Louisville Football: Athletic Director Says Cardinals Are "Rebuilding"

University of Louisville Athletic Director Tom Jurich has stated the obvious.

“We’re definitely in a rebuilding process," Jurich said. "We’re very limited from a depth standpoint. The next two years...I just want to get through them.”

There's nothing wrong with rebuilding phases. We've seen all big-name schools go through them. Alabama, USC, Notre Dame...the only problem is, most of those schools had a good run of probably 30 to 40 years before they saw slumps.

Let's put it this way, we're nowhere near the elite of elite programs. Moving to the Big East, winning the Orange Bowl and attracting a handful of four- and five- star recruits has definitely moved the program up a level. But we're still nowhere near where we need to be if we want to be considered with the elite. Last season's slump proved that.

At the same time, we have an enormous amount of potential. We have the potential to be competing for the Big East championship within a few years and we have the potential to aim for a BCS bowl every year.

Right now, the best thing for the school to do is back up coach Steve Kragthorpe. He put together a recruiting class that has the potential to develop into a great class down the road and he has made some top-notch hires with Ron English and some of the other position coaches.

We're also stacked on quarterbacks for the next four years. I think that the fans are excited to see what Hunter Cantwell can do. I also think that NFL scouts are anxious to see how well he performs.

It's funny, usually when you have a player, especially a quarterback, of Brian Brohm's caliber, it's usually hard to fill their shoes. That still won't be easy or anything, but I could point you to quite a few fans who preferred Cantwell over Brohm (which I think is kind of dumb, but that's neither here nor there).

When it comes down to it, I think Cantwell has the confidence that he needs to take over, and the bar isn't set that high for him considering a winning season, even 7-5, will be an improvement over last year.

Our biggest problem is still going to be that defense. Ron English has a lot to do, and not much to work with. The departure of Lamar Myles didn't help at all either, leaving us with basically no linebackers and a very limited amount of veteran leadership on the defensive side of the ball.

This is a situation where we really need to be patient, as fans, players and coaches. We're not going to be competing for the Big East championship next year, but as long as we aim forward and don't take any major steps back, we'll be back up there in a year or two.