevonte Sylvester ran with the first team on the first day of camp at left tackle, only for Moussa to step in at that spot for day two. Church stepped in for Cutler at right guard on day three. On day five, Pounders slid in at left tackle, Jackson saw some reps at left guard for Lance Robinson, Rasheed Miller moved over to right guard, while Moussa took over at right tackle. The only consistent first team lineman, so far, has been center Pete Nygra - which was to be expected.

Essentially, just because you're running with a certain unit in one practice, it doesn't mean you're stuck there. Owens and the rest of the offensive staff are doing their due diligence when it comes to mixing and matching various lineups to see which is the best one.

"There's opportunity," Owens said. "The best guy is going to go in at the end of the day. What I tell them is, it doesn't matter if you're a two. You're a two competing to be a one. If you're a one, you're trying not to get beat out by the two, and vice versa with threes and fours."

On top of that, Louisville has been taking advantage of the fact that most of their lineman have experience at more than one spot on the line. Out of their 15 scholarship lineman that have prior college experience, eight of them have taken snaps at more than one spot. Moussa and Sylvester have experience at two spots; Church, Flores, Miller and Robinson have taken snaps at three; Jackson at four and Cutler has college reps at all five spots.

"That's the way we teach those guys," Owens said. "We're teaching them all the positions. They're learning the concepts, they're learning the protections, they're learning the run game, and you learn it from all positions. That way, it creates the versatility in the room. The more versatile you are, the more value you have."

It also helps that this group has been amongst one of the more vocal positions on the roster in fall camp so far. Considering that everything starts in the trenches in the game of football, the offensive line bringing the energy almost seems like a requirement - an they're living up to that.

"If they don't bring it, nobody's going to," Owens said. "They set the tone, they set the tempo. Those guys, when they take the field, there's got to be a presence out there."