Fall has finally arrived, even though the leaves aren’t yet falling. Real football weather for a change. What else to expect in a battle between the two teams who surprised the college football world by defeating the Cincinnati Bearcats this year:
- If Steve Kragthorpe is to even remotely have a shot at winning over the disbelievers, U of L must show major improvement in all aspects of the game at home against Pitt, posting a winning margin of no less than 20 points.
- Bilal Powell will get a shot at running back. Despite season-long urging from many fans, the U of L coach discovered in the last outing that Powell has significant ball carrying skills… And we thought coaches saw more in practice than we do at games.
- Harry Douglas will return from sabbatical, even if the weather conditions are worst than during the UConn debacle.
- Brock Bolen will run over would-be tacklers, notching his first 100-yard running game. He’s overdue, hasn’t done it since he got 112 yards against NC State.
- Mario Urrutia will show up, catching passes and taking hits. If he were not going to return, he would have departed — turf toe or no.
- Yoda will reclaim his spot in the Green Lot, proclaiming: “Only different in your mind. You must unlearn what you have learned.”
The corporate world has its flaws as I recall so it’s not the perfect model of an example. Neither is government for that matter. I know one thing: I have never seen so many caring and unhappy U of L football fans. Some kind of reassurance is necessary before we lose some of these folks.
You lose all the close ones, and have a lot of “excuses”, when you are under -prepared and out-coached –which has been the case with virtually every game this yr.
Cincy should have beat us too –they just got very sloppy in the red zone.
Our fans will show up to support the team again–that hasn’t been a problem.
And there will probably again be only scattered booing if we lose to this pitt-iful team.
You can talk new players, injuries, etc.
The bottom line: There has never been this big a dropoff in results from one season to the next– even under Mr. 1-10. K wasn’t ready and didn’t get the team ready for this season — much less an elite run for the nat’l title. He was used to taking 3-4 losses a yr and “improving” as the yr went on–and going to any kind of bowl and the fans in Tulsa were ecstatic.
Anyone who runs a company–and knows a little football–knows this is a leadership issue.
If it was the corporate world, it’s very, very simple–K would have been fired before now, and replaced by an interim mgr.
Geez, Can’t please some folks. These kids have been playing hard all year. The ball hasn’t bounced our way. Simply put. Would we be looking back so glowingly at last year if Cincy would have upset us like they should have done? No. Things in sports are usually not as good as they seem nor as bad as they seem. Anybody predicting BC, ASU and Kansas, UConn, and Ohio State leading the ACC/PAC10/Big12/Big East/Big Ten this late in the year? Hell no. There is plenty of disappointment to go around. And instead of crying about it and not showing up Louisville fan should be like Michigan fan and show up and support the team.
Agree…while the optimism is great, I haven’t seen any “improvement”, but rather, a worsening with each game (despite knocking off Cincy, which looks more and more like a paper-cat).
Gotta love your optimism, but how many “gotta show improvement” games do we have to endure this year. At this rate, the team will be trying to reach .500 by the first Saturday in May.
I have accepted (unfortunately) the fact that FlunKthorpe will be here for the rest of this year and (unfortunately) next year probably as well. But every time the team plays, I want him gone yesterday.
Good comment, Gentlejohn. I would be in favor of letting Brian Brohm make more audibles, call all plays in two-minute situations.
The kids can’t go full speed because they don’t know where they’re going. Would you drive 90 miles an hour if you didn’t know where you were going? (Don’t answer that…)
It would help if the coach wasn’t so hard-headed that he didn’t listen to his players–who after all are the only ones who have experience playing on this level.
I’ll give the guy until this time next year. No improvement–no job.