UL coach under fan fire

It is the halfway point for the University of Louisville football season. Louisville is currently sitting at 3-3 on the season, having lost two games at HOME vs teams with a combined W-L record of 4-8. With the other loss being to UK on UK's home field. So the question has to be asked, where does this leave UL for the remainder of the season?

UL now has 6 games remaining with 4 of them road games. Oddly, this might be a blessing in disguise. UL has played abysmally at home this season, while showing at least SOME form of clean effort and play when going on the road. UL did lose to UK in Commonwealth Stadium, but actually led in the game with less than a minute to play, and were it not for a horrible defensive breakdown, might have come away with that victory. Add to that they did go on the road to NC State and admittedly beat a very poor Wolfpack team, but did so by playing much more sound in every aspect of the game. So maybe going on the road will actually be the best thing for this team. The problem is, the teams that UL plays get harder and harder on the road. And like the UK game, most of the rest of the teams UL plays on the road have the date with UL circled as one they want to 'payback' UL for.

First up is Cincinnati this weekend who not only is sitting in the top 20 and 6-0 on the season; UL has also beaten UC 7 of 8 times they have faced each other. And UC badly wants this game to prove they are a legitimate team. After that comes another road trip to UConn with a very much improved Huskie team, but is still very young. That might be UL's best chance to steal a game on the road, but it will not be easy. As for the other road games, @ WVU and @ USF. UL has yet to ever beat USF in Raymond James Stadium, even when going in with a much better team and none of the problems that this one faces. Add to that the Bulls are also undefeated @ 5-0 and ranked in the top 10 in the nation, and things do not look good at all there. Morgantown is one of the toughest places to play in, in the nation. WVU is ALWAYS dangerous. The 'Eers have had a lot of problems early this season with key injuries, but are still 5-1 headed into the meat of the Big East conference, with their only loss at the hands of the aforementioned USF Bulls in RJS. So, if UL has ANY chance at a post-season bowl game THE "must win" game of the year has to be against either UC or UConn. My guess is it will be the UConn game.

All of that is assuming that UL wins BOTH of their remaining home games, mind you. Given UL's ability to throw in MAJOR klunkers on their home field, even against VASTLY inferior teams, by no means do the games against Pitt and Rutgers at home look like they are "easy wins". It could come down to UL needing BOTH the UC AND the UConn games on the road to be bowl eligible.

Which brings up the real issue here. Why is this UL team so HORRIBLY bad when playing at home? If it were not for the fact that this team just so "out-classed" its two early season opponents, (FBS doormat Murray State, and nearly winless Middle TN State, (1-5)), UL could already by completely out of contention for a bowl game.

The fans have completely revolted against new HC Steve Kragthorpe, and what we see now is a completely fractured fanbase seperating into three VERY distinct groups. Those groups are the "fire Kragthrope now", "give Kragthorpe 2 years" and the smallest group, (of which I consider myself), the "jury is still out". I believe that the last group is probably the most realistic. I am not even close to saying, "get rid of Kragthorpe", but I am just as far away on the issue of saying that "Kragthorpe is the best coach for UL". Personally, I wrote this season off as a rebuilding one after the Middle Tennessee game. UL looked worse in that game that they won, as they ever have in any game that they have LOST in the past 8 years. At this point, for me, I do not care if this team does get to a bowl game or not. The major problem for me, is that during NONE of the first 6 games has there been any phase of the game, (defense, offense, special teams, or even kicking), that has shown marked, or even steady improvement from one game to the next. NONE. And more than anything else that disturbs me the most. If anything, there has been a backslide of areas that early in the season looked very strong. For example the offense has not produced in the past two home games in the first half and in both cases had to rely on offensive heroics in the last few minutes of the game to even make the games close at the end. The UL offense, on their home field, even BLANKED in the first quarter of their game against Utah, and only scored 7 total points for the 1st half. The punting game that last year avg nearly 34 yds per kick looks like it is a kindergarten kickball team. And the ST kick coverage is at best marginally better than the coverage last year that gave up an avg return of 20+ yards.

This lack of game to game improvement, and even backsliding, is a big sign of problems that go a LOT deeper than just "kids not buying into the system", or, "bad kids that need to be weeded out", "poor coaching by the assistants", "lack of communication from the coaching staff about the team", or even, "poor game planning/scheming/preparation by the coaching staff". For me, it speaks that the whole system is faltering. From coaching staffs not on the same page, to kids being confused and then getting angry and acting out, to a total lack of on-the-field discipline and communication. Still, even with all of that concern, I am not ready, after only half of a season, to say that Kragthorpe should go. No, instead what I will be watching is to see what off-season changes are made. Nothing can or will be "fixed" during this season, of that I am convinced. So I am just going to ride this out this season, and not make any judgments based on what I see on the field, or the results in the W-L column for this season. Instead, I want to see what happens in the off-season. Will there be coaching changes in the staff? (I'm about 99.9999% sure on that one) How will that effect recruiting? Will there be a ton of position shifts of the current players? Will there be a lot of kids transferring out? If so, how many are underclassman, (sophomores and freshman), vs current juniors? How will that impact the senior leadership next season, as well as the off-season team-led workouts? Will this coaching staff become more open and forthright with the fan base about the internals of the team? (Which brings up a sidebar note. I VERY much believe that a great deal of the animosity some of the UL fan base have with this coaching staff is the LACK of straightforward communication about the team. When things are going great, everyone, from coach's to CEO's of companies are afforded the luxury of being tight-lipped. But when things are going wrong, fans and stockholders alike want answers. They want to know, not only that issues ARE being addressed, but HOW they are being addressed. This does not mean that they have to, or even should, know the exact tactics or problems, but that there is a clear and distinct course of action being taken. So far, this staff, and the UL Athletic Department as whole has failed miserably on that. However, I do give Kragthorpe a big shout-out for at least throwing the fan base a bone and now releasing NFL type player injury information. That I think at least shows a sign of offering some sort of olive branch.)

I have a ton of questions about this staff right now. But none of the questions I have can, or will, be answered for a while yet. I think this HC deserves every chance to put the pieces in place he thinks he needs to fix the problem. But one thing he cannot do, is after the season, bunker down and not even communicate out to the fans what is being done. For Kragthorpe to survive at UL he needs to lose a little bit of his "stubborn" streak and really make an effort to allow the fans to embrace him. I think they can, and will, but right now, the issues on the field and the apparent cavalier attitude toward them is causing a lot more fans to head towards that "fire Kragthorpe now" group than the other two.