If Louisville fans didn't have enough to scream about, last week's report that 20 scholarship underclassmen have left Steve Kragthorpe's team since the end of spring practice in 2007 certainly put them over the top.Reasons for the departures vary. Some players were kicked off for behavior problems, some transferred to other teams and others simply quit. Although Kragthorpe says he will have 85 scholarship players this fall, he has lost what amounts to a full recruiting class.
Given the turnover, more turbulence is ahead for the Cardinals, who were No. 10 in the Associated Press preseason poll in 2007 before stumbling to a 6-6 season.
In fairness to Kragthorpe, the coach says he had to clean up a lot of "off-the-field issues" when he came to Louisville from Tulsa.
"When you go into a program that has been losing and there's attrition, people say, 'That's just a new coach who's changing the way they do things.' In my situation, I came into a program that had been winning, so people aren't as apt to see it that way."
4 comments:
He may very well be right. Give him two more years to put some of his folks on the field, in his system, and clear out the -undoubtedly- stellar role models in the program (I'm looking at you Willie Williams). Thereafter, when the Krags is proven to be an unmitigated mess....THEN fire him.
Certainly, he's going to recruit a different kind of player than Bobby Petrino. We've seen the kind of classy guy he is and it's no surprise that he was recruiting a lower class of individual. I made the comment to a friend a couple years ago that the Cardinals looked alot like Jimmy Johnson's Miami teams of the 80's. Michael Irvin anyone?
Scott
Columbia, SC
This is only an issue because louisville fans had such high hopes going into last season. The year Urban Meyer came to Florida there were several players who very quitely disappeared off the roster, and a couple other guys who went pro who probably werent ready because of the change in the way things were run. Gator fans were so happy (for the most part) to be rid of Zook nobody cared. Its the change in the way the program is run. Meyer had something like 18 or 20 guys leave his first year at Bowling Green as well, but he was winning so no one cared.
2nd anonymous,
what exactly did Michael Irvin do at UM??
the answer is nothing he got in trouble for. so use another player as an example! idiots who keep the Miami thing going just need to quit.
nobody has had more players arrested than Univ of Florida over the last few years! and no one school has had more scandals than Free Shoes Univ.
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