[Empire Lindy]

But while I'm in strem-of-consciousness mode, let me make some observsations and explain why Coach Kragthrope isn't (YET) a mistake on the part of Tom Jurich and the Louisville athletic department.

ONE, and this is a HUGE one... I had no idea how incredibly terrible this defense was nor how incredibly important Okoye, Gay, Harris, Brown, and Sharp were. I always liked Brandon Sharp... thought he became a completely different player when Petrino wisely sat his brother at Cincinnati two years ago and gave the SS job to Jonathan Russell (speaking of, what the hell happened to him?). But Brandon Sharp and Gavin Smart weren't exactly top-notch NFL prospects much less DI stars. We had (supposedly) good enough recruits with guys like Heath, Turrene, and a host of DB's I am forgetting. If you ask me, PETRINO totally wiffed on all the defensive recruits in his last two seasons. How else do you explain Peanut Whitehead becoming a ghost, having almost NO pressure from the defensive line, and every fucking player in the secondary A)sucking and B)not even being the blue-chip recruit we signed for those openings? You can't pin BAD players (see: Richard Ragling, starting safety) on that side of the ball on Coach Krag. You just can't.

Two, because of #1 above, our offense (and right or wrong, Coach Krag and Charlie Stubbs) is under extreme pressure to abandon the run way too early and make Brohm throw the ball at least 40 times every single game. Having that kind of imbalance will lead to the turnovers we saw today and the short, stalled drives that put our punt team on the field way too often. If you can't wear down their defense with the prolonged drives and power running, you can't hope to turn those close games into big wins by the 4th quarter.

Three (and this is just a side), let's not forget that Syracuse, despite all their offensive ineptitude (until today), has had a strong defensive unit both of the past two years we have played them. That game up there last season we only managed 28 points (including a garbage TD by Kolby in the last 100 seconds). We also had to force a fumble at the goal line and overcome a 6-0 start. The year before it was a 24-17 game before Strip came in and ran for two 4th-quarter scores in the final 3 1/2 minutes. All this stuff about our offense looking bad against the worst team in DI... well, they looked pretty bad for most of the previous two games agains the "worst team in DI".

Now I'm not making all these points to dismiss the facts. We're in big trouble this year. Our defense is worse than the worst nightmares we could have imagined. Brohm is looking at a Chris Redman-like season where the only way we stay close with teams is by him throwing for 500 yards and 4TD's. It didn't work in 1998 or 1999 and chances are it isn't going to work in 2007. I'm still not going to just chalk up a 2-10 season and do my UK impression (when is Midnight Madness?), but I will admit that things are bleak this season with an improved Cincinnati on the schedule along with South Florida, Rutgers, and West Virginia.

Until we can see what kind of players (hopefully defensive ones) Krag brings in next February, it's hard to say what direction we are truly headed for long term. For now, I'm going to don my red sunglasses, assume this is just a short-term decline in the Cardinal Stock Market, and not run like crazy to unload all my UofL shares. If the class tanks, Mike Cassity returns, and we have Hunter Cantwell and another shitty defense returning for 2008, then talk to me about clearance mark-downs.