Rehabbing a BCS dream.(COLLEGE FOOTBALL)

This isn't some tear-jerker tale about an athlete who overcame the odds and battled through the lonely world of rehab with grit and determination and all that other sentimental garbage.

"There was no sense pouting about it," Brian Brohm says. "I was injured, and I had to get healthy."

Maybe that's why he was ready to play quarterback again at Louisville about five months after the most severe injury in football.

"It wasn't a Carson Palmer-type injury," Louisville team trainer Dwayne Treolo says. "But it was darn close."

Brohm tore the ACL in his right knee November 26 against Syracuse. He dislocated the kneecap, strained the patella tendon and severely bruised the femur. Five years ago, that would have been a career-ending injury.

Instead, a week after the injury, Brohm had surgery. Three weeks later, he began rehab. A month after that, he started running. Today, with Louisville days away from beginning summer workouts for the most anticipated season in school history, Brohm has full range of motion in his knee and is running and throwing daily. Most ACL rehabs take nine to 12 months; Brohm did his in half that time.

Shoot, he even took five days off last week to go on a cruise to Cozumel and Cancun. And considering the news these days from cruise ships, he had a better chance of becoming the latest chum for ambulance-chasing cable news than he had of getting hurt on a football field.