Charlie Strong
To me, from the outside looking in, Steve Kragthorpe seemed like the plastic man. Sure he is a good coach and a good offensive coordinator, but there wasn’t much else there. He was nice enough, but no personality. No spark. No passion. John L. Smith had personality. Bobby Petrino didn’t have a lot of personality, and he could certainly be a jerk, but he had passion, aggressiveness, fire. Plus, he’s a heckuva football coach, which is what you need at a Louisville, which is trying to get attention in the same state with an SEC school.
Some will tell you that Krags was trying to clean up a program that was riding on the edge with Petrino, and that may be true. But Louisville’s recruiting was abysmal under Kragthorpe. It didn’t follow up on U of L’s bowl trip, nor did it capitalize on the offensive tradition that started with Howard Schnellenberger, encountered a speed bump with Ron Cooper, then picked back up with John L, and was expanded by Petrino. When you go from Jeff Brohm to Dave Ragone to Stefan LeFors to Brian Brohm to Adam Froman as your quarterback, something’s wrong.
Was asked earlier this season if Louisville’s football glory days are gone for good. I wouldn’t bet on it. Tom Jurich is a smart guy. He whiffed on this hire, but he’d made two pretty good ones before that. Not every AD gets every hire right (Ask Mitch Barnhart.) Jurich thought Kragthorpe would work. The resume said it would work. But it didn’t work, not from day one.
If I’m Jurich, I hire Charlie Strong. He’s done a terrific job as defensive coordinator at Florida. He has good recruiting pipe lines in the south, which is where Smith and Petrino made hay during their runs. Strong is an African-American coach, and it shouldn’t be lost on Louisville that Kentucky will have an African-American head football coach in the not too distant future. Plus, I think Charlie would do a good job.
But I’m not so sure that Mike Leach wouldn’t be interested. Mike is probably tired of banging his head against Texas and Oklahoma and now Oklahoma State every year. Louisville is a school at a BCS conference that has shown it can win in football. That could appeal to Leach, though some say the ‘Ville doesn’t have the greenbacks to lure him out of Lubbock. We’ll see.
But today was an unfortunate but necessary step forward for the Cards.
