University of Louisville football tickets are in the mail, arriving in mailboxes all over town.
The long wait is about to end for fans eager to put the Steve Kragthorpe years behind them. Finally, in Charlie Strong a reason to anticipate an upcoming season.
Improvement. That’s what reasonable fans are expecting. Step by step, benefitting from mistakes, learning to win again. A slow grinding process over a long period of time.
Some, however, are wildly optimistic, predicting five, six, seven, even eight wins, and a possible bowl game.
Patience. There’s only so much one man can do, given what he inherited from the previous coaching regime.
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Frank Camp would have been in disbelief.
The late University of Louisville coach never saw the day when more than 7,000 fans would show up for a pre-season football event on Belknap Campus. But that’s how many showed up Sunday for Fan Day despite sweltering temperatures nearing the 100-degree mark.
Camp coached at U of L from 1946 to 1968, with a record of 116-98-2. He rarely saw crowds in excess of 3,000 at an actual game.
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The annual Louisville football posters have been obtainable for a while at various events, including the Eye Care Institute picnics. They’re pretty generic. No Brian Brohm or Michael Bush-type players to highlight, opting again to focus on the seniors. The posters are now widely available to the public at various Thornton’s and Rally’s locations about town. A full listing of the outlets is available at Card Chronicle.
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Remember Mike Leach, the former Texas Tech coach once speculated to be a candidate for the U of L job? He is joining the CBS broadcasting crew as a color analyst, according to ESPN.
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Marcus Campbell, a junior defensive end at UConn is out for the season with a torn ACL. A UConn blog said the 6-foot-3, 235-pound Campbell has sprinter speed and was poised for a breakout year.
I agree that it will not be an overnight fix but I feel better about our chances with not just coach strong but the staff as a whole and I agree about our sports teams being noticed for once even womens bball is better these days but I doin know one thing kragthorpe took out the trash but he did set us back like Ron Cooper!
Nobody is that bad, or are they? Kraggie sure set low standards in football competence.
I went to Thorntons on lagrange rd today and they were already out of the posters and wallet scheudles.
As of yesterday around 7 pm the Thorntons on Shelbyville Road near Hubbards lane still had some posters. Not sure about the wallet schedules.
Allan,
Two National Champions in Track & Field, a finalist in Men’s Tennis and the baseball team in the regional championship game. Get your head out of the sand.
Frank
Granted, we have great fan support, a great new expanded stadium and a solid coaching staff. That will last us until the first whistle, right?
What we don’t have yet is size and depth and experience in the offensive and defensive sets. In 4-5 of our games, we’re going to be boys against men–not faulting our guys at all. It’s just a matter of size/depth/experience.
What we DO have is enthusiasm and speed and a coach who knows his guys as well as knowing the game. It’s going to be an interesting but challenging year, if we don’t get injured.
I make us 6 and 6, getting the last win in the last game. More than that, we’re over-achieving. Go Cards.
laughing
No overnight fixes, that’s for sure. Kragthorpe completely dismantled the machine the remnants that Petrino had left and that wasn’t much. Petrino did us a great disservice with his crappy recruiting, making it possible for a total breakdown under an incompetent coach and recruiter.
Actually if you look at the players recruited by Petrino, he of the forked tongue and wanderlust, you will see a significant number in the NFL. The man could recruit, he could coach, he just couldn’t be honest to his boss or be true to his school.
DeMoise are you serious? I really can’t tell if that was an attempt at sarcasm or not. Take a minute sometime and browse some NFL rosters. You’ll be surprised at what you find.
I would love to get my hopes up and predict a big year for the Cards but it just doesn’t seem likely with the depth issues others are mentioning. I think we end up 5-7, anything more would be gravy. It will be a much longer rebuilding process than any of us like to imagine, but Coach Strong is the man to do it.
Hey, don’t forget the Baseball Cards, and even a few other champs in other sports, Allan. We’re going STRONG and a few other adverbs!!! GO CARDS!
I know that’s a dig, but hasn’t been that long ago that Louisville won the BCS Orange Bowl. As to whether U of L is competitive again, well, that’s coming.
I thought The Ville only played basketball, do they really have a competitive football team?