Louisville says it didn't benefit from leaked Wake Forest info during Nov. 12 win

Wake Forest was up 12-0 on Louisville before giving up 44-straight points. (Getty)

Louisville said its 44-12 win over Wake Forest wasn’t boosted by information from fired Wake Forest radio announcer Tommy Elrod.

Elrod, a former assistant coach with the Demon Deacons was fired Tuesday after Wake Forest determined he had been giving opponents information about the team’s gameplans since 2014. The investigation into “WakeyLeaks” began following Wake’s loss to Louisville when coach Dave Clawson said there had been a “game-plan breach” before the game.

Louisville athletic director Tom Jurich released a statement Wednesday that said Elrod shared “some information” with Cardinals offensive coordinator Lonnie Galloway in a phone call the week before the game. And while Jurich noted the Cardinals didn’t benefit from anything special that Elrod told Galloway about, he didn’t note that the conversation was out of the ordinary.

“Among the communication were a few plays that were sent and then shared with our defensive staff. None of the special plays were run during the course of the game. Our defense regularly prepares for similar formations every week in their normal game plan.
Any other information that may have been discussed was nothing that our staff had not already seen while studying Wake Forest in their preparations for the game and the material was not given any further attention. I’m disappointed that this issue has brought undue attention to our football staff as we prepare for our upcoming bowl game.”

Louisville coach Bobby Petrino said shortly after Clawson’s breaching comments that he had “no knowledge” any inside information had been shared with his team. Though perhaps Louisville didn’t benefit from the info because Wake Forest already knew the Cardinals had it.

WF coaches scrapped "special" plays after finding diagrams of them left behind by UL at walk-through day before game in Louisville

— Mark Schlabach (@Mark_Schlabach) December 14, 2016

Was told they ran 1 and it was schemed up perfectly, so the rest was scrapped. https://t.co/Xou6U3740t

— Andrea Adelson (@aadelsonESPN) December 14, 2016

 

Elrod wasn’t retained on the Wake Forest coaching staff when Clawson arrived at the school before the 2014 season. He then moved to the radio booth and recently completed his third season as the team’s radio analyst. His motivations for sharing proprietary information with WF opponents is unclear.

Louisville plays LSU on Jan. 2 in the Citrus Bowl.