ADVERTISEMENT

Help me understand why Louisville has a better football program than UK

Kampus Korner

Kampus Korner

All-American
Mar 23, 2007
12,053
3,049
113
Saratoga, New York
As a long time UK fan, I am puzzled at how the University of Louisville has established a better football program than the University of Kentucky. After all, UK is the state's "Flagship University" It is Kentucky's largest university. UK is a more prestigious academic university than UL. UK has much more fan support within the state of Kentucky than UL. UK has much better football facilities than UL. During the 3 out of the last 4 years, UK has signed better football recruits than UL based upon Rival's recruiting rankings as set out below:

2013 National Recruiting Rankings

UK 29 UL 41

2014 National Recruiting Rankings

UK 18 UL 36

2015 National Recruiting Rankings

UK 34 UL 32

2016 National Recruiting Rankings

UK 29 UL 36

Louisville is now ranked number 3 in the nation after just throttling the nation's second ranked team while we have been getting beat by the likes of Southern Mississippi, annihilated/embarrassed on national television by Florida and finally escaping with a win over lowly New Mexico State. UL is the number 1 ranked scoring team in the country averaging 65 points per game while we wallow at the bottom in almost every team defense category. Of course, UL has beaten Kentucky 5 straight games.

While I understand that Joker may have left UK "relatively" low on talent (we have always been "low" on talent) when he departed, UL has never had a recruiting class ranked higher than 30th in the nation and that was in 2011.

As a long time UK fan, I keep asking myself, with all of the qualities that UK has going for it compared to UL, "How in the hell did the UL football program evolve into being so superior to UK?
 
Leadership, plain and simple. They have an AD and coach that know how to win.

I'm TRYING to give Stoops the full season before I toss the baby out with the bath water, but it's hard when I had to watch a coach WE COULD HAVE HIRED go to our in state rival.

And host Game day.

And pistol whip a too 5 team while we struggled against NMSU.
 
  • Like
Reactions: wyldecat, MrLair, BlueRunner11 and 5 others
One elite/great player. Lamar Jackson makes that team special too. Without him they are 8-4 or 9-3. (which is still nothing to sneeze at)
 
  • Like
Reactions: 83Cat and Blue Bigfoot
andreIGUODOLLAsigns4UK said:
They take chances. We go conservative and hire unproven head coach losers.
Click to expand...
Do we want to face re4ality or blow blue smoke. If anyone does a bit of looking at the 2 regimes you will find some very serious similarities. The major difference is the outcome.

Jurich 1997: reading the wiki page for each
Hired a coach John L. Smith with 7 years of head coaching experience at small colleges
He left for Michigan State and Louisville hired an offensive coordinator Petrino.
He left for the Atlanta Falcons and they hired a coach with 3 years head coaching experience Steve Kragethorpe. He was fired.
Then Strong, another coordinator was hired. He left for Texas.
Petrino was rehired.
So that is 2 coaches with previous head coaching experience. 1 moved up and one was fired.
And it is 2 coaches without previous experience, 1 offensive coordinator and 1 defensive coordinator, and both moved on to better places.

Barnhart 2002:.
Coming off of Mumme's firing, Guy Morriss was first the interim head caoch, then hired as the permanent head coach. Morriss left basically over money. Baylor was willing to pay it, we weren't. But Morriss succeed taking us to 7-5,but missing the bowl games because of Mumme. Only 1 year of head coaching experience and that was here as the interim.
We then had a long replacement list but could not find the right coach so we hired Brooks who gave us the most sustained success in our history 4 straight bowls. He had 17 years as a head college coach and several stints as an assistant in the NFL.
Joker was the coach in waiting. No head coaching experience. A lot of assistant experience mostly here, but also at ND, South Carolina,
That brings us up to our current state with Stoops. He had no head coaching experience, but was an assistant with high accolades from everyone.

Louisville seems to do well with former coordinators. Kentucky seems to have better success with former head coaches.

So our next coach should be from the current or former coach line. Forget coordinators.
 
_Edgehollow_ said:
Leadership, plain and simple. They have an AD and coach that know how to win.

I'm TRYING to give Stoops the full season before I toss the baby out with the bath water, but it's hard when I had to watch a coach WE COULD HAVE HIRED go to our in state rival.

And host Game day.

And pistol whip a too 5 team while we struggled against NMSU.
Click to expand...

mit.jpg
 
  • Like
Reactions: robo222, CB3UK, CatGotMyTongue and 4 others
Kampus Korner said:
As a long time UK fan, I am puzzled at how the University of Louisville has established a better football program than the University of Kentucky. After all, UK is the state's "Flagship University" It is Kentucky's largest university. UK is a more prestigious academic university than UL. UK has much more fan support within the state of Kentucky than UL. UK has much better football facilities than UL. During the 3 out of the last 4 years, UK has signed better football recruits than UL based upon Rival's recruiting rankings as set out below:

2013 National Recruiting Rankings

UK 29 UL 41

2014 National Recruiting Rankings

UK 18 UL 36

2015 National Recruiting Rankings

UK 34 UL 32

2016 National Recruiting Rankings

UK 29 UL 36

Louisville is now ranked number 3 in the nation after just throttling the nation's second ranked team while we have been getting beat by the likes of Southern Mississippi, annihilated/embarrassed on national television by Florida and finally escaping with a win over lowly New Mexico State. UL is the number 1 ranked scoring team in the country averaging 65 points per game while we wallow at the bottom in almost every team defense category. Of course, UL has beaten Kentucky 5 straight games.

While I understand that Joker may have left UK "relatively" low on talent (we have always been "low" on talent) when he departed, UL has never had a recruiting class ranked higher than 30th in the nation and that was in 2011.

As a long time UK fan, I keep asking myself, with all of the qualities that UK has going for it compared to UL, "How in the hell did the UL football program evolve into being so superior to UK?
Click to expand...

UK, for whatever reason, has based it's entire football prestige on being in the SEC. But that has been the problem. UL had to prove it belonged and they committed to doing it. I can still Lee Corso and Howard Schnellenberger at UL. I can see UK fans make remarks about Tom Jurich - but no matter what you say, just look at what he has done at UL in regards to hiring coaches and getting facilities built. UK didn't make any serious moves to keep up in the SEC - while UL was building and hiring and playing a much weaker schedule. UK has believed being 4-8 in the SEC was much better than being 10-2, 11-1, 12 -1, etc. in weaker conferences.

But what UK didn't realize - those winning records drove funding and more aggression from UL. UL placed a higher emphasis on winning and will/has loosened the purse strings. UL has paid today's bills with future earnings. UK has made it a point to say, if we can't pay for it now - we will wait. Well, we waited and now we see what that has yielded. We are playing catch up. UL took Petrino - look - it's time people have to make another decision. Are we going to accept any Coach the NCAA hasn't banned or are we only going to take people who are socially perfect? It is a tough decision for many - but if you want a winning football program - you have to pay and hire the best. You don't take a fortune 500 company and then hire a guy who was running a successful little grocery store to run that company! You hire the head or top CFO of another Fortune 500 company.

When UK hired Stoops and passed on Petrino, another thing needs to be noted. Would we have the football facilities we now have in place? From what I have read - a lot of these things were made possible because of Stoops efforts. UK was in a similar place 45 year ago. We hired a good man, that good man had a good reputation as a Defensive Co-Ordinator of a National Power - sound familiar? That man moved UK into a competitive facility situation as he led the way to get Commonwealth Stadium built. He didn't win, but UK hired a good head Coach that led UK to some great seasons. Now, let's move forward. Stoops has gotten the facilities - now UK must make the move for a better coach. We have all things in place - except total commitment from the AD Dept. I am not saying the UK Athletic Dept. doesn't care or try. But here is my example for you to consider. You could be the best guy at baling hay that ever existed. But if you using hay bailers made 40 years ago, the less experienced guy will put you out of business with the newer equipment.

Quite simply - we aren't playing with the most qualified AD for football. Rich Brooks told us that - he quit - would he have quit had we made the facility changes when he got here? Would he, or someone like him, take control of the football operations? This is what made Alabama, Alabama. This is what made Florida, Florida. I can go on and on and on. The leadership is the issue. We are one good football leader away from becoming a power in college football.

Go Big Blue!
 
  • Like
Reactions: UplandObsession, Cat06, CB3UK and 2 others
Certainly coaches, player development, university support, etc, has helped but somewhere else they've exploited is conference affiliation. They've been able to build a strong program thru weak conferences. That's a huge plus, something UK is not able to do. But that's the way it is. What UK needs to do is stop playing AT football and start playing football. Will they? I have serious doubts.
 
Two words: Athletics director

-The athletics director has the vision
-the athletics director hires the coaches
-the athletics director holds those coaches accountable

Look at where Louisville athletics was at before Jurich compared to where they are now as arguably the best comprehensive athletics department in the nation. There's no arguing it, no denying it. It's all on him. He's taken their football program from a C-USA team to an ACC member that's basically a perennial top-25 team. He hired one of the best basketball coaches in the history of the sport. He has one of the best baseball programs in the nation. He has one of the best women's basketball programs in the nation. The list goes on and on.

The guy is a slime ball but he's damn good at his job. At schools like Louisville and Kentucky if you want to win in football you need an aggressive AD that can think outside the box and is willing to take some risks. Louisville has that and we don't. Simple as that. Our two AD's are polar opposites.
 
  • Like
Reactions: MrLair, sluggercatfan, CB3UK and 2 others
Kampus Korner said:
As a long time UK fan, I am puzzled at how the University of Louisville has established a better football program than the University of Kentucky. After all, UK is the state's "Flagship University" It is Kentucky's largest university. UK is a more prestigious academic university than UL. UK has much more fan support within the state of Kentucky than UL. UK has much better football facilities than UL. During the 3 out of the last 4 years, UK has signed better football recruits than UL based upon Rival's recruiting rankings as set out below:
Click to expand...

While much of that I can't dispute I will say I do not believe UK has better football facilities than UofL. UofL has been pumping money into the football program since Jurich got here while UK just played catch up with their latest renovations.
 
Louisville hired the Miami 1983 National Championship coach who was full of vision, goals and belief. That changed everything. Ever since he became the coach for 10 years at Louisville football has been a priority. Also, Jurich is good at picking coaches and gives them all the resources to succeed. He invests facilities into the programs. He doesn't build after years of coaches whining and crying and with the facilities being long over due. He builds long before they are needed, before the coaches can even ask. Howard established recruiting ties to the South (FL, GA, AL) and to this day UofL still gets a lot of its players from there. It has worked really well.
 
  • Like
Reactions: beasleythecard
While I agree with the comments regarding coaches, AD, athletic leadership I want to add one other reason...Howard Schnellenberger.

If you did not follow UofL football before 1985 I simply cannot describe to you how bad was the program. Complete apathy from the fans, the community and the University. Somehow, someway, Schnellenberger changed all that. He made the team, the fans, the university and the community actually believe UofL could have a winning football program. I had the opportunity to meet with him on several occasions and I can tell you the guy was larger than life. He was much more than a successful coach; he was a galvanizing figure. UK football has not had such a figure since the Bear.

Furthermore, with Tom Jurich UofL has been fortunate enough to have a second great leader who fully embraced Howard's bravado and continued Howard's "vision". I know many here like to criticize him but his record of accomplishments for UofL athletics totally speaks for itself.

Lastly, I will point out that there is now a culture of "winning football" at UofL. In it's own way the rapid recovery from a couple of "bad" coaches says as much as does the success of some of the best team. This did not happen overnight. It has taken 30 years of steadily building the program and raising the expectations from what Howard started. All, of course, JMO.

Peace
 
  • Like
Reactions: jnewc2, CardinalJim and Umlusa
Nuke99m said:
One elite/great player. Lamar Jackson makes that team special too. Without him they are 8-4 or 9-3. (which is still nothing to sneeze at)
Click to expand...

If you truly believe that then you are short changing their defense. The defense that they have is dominant. Yes, Lamar Jackson is extremely special, but their skill kids are outstanding and the defense whipped FSU's tails.
 
  • Like
Reactions: zgrasshopper, Umlusa, kypecos and 1 other person
Nuke99m said:
One elite/great player. Lamar Jackson makes that team special too. Without him they are 8-4 or 9-3. (which is still nothing to sneeze at)
Click to expand...
But this ain't a unique situation for them. They have an AD who knows winning football is paramount, the single most important aspect of his job. So he hires great coaches (most of the time), and those coaches go recruit great quarterbacks to score points. Again, the most important thing that coach has to accomplish no matter what (Bridgewater & Clint Hurtt's cheating Miami ways).

Lamar Jackson
before him Teddy Bridgewater
before him they had mediocre QB's & a bad coach, and UK won 4 straight...wow what a coincidence?
before that Brian Brohm
before that Stephan Leflors
before that Dave Ragone

AD determined to win, who gets great coaches, who get winning quarterbacks....3 areas that UK has continued to struggle mightily with most of our time, save the magical 2006-2009 time lead by Brooks with Woodson & then Cobb (although not a full time QB, was still basically the leader of the offense).

Stoops in his 4th year has yet to get consistent QB play from anyone.
 
Nuke99m said:
One elite/great player. Lamar Jackson makes that team special too. Without him they are 8-4 or 9-3. (which is still nothing to sneeze at)
Click to expand...

I see this dumb argument alot. Take the best player off any sports team and see what happens
 
JHB4UK said:
But this ain't a unique situation for them. They have an AD who knows winning football is paramount, the single most important aspect of his job. So he hires great coaches (most of the time), and those coaches go recruit great quarterbacks to score points. Again, the most important thing that coach has to accomplish no matter what (Bridgewater & Clint Hurtt's cheating Miami ways).

Lamar Jackson
before him Teddy Bridgewater
before him they had mediocre QB's & a bad coach, and UK won 4 straight...wow what a coincidence?
before that Brian Brohm
before that Stephan Leflors
before that Dave Ragone

AD determined to win, who gets great coaches, who get winning quarterbacks....3 areas that UK has continued to struggle mightily with most of our time, save the magical 2006-2009 time lead by Brooks with Woodson & then Cobb (although not a full time QB, was still basically the leader of the offense).

Stoops in his 4th year has yet to get consistent QB play from anyone.
Click to expand...

When Redman leaves they're screwed.
When Ragone leaves they'll suck.
Without Lefors they're gonna suck
Brohm is the only reason that they are good.
Wait until Bridgewater goes, they will suck.
They're only good because of Jackson.

I see a strong pattern here.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Kratz, JHB4UK, jnewc2 and 8 others
Kampus Korner said:
As a long time UK fan, I am puzzled at how the University of Louisville has established a better football program than the University of Kentucky. After all, UK is the state's "Flagship University" It is Kentucky's largest university. UK is a more prestigious academic university than UL. UK has much more fan support within the state of Kentucky than UL. UK has much better football facilities than UL. During the 3 out of the last 4 years, UK has signed better football recruits than UL based upon Rival's recruiting rankings as set out below:

2013 National Recruiting Rankings

UK 29 UL 41

2014 National Recruiting Rankings

UK 18 UL 36

2015 National Recruiting Rankings

UK 34 UL 32

2016 National Recruiting Rankings

UK 29 UL 36

Louisville is now ranked number 3 in the nation after just throttling the nation's second ranked team while we have been getting beat by the likes of Southern Mississippi, annihilated/embarrassed on national television by Florida and finally escaping with a win over lowly New Mexico State. UL is the number 1 ranked scoring team in the country averaging 65 points per game while we wallow at the bottom in almost every team defense category. Of course, UL has beaten Kentucky 5 straight games.

While I understand that Joker may have left UK "relatively" low on talent (we have always been "low" on talent) when he departed, UL has never had a recruiting class ranked higher than 30th in the nation and that was in 2011.

As a long time UK fan, I keep asking myself, with all of the qualities that UK has going for it compared to UL, "How in the hell did the UL football program evolve into being so superior to UK?
Click to expand...
Forget about UL for a second. How does frickin' WKU have a better program?
 
  • Like
Reactions: ACCCard, beasleythecard, LeonThe Camel and 10 others
If UK wants to get serious about football, they need to hire this generation's Howard Schnellenberger, then give him everything he needs to get the program going in the right direction. Plan on it being a ten year process. Schnellenberger went 2-9, 3-8, 3-7-1, 8-3, 6-5, 10-1-1, 2-9, 5-6, 9-3 and 6-5 at Louisville - not even a winning overall record, but it did not matter because Schnellenberger had won a national championship at Miami and before that had won two Super Bowls with the Miami Dolphins - so UofL knew that the foundation was being laid the right way. A huge part of the foundation is that the coach have a great reputation in a part of the country that has great high school football. You cannot win without great players.

Once the foundation is laid, you then ALWAYS hire coaches who follow the same philosophy and whose strengths are in recruiting the same areas of the country. UofL failed to do this twice, once in 1995 when we hired Ron Cooper, and once again in 2007 when we hired Steve Kragthorpe. The results were disastrous, and the AD's we had at the time corrected that mistake after three years each time by firing Cooper and Kragthorpe and hiring coaches with recruiting ties to Florida (although John L. Smith was primarily a product of western football, he was a disciple of Dennis Erickson, who also won two national championships at Miami).
 
  • Like
Reactions: beasleythecard and Bank Cat
Lol what is there to understand? Their AD is better than ours in every way who clearly makes better hires beside the kragthorpe pick up. Its just not only football. its just about all sports outside of course basketball. Of course that being said, without Cal who knows where we would be.
 
  • Like
Reactions: brianpoe
Louisville is two losses away from falling back into the woodwork. A program has to have continued years of beating tough teams to be considered a first rate program. We all know who those legacy programs are. Now Louisville is trying hard to become a legacy program as are many other programs. Now UK has to decide if they want to become a legacy program. To become such a program there has to be commitment from the BOD, President, AD, fan base, students, and media support along with commercial sponsors. THEN you go out and get the best HC available and work, work, and work some more. Never take your eye and mind off the target. As Howard said, " We are on a collision course with destiny".
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

G

Does Calipari departure help the FB program?

Replies
27
Views
1K
Wildcat Lair - Football Forum
CaptainBoogerBuns
CaptainBoogerBuns
WhiskeyCityCat

Why was Pope hired?

Replies
35
Views
2K
Rupp Rafters - Basketball Forum
kywildcats8
kywildcats8
B

Louisville has ALWAYS been a MYTH

Replies
45
Views
2K
Wildcat Lair - Football Forum
backinky2018
B
C

Isaac Davis. BYU commit. Also played football

Replies
14
Views
1K
Rupp Rafters - Basketball Forum
Hoover1234
H
Uncle Adolph

I can handle losing, even though that should not happen much here, but what hurts me even worse than that is...

Replies
27
Views
1K
Rupp Rafters - Basketball Forum
Bluesbrother
Bluesbrother
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest posts

ADVERTISEMENT
Top Bottom
Back