College Football 2012: Charlie Strong Picks Up His Ball and Goes Home

If you have not seen the mild controversy brewing in Louisville, Kentucky then we'll catch you up to speed. Charlie Strong, the head coach of the Louisville Cardinals football team has banned the local media from "covering" his team's spring practices.

He can't stop them from writing stories or discussing the team, but he is not allowing them access to his practices, doing interviews and the like. Reportedly this is due to the wide scale ignoring of the gridiron exercises taking place by the local media, who opted instead to devote full resources to the Cardinals Final Four run.

That made Charlie not a happy man. To be honest, it probably was a bit baffling for a guy who spent the bulk of his career at a place where folks demand that an already well covered team be covered even more.

More features on Florida players in the spring. More news on position battles. More discussion of the recruits visiting. More, more and more. Now he's at Louisville and the media, because of the Final Four, doesn't seem to care or notice that he's got a team preparing to win the Big East.

Simply put, I feel ya, Chuck! You're about to make a run at the Big East. You've got Teddy Bridgewater, a kid who is about to be a bona fide star. People in the area should be beating down the doors to cover this ball club. But, instead, they're following that orange bouncing ball around. This is not how it's supposed to be.

Except, that's exactly what it is. They like football. They love basketball. That's the life of a coach and a team at "basketball-first" school. They'll tell you they love you, they'll give you nice things, but in the end when there is a chance to cover their true love, they'll leave you out there practicing by yourself to go run to basketball. That's the breaks. 

This move to ban the media is not exactly the most brilliant of all policies. Strong is not exactly in a position to strong arm folks in the same way that Nick Saban or even Chip Kelly is when it comes to cutting access. He needs to get the word out about the program and build some goodwill locally.

So while I understand why, I can't say that this is a good decision by strong. It comes across as petty, really a childish act. The proverbial picking up of the ball and going home.

But, I'm not upset with him. Perhaps, in his mind, the people of Louisville do care about football a lot. If the local paper doesn't have the information they need, that makes it more difficult for them to find out about their team's progress. Maybe they will demand more coverage, and when Strong lifts the ban, the paper will work a little harder to give folks the content they want. For Strong's sake, I hope that's the play he's making. 

As a guy who played at a basketball-first school it is tough to get that foot hold. For some reason at basketball-first schools, there is this element that makes it darn near impossible for the two to succeed.

Football-first schools have done it recently, but the same cannot truly be said on the basketball side. Sure, Kansas went to the Orange Bowl in 2007 and Louisville in 2006, but the success is fleeting.

Strong has to find a way to sate his ego and make it work. He's not the first coach to get frustrated with the lack of coverage and the feeling of being flat out less important. Until he gets a job at place where football is king, he's going to have to grind it out.