By Russ Brown
Special to NKyTribune
LOUISVILLE — The University of Louisville’s football team was a young group this year as evidenced by the fact that the Cardinals will lose only a handful of seniors heading into the 2016 season.
But when UofL (7-5) meets Texas A&M (8-4) in the Music City Bowl on Dec. 30 in Nashville, four underclassmen who were key players this year and could help form the core of next season’s club could be playing their final game as Cards.
Coach Bobby Petrino said yesterday that juniors Keith Kelsey, Josh Harvey-Clemons, DeVonte Fields and DeAngelo Brown have requested official feedback from the NFL to evaluate their stock for next spring’s draft.
Petrino said that none of the four has decided to stay or go, but will wait for the NFL’s reply, and that he will discuss the draft process with the players and their families after the bowl game.
“It’s still part of the process,” Petrino said during a news conference to preview the Music City Bowl Tuesday afternoon in, of all places, the visitors’ locker room at Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium. “We’re at the point where we should be getting the evaluations back. Then I’ll sit down and tell them what the NFL said about their draft status and then they have decisions to make.”
Kelsey, an inside linebacker from Gainesville, Fla., led the Cards in tackles with 100, including a career-high 15 versus Houston and 14 against Virginia.
Brown, a defensive tackle from Savannah, Ga., was credited with a career-best 38 tackles playing while playing in all 12 games. He also had 6.5 tackles for loss and a pair of sacks.
At outside linebacker, Fields and fellow junior Trevon Young formed one of the top pass-rushing duos in the Atlantic Coast Conference, combining for 16.5 sacks and 29.5 tackles for loss. Fields has registered a team-high 19.5 tackles for loss and is second on the team in sacks with 8.0.
The former TCU Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year has been credited with 5.5 sacks in his last three games, including 2.5 in the 38-24 win over Kentucky to close the regular season.
Harvey-Clemons, a transfer from Georgia, led the secondary with a career-best 80 tackles from his safety position and also had two interceptions, both coming in his first game at UofL against Auburn. He also had 14 tackles in that game.
Kelsey was Louisville’s only first team all-ACC selection. Brown was picked on the second team, while Harvey-Clemons and Fields were honorable mention.
“The one thing when you think about going from a college football player to a professional, sometimes that can be the biggest and best investment ever,” Petrino says. “You come back your senior year, there’s no other place you can go make that much difference in money. That’s one of the things we try to do is educate them in what that is all about.
“We bring a guy in here and sit down with them and their parents so they really understand the business aspect of it and take out the emotion and all that. What the business aspect is is the difference in your being drafted at a certain level and a different level, just really educating them on that.”
Petrino didn’t speculate about which players might or might not come back, but UofL defensive coordinator Todd Grantham said last week that he expects Fields to return to the Cards next season.
PETRINO IN DARK ON A&M QB
Several of the questions directed at Petrino about A&M concerned the Aggies’ turmoil at quarterback. Starter Kyle Allen and backup Kyler Murray have left the team since the end of the regular season, leaving junior college transfer Jake Hubenak as the apparent starter against UofL.
Allen started nine games, including the last two of the regular season. Murray started the other three.
Hubenak, the only recruited scholarship quarterback remaining on the roster, has some impressive JUCO numbers but is unproven on the FBS level. Last season at Blinn College in Brenham, Texas — the same school where former Auburn star and now Carolina Panthers QB Cam Newton played — Hubenak averaged more than 500 passing yards per game.
He began his college career as a walk-on at Oklahoma State before transferring to Blinn.
Petrino said he has obviously seen little of how Hubenak operates, but that he is very familiar with A&M coach Kevin Sumlin’s offensive philosophy.
“Sumlin has always done a great job with the offense and certain concepts and beliefs he has that we’ve seen carry over for a long, long time,” Petrino said. “But each quarterback he had in there had a little bit different personality, and we don’t have a lot of reps on (Hubenak). I think there’s 27 snaps throwing the football.
“So we have to just prepare ourselves to go out and play well within the concepts and then adjust if there’s something new that we haven’t seen. You always have to do that mostly in every game as you get something different you haven’t seen and more so in a bowl game because they have a longer period of time to put other stuff in.”
A&M’s offenses were among the top five in the nation in 2012 and 2013 when Johnny Manziel was playing quarterback, but this season the Aggies ranked only No. 48 in total offense.
POINT SPREAD IGNORED
Shortly after the bowl matchups were announced, A&M opened as a 3-point favorite in Vegas. When Allen left, it became a pick ’em game and after Murray’s departure UofL bounced into a five-point favorite. Asked if he and his players would prefer to be a favorite or an underdog, Petrino said he doesn’t pay any attention to the point spreads.
“That’s the first time I knew it,” he said. “I don’t ever look at it. I really don’t care. I don’t even know if our players do. It’s something that in the coaching profession anywhere I’ve ever worked, you don’t even talk about it. You just get ready to play the game.”
QUOTABLE–Petrino on mixing business with Christmas: “You have to balance it out. I was walking around in a mall last night and I’ll tell you what, I’m not sure meetings aren’t more fun than that. Really not sure. But my wife appreciated it.”