Louisville football can't afford to let Jeff Brohm feel he must leave

As long as Louisville football coach Jeff Brohm wins eight or nine games a year, he’ll continue to be a wanted commodity by bigger programs.

That much we know and have seen play out over the past 25 years as John L. Smith, Bobby Petrino and Charlie Strong were plucked from the city for a higher-profile job. Since program patriarch Howard Schnellenberger coached from 1984-94, no UofL coaching tenure has lasted longer than five consecutive seasons.

What makes Brohm special is that he’s not interesting in leaving.

At least not now.

Under the right circumstances, he could and should have the longest tenure since Schnellenberger as he enters his fourth season as head coach.

During Brohm's first three seasons, there have certainly been special moments. The Notre Dame win at home. Beating Clemson for the first time in Death Valley. Winning at Miami last season. Those are the games that make it feel like the Cardinals are within reach of making the College Football Playoff if everything comes together.

And I don't think Brohm would consider leaving before the Cards achieve at least one truly special season that galvanizes the masses and electrifies the city.

That, and that alone, should mean UofL and athletics director Josh Heird do everything they can to make sure Brohm has everything he needs to feel the love here, and feel like he never has to leave.

The way Brohm's contract extension talks have lingered on, it appears that has not been the case. What should be cause for celebration appears to be more like a cause of contention between the two parties.

Brohm has all the leverage, putting Heird in a bit of a can't-win situation. It's his job to look out for the greater good of the university's entire athletics department. If that means haggling for a bigger buyout in Brohm's contract, then he's got to fight for those extra dollars. But there comes a point where holding the line in negotiations for a few extra million isn't worth the public relations nightmare it creates in the interim.

The deeper into April and beyond that this drags out, the worse it looks for Heird.

Losing the bigger buyout would mean keeping Brohm content. Just keeping Brohm from being lured away — or wanting to leave — means the fan base stays happy. Collectively, that's a bigger return on investment than coming up with a buyout amount that would essentially be like the coins in the couch cushions of a Big Ten or SEC school's budget.

Remember, Brohm turned down Penn State. And considering that Penn State is on the short list of football programs where a coach at Louisville has to take the call, I can't even be mad that he took it. (For the sake of reviewing past calls made to UofL coaches, Michigan State (Smith), Auburn (Petrino) and South Carolina (Scott Satterfield) are not on the list of calls you have to take in 2026. However, Texas (Strong) still is.)

If Brohm really wanted to leave, we'd be talking about how spring football is going for new UofL coach so-and-so and the changes the program is undergoing. He stayed to continued to build on what he has started in his three seasons. Heird should not let another three days go by without finalizing the extension.

In this day, alignment ranks just a touch behind culture as the go-to cliché from coaches and athletic administrators. It occurs when a school’s president, athletic director and head coach have the same vision for what it takes to win and are dedicated to obtaining the necessary resources to do so.

Alignment is overused because it is, in fact, instrumental to creating a consistent, winning program.

Louisville better hope these talks didn’t cause irreparable harm to its alignment.

Reach sports columnist C.L. Brown atclbrown1@gannett.com, follow him on X at@CLBrownHoopsand subscribe to his newsletter atprofile.courier-journal.com/newsletters/cl-browns-latestto make sure you never miss one of his columns.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Louisville football, Josh Heird need Jeff Brohm contract extension