Louisville Football Is Losing More Than Games...

Big House BobSenior Analyst IIJanuary 23, 2009

As Wolverine fans, we have shared the pain of losing lots of things over the past 14 months or so. We have lost a five-star QB, an offensive lineman that didn't like to run, a number of recruits, and eight football games.

It seems if there was bad news in college football it was somehow related to Ann Arbor and our historic Michigan program.

Well, hold your heads up high Wolverine fans. There is another program that is going through similar struggles and seem to be losing people and games at a higher rate.

The Louisville Football program hasn't been the same since Bobby Petrino left for his brief visit in the NFL. Louisville has had a similar hard time adjusting to"big change" and their new head man Steve Kragthorpe who is now starting his third year. The wins and losses on the field are one thing, but Louisville is losing coaches and players at a very alarming rate.

Let's just take a quick look at the coaches and players that have left the program just this off season.

Ron English, DC left for the head coaching job at Eastern Michigan (Ron was there for one year)
Eric Lewis, DB Coach followed Ron to EMU to become the DC
Bill Miller, was promoted to Louisville DC's and then quickly left for Kansas
Tony Nelson, Running Backs coach left for Notre Dame
Mark Nelson, Special Teams Coach was not asked back
Matt Simms, Son of former NFL QB Phil Simms and brother of NFL QB Chris decided to transfer. Matt would most likely have been the starter heading into Spring Ball.

How can one program suffer so many losses in a matter of a few months? How are these changes going to effect recruiting? How can there be any stability in this program that is trying to rebuild itself back into a Big East power?

I don't have any answers to those questions, but it's easy to see how this program could struggle for years to come. This program has zero consistency right now. A coach can not rebuild his staff from scratch every year and think they will be competitive.

Kids won't want to come to Louisville and even the kids in the program wonder if this is the right place for them.

We all know recruiting is the lifeline to success in College Football and right now Rivals ranks Louisville's 2009 recruiting class No. 71 in the country with 18 verbal committed recruits and only one four-star player.