Louisville's spring game didn't show much, but it did show Davin Wydner

Louisville football‘s annual spring game was nothing out of the ordinary.

A 43-24 win for the offense aside, objective number one for Jeff Brohm and his Cardinals was getting out of Friday’s gameday scrimmage without a scratch, which they did. Isaac Brown and Keyjuan Brown didn’t record a stat, and Louisville’s top two transfer pass catchers, Brody Foley and Tre Richardson, were sidelined. But, there was also an opportunity for Louisville’s passing game to show off a little bit more than it did in spring practice.

“I think it was important to improve the quarterback room,” Brohm said on the field afterward. “Having more than one guy is very important. It’s hard to keep them healthy all year long…I don’t think Lincoln (Kienholz) was getting a whole lot of opportunities to make plays up the field, so we can gameplan better than that.”

Surprisingly, it wasn’t presumed starter and Ohio State transfer Lincoln Kienholz marching the Cards’ “White Team” (offense) down the field. It was Davin Wydner. The West Georgia transfer, who has been seemingly under the radar through spring practice.

On the day, the 6-foot-5, 225-pound quarterback completed 10 of his 12 passes for a team-high 194 yards and two touchdowns. Both scores were absolute beauties. One, a play he checked into at the line of scrimmage and a layered ball down the right sideline to hit LaWayne McCoy in stride for a 40-yard touchdown. It was an excellent route from the lanky Florida State wideout, who Louisville will need to produce next fall, as he beat the true freshman Broadnax and caught it in the bread basket. The other deep ball, a 77-yarder to freshman Gavin Waddell on a busted coverage, had more zip than the one to McCoy and roped past the secondary to hit him on the run. With five catches, a touchdown, and 118 yards, Waddell was one of the standouts of the first-year class this spring.

Highly touted and recruited out of high school in 2022 by FBS programs, Wydner spent the first few years of his college career playing at Ole Miss, but redshirted as a true freshman and never saw the field for the Rebels. From there, he got a chance to be the starter, which he was with West Georgia for two seasons.

In 2025, Wydner made 10 starts, winning eight of them, and threw for 15 touchdowns and 1,672 yards.

When Louisville was looking for its backup to Kienholz, finding someone with proven starts and a dual-threat component was paramount. As Wydner didn’t run much in the spring game, Kienholz proved to be the quicker and more elusive signal caller. Still, he’s more than capable and last year ran the ball over 100 times for over 400 yards.

The quarterback-run game will be part of Louisville’s offense in 2026.

On Friday, there were instances, where the process of things seemed a bit slow for the redshirt junior. Wydner took what would have been a couple sacks, seemed to get caught up on his first read, but in terms of pound-for-pound arm talent, there wasn’t anything like what Wydner displayed. He was consistently on time and in rhythm, and he seems to have already developed a connection with second-team guys like TJ McWilliams and Julius Miles.

“I think Davin has done a good job,” Brohm added. “He’s a big, strong quarterback who can throw from the pocket. More athletic than you think with his size. He can throw it vertically; he did a good job today.”

“He’s had really good practices, so I think he’s done a solid job.”

There were also a couple of times when Brohm had to enter Wydner’s huddle and aggressively counsel the play-call or potentially a mistaken one. That was something that came up a couple of times in spring practice for most of the Louisville quarterbacks. The Cardinals’ playbook is widely regarded as one of the more complex and pro-style playcalling systems in college football, and the spring period will be an adjustment for three scholarship newcomers at quarterback.

While the offense has three plus months to get clicking with Kienholz under center and a boost of studs around him will help, the development of the rest of Louisville’s quarterback room, including Wydner and true freshman Briggs Cherry, will be an important piece.

After all, there are zero combined FBS-level starts in Louisville’s quarterback room entering the 2026 season.

“Having three guys who can compete and challenge each other is always good,” said Brohm.