Make-or-Break Year Approaching for Louisville's Steve Kragthorpe

(Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)

Louisville is set to start the season with its third defensive coordinator in Kragthorpe's time there, and Kragthorpe himself has elected to take the reins as the team's offensive coordinator, a move that could very well signal Kragthorpe's willingness to be more accountable for his team's fortunes (whether good or bad).

In each of Smith's and Petrino's seasons at Louisville, their teams made bowl games.  Neither one of Kragthorpe's two squads has reached a postseason game of any kind.

His offenses have lacked the precise execution and innovative playcalling that were commonplace under Petrino, and his defenses have perhaps been the primary point of concern, letting up staggering numbers of points, even to mediocre offenses (Louisville's 58-42 win over Middle Tennessee State in the '07 season comes to mind).

From a more sympathetic standpoint, many Cardinals fans will point to Brohm as being an unfair victim of Kragthorpe's perceived inability, losing out on millions of dollars and a chance to be an NFL star.

A good majority of pundits and experts had Brohm slated as the No. 1 overall pick in the 2007 NFL Draft, but in the matter of a year (due in large part to Louisville's disappointing season), Brohm fell down the draft boards and was eventually taken in the second round by the Green Bay Packers, where he is now the team's third string quarterback.

Kragthorpe was hired to coach the Cardinals because of the work that he did at Tulsa, taking over a program that had won only two games in the previous two seasons and rebuilding them to the tune of three bowl appearances and a 29-22 record in his four seasons as coach. 

Since Kragthorpe left Tulsa, however, the Golden Hurricanes have posted an 18-5 record in two seasons.

While Kragthorpe's work at Tulsa cannot be negated or compromised by his initial lack of success at Louisville, many wonder whether he was the right kind of coach to inherit a thriving, on-the-cusp program, considering his that all of his accomplishments as a head coach came in helping build a program, not maintaining a successful one.

Despite this underwhelming body of work, there are reasons to believe that Kragthorpe's tenure should be treated with patience and understanding from the Louisville administration and fan base.

The transition from Petrino to Kragthorpe represented not only a change in coaches, but also a change in culture with regards to the leadership styles, personalities, and philosophies of the two men.

Where Petrino was viewed as the dictatorial, overbearing, no-nonsense type, Kragthorpe is a more lenient, passive individual.  To say the least, it can be an awkward and difficult adjustment for players, coaches, and anyone involved in a program, being given a relative amount of free reign after years and years of extremely strict oversight.

For all of his disciplinary zeal on the football field, it has come to light in the past couple years that Petrino had little care for his players' actions and personal character away from the game.  He strictly saw himself as a football coach, and his job was to train them as athletes, not to mold them into decent men.

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