By STEVE SPRINGER
If you look deep into the eyes and down to the soul of a older University of Louisville football fan, you will see a gaze full of pride and excitement.
Pride for where the program has risen from its modest roots. Conference-jumping in a worn out minor league baseball stadium to survive growing pains into the big boy leagues. From humiliating hometown beat downs by Eastern Kentucky to colossal Fiesta Bowl wins over Alabama and Sugar Bowl wins over Florida, to the cusp of the college football playoffs.
You will also see a lot of anxiety. Football fan trauma. From key injuries in promising seasons, to losses in the most unrewarding times, to the heartburn of watching an up-and-coming coach promise to not be cut like that and bolt soon thereafter trying to up their place in the food chain.
We all know the famous motto for UofL football bestowed by Hall of Fame program-builder Howard. Coach Schnellenberger is the cornerstone for all of the successes Louisville Football has seen and will see, but his variable prognostication could not have been more right, however.
And the reason time has been such a factor is primarily due to the coaching fluctuation that Louisville has been known for all these years. Even The Pipe himself couldn’t stick around long enough to see it through to fruition, but the pieces have been there.
Numerous coaches have now taken the Cards to the cusp of greatness, only to have one foot out the door as soon as the tempest of temptation could sweep them away. John L. cleaned up the Ron Cooper embarrassment, but for all intents and purposes couldn’t finish the Motor City Bowl. Next up, Bobby Petrino was one offsides penalty away (or one bad half) from a shot at the national title in 2006. If Bush’s leg wasn’t destroyed in the opener, that could have solved the variable question, but Bobby being Bobby, could not be tied down in any shape or form, which led to the Kragthorpe era/debacle.
Charlie Strong caught lightning-in-a-bottle with Teddy Bridgewater and crew, but the green from the burnt siena was too much to ignore. The monumental Sugar Bowl win was the icing on that cake, to be followed by a Heisman and a College Game Day memory rout of the Seminoles from Bobby 2.0. The Sattefield wet-blanket experiment resuscitated the program from Petrino’s final-year flop.
Back and forth. Up and down. Only the eldest of Card fans can fully grasp the scope that is the roller coaster of UofL football fandom.
What UofL needed was stability. Good stability. In other words, a great coach that would stick around, and that would be almost impossible to find in this money-is-king college football landscape. Realistically, Louisville should be Marshall. Or Houston. Could even be still mired in a conference with Memphis State.
Well, stars have been known to align for the Cards every now and then. Teams turning down that Fiesta Bowl bid so the Cards could sneak in. Hometown heroes Brian Brohm and Michael Bush turning down bluebloods like Notre Dame and Ohio State to stay home and build a juggernaut. Terrapins bolting for the Big Ten. And maybe none bigger than rival Cincinnati riding in on a white horse and saving us from more mediocrity, snatching up Satt and kicking the door wide open for another coach. Another chance.
Jeff Brohm coming home to finally wear the number one headset is not just the starts aligning, but maybe galaxies aligning for the Cards’ best chance yet. He wins everywhere he goes. Anybody that can take Purdue to the Big Ten Championship game is a great coach, albeit not a perfect one. Not a national championship coach.
Not yet.
Louisville was in consideration for a playoff spot early in the season last year, and a game away in the ACC Championship two seasons ago. Brohm is knocking on the door. If he can keep getting the huge upset wins, get the right combinations of players healthy at the same time but yet bury the Brohm Blunder, as his annual letdown game has been anointed, that variable can be now.
If the folks in the administration on Belknap, most definitely including athletics administration, can not get out of their own way and get an extension with Brohm done, it will be the biggest fumble in the history of our football program. Not a player stepping out of bounds too soon, or a coach making a boneheaded call from the sideline, but a legacy-squashing turnover of epic proportions.
Jeff can coach. He can lead an offense. He can recruit. He can bring in the quarterbacks that can get the job done. And most importantly, he’s one of us. He’s Fern Creek through-and-through. He’s Farm Gate personified. He’s grown up with, cheered for, sweat and bled for the Red and Black. There is no one else coming through that door that has the equity and pedigree in their bones that Jeff does and nobody else with the perfect recipe for making Howard’s prediction come true. If Jeff is given the compensation the market demands for his services and the NIL he needs to bring in his guys, the variable equation is solved soon. If Indiana, the arguably worst football program of all time can do it, only the suits on Floyd Street are keeping Brohm and his Cards at bay now.
It’s time for Coach Brohm to get his weapons. It’s time for the UofL Athletic Department to pony up. You can not let a Coach Brohm get away. The ramifications of how attendance and support would fall off a cliff are too bleak to think about.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say I speak for all of Card Nation when I say It’s time to get that extension signed and delivered.