Looooong season for Loseville
Posted: Sunday, September 23, 2007 1:34 AM
College students typically reach for a greasy brunch to ward off the effects of a hangover. There are no clinical studies to prove that it works, but if nothing else you think it does and that’s often good enough.
Hangovers caused by tough losses are an entirely different animal and college football coaches have been desperately seeking the remedy for decades to no avail.
Surely the top minds at the University of Louisville are working overtime to cure what ails their football team. But it’s already too late.
Quarterback Brian Brohm turned down the NFL and came back to Louisville for his senior season to make a run at something special with new head coach Steve Kragthorpe, but somebody forgot about a minor detail called “defense.” Now it seems that the only run Kragthorpe may be doing is of the out-of-town variety.
Last week’s 40-34 defeat at the hands of arch rival Kentucky was bad enough, especially when you consider the way the defense melted down in the final moments, but following that up with a Big East boondoggle of a loss to Syracuse was downright disturbing.
The Orange came to Papa John’s Stadium as the worst team east of South Bend. At 0-3 for the first time in 21 years, Syracuse had been outscored 118-32 in its three previous games. Need more? Coming in, the Orange ranked at 116 in total offense and 101 in total defense.
But apparently there’s no better remedy for an ailing offense than the Cardinal defense. Winless Middle Tennessee (0-4) visited to Louisville on Sept. 6 and had its day in the sun, dropping a cool 42 points and 554 yards on Kragthorpe’s club. The Blue Raiders have scored only 31 points in their other three losses combined.
Previously hapless Syracuse, before it tried to give the game away in the closing minutes, consistently punctured the Louisville defense for big plays on its way to piling up 465 yards of total offense.
So, one week after losing to Kentucky for the first time in five years, the Cardinals wasted a 555-yard passing day by Brohm in their
first loss at home in 21 games. Could the two-week hangover possibly extend to next week’s visit to N.C. State? You never know. Ask a Cornhusker fan if you don’t believe me.
Simultaneous lethargic play also was on display on Saturday in Lincoln were Nebraska was still licking its wounds from the battering it took at the hands of top-ranked USC last week, while locked in a struggle with Ball State. Yes, Ball State.
The Cornhuskers eventually prevailed, 41-40, with the winning margin coming courtesy of a missed extra point by the visitors.
Nebraska’s 49-31 loss to USC didn’t look that bad on the scoreboard, but it didn’t tell an accurate account of how badly the Huskers were beaten. However, few knew that the sting would be this tough to shake.
I guess some of this is what the college experience is about for these players. The ones that move on to the sterilized environment of the NFL will soon find out that losses are less emotional up there, only partly because they are more frequent.
Unlike NFL clubs, a couple dozen college teams go into the fall with dreams of undefeated seasons. Louisville and Nebraska were among that group, which knows you pretty much have to win all your games to take home the national championship … or even a conference title in some cases.
Rather than a postseason playoff system like the pros have, the elite level of college football has a virtual in-season playoff setup where losses are catastrophic and often cause to go out and work on getting a real hangover.
