Steve Kragthorpe to Louisville.

[The Ancient Enemy]

Well, that didn't take long. Petrino goes to the Falcons and UL immediately hires Kragthorpe from Tulsa. I feel this is a good hire, because he HAS won the conference at Tulsa, a program that was previously very, very bad. He did a nice job with recruiting, for what it was. What I don't like, however, is the fact that he had a pretty bad season at Tulsa. This team was supposed to be a BCS buster, and they lost about 5 games. Now, obviously, one year doesn't tell anything, and that's no proof he is overrated, but it does raise the question of it. This guy's name comes up all the time when jobs open up. Is he as good as people think?

He certainly is inheriting a very deep cabinet of players, and if he does half the job recruiting at UL that he did at lowly Tulsa, he'll keep all UL's 2007 recruits on board, and do fine. I think UL is a very attractive job, for the talent and the position they have in the Big East, where all you essentially have to do is beat WVU to get a BCS bid. Rodriguez is a poor coach who can be easily outsmarted, so Kragthorpe should have no problem winning that battle consistently. Jury is still out on Rutgers.

I like the fact that UL went to a lower-tier conference to find a coaching gem, and did not knee-jerk for someone like Jim Fassel. Immediately hiring Kragthorpe shows me they have been watching him for awhile, probably since it started being known how shady Petrino can be. So at the end of the day, I am expecting Louisville to be better now than with Petrino. An excellent coaching decision, I like the job he did with Tulsa, and I'm looking forward, as a college football fan, to see Louisville take the next step, which they will.