It’s Great to Hate Mississippi State: Louisville Athletics Breaking the Grantham Curse

Mississippi State has had Louisville athletics number this year in multiple facets. Why their next win could cut the deepest for the Cards.

2018 is not a year in which Louisville athletics fans would want to relive the ending. In each of the major sports, what could have been a promising finish ended in defeat to the Mississippi State Bulldogs.

The mess all began back in January of 2017, when Louisville defensive coordinator Todd Grantham parted ways with Louisville. Grantham left Louisville after a rocky ending to a 2016 season where the Cards’s hyper-aggressive defensive strategies began to backfire, and they dropped their final 3 games in monumentally ugly fashion. Grantham also reportedly butted heads with head coach Bobby Petrino because of differing personalities and coaching styles.

Grantham departed, and almost immediately found a coaching job at a Mississippi State program with a struggling defense. Days earlier, MSU DC Peter Sirmon was left without a job after he guided his defense to a miserable season where they lost to teams like South Alabama and Kentucky, and gave up 41 points to Samford.

Apparently, that was good enough for Bobby Petrino and Louisville though, because a couple of days later, the Cards completed a de facto coaching trade by hiring Sirmon to a lucrative deal as defensive coordinator.

And the results? Well, let’s put it this way… Defending Heisman Trophy winner Lamar Jackson improved on his numbers in 2017, and Sirmon’s incredibly underwhelming defense couldn’t even keep teams like Boston College and Wake Forest from outscoring them.

Meanwhile, Grantham? He was doing great. So much so, that he guided that MSU defense that Sirmon built to an 8-4 regular season, and nearly spoiled national champion Alabama’s chances of even making the playoffs.

It just so happened that the Bulldogs squared off with the Cards in the 2017 Tax Slayer bowl, and Grantham helped build a solid defensive game plan to stop Lamar Jackson, even though Grantham had already departed for a new gig at SEC powerhouse Florida. The Cards fell just short in Jackson’s final college game, and Card Nation was already pretty sick and tired of Mississippi State.

But, then came basketball season.

In one of the most tumultuous years in program history that saw Louisville Men’s Basketball entrenched in multiple scandals, and losing Rick Pitino, the Cards found themselves out of the NCAA Tournament.

Led by interim coach (and unofficial strongest suit game-to-height ratio champ) David Padgett, Louisville made it through the first two rounds of the NIT tournament unscathed. But then, the Cards were forced to go up against an athletic Mississippi State team.

MSU got out to a huge early lead in the KFC Yum! Center, and never looked back. It was a shellacking from start to finish, and the Cards ended both of the major sports years with a brutal loss to the Bulldogs.

On the women’s side, only ten days later, the Cards met up yet again with the Bulldogs.

This time, fans felt confident that Louisville would make up for all of the lost ground in the other major sports. The Cards were in the midst of one of their greatest seasons ever, and it felt like the perfect time to get revenge.

They didn’t get revenge, guys.

In the waning moments of the game, officiating controversy and clutch play-making from the Bulldogs sent the Cards home packing one more time.

It was official: Mississippi State not only owned Louisville, but they did so in the most painstaking ways possible, ending the seasons of the Cards’s most beloved sports teams, and stealing a solid coach on the way.

Thank goodness the Cardinal Nine took themselves out of contention from losing to Mississippi State again by going ahead and losing in the regional round of the NCAA tournament on Sunday.

But, the Cardinal faithful is holding it’s breath for possibly the most crucial coaching decision since Charlie Strong departed for Texas in 2014.

Louisville coach Dan McDonnell has been linked to the Mississippi State coaching job, and it is something that is definitely worth talking about.

McDonnell took a Louisville baseball program that was unimportant in the eyes of most of the fans, and turned it into a national power. If you ask any expert, they would name Louisville in their top 10 or 15 baseball programs at the moment, and they have been a marquee Top 25 program year in and out since McDonnell’s arrival.

Since the Cards entered ACC play, their teams have only gotten stronger. The Cardinal Nine has won over 40 games in five consecutive regular seasons. Additionally, McDonnell has led the Cards to four College World Series appearances in just eleven years. Those are elite figures. Coach Mac has put a ton of players in the pros, including players like the 6 Million Dollar Man Brendan McKay, and speedster Corey Ray.

McDonnell, however, has to be tempted by the sight of a coaching vacancy at Mississippi State. Mississippi is where he made his name, leading Ole Miss to a string of successful seasons as an assistant coach from 2001-2006. McDonnell was lauded for his excellent recruiting and leadership skills before being plucked up out of the south by Tom Jurich.

MSU is a historically solid team. They have been to nine College World Series, including a runner-up finish in 2013. Additionally, MSU plays in the SEC, where baseball is second to only football, but is king in the late spring months. Mississippi is in the middle of a recruiting hot bed in the south, and is an area that McDonnell learned well in his years at Ole Miss.

In years past, Cardinal fans would not be sweating an opportunity like this, but this season feels a little more tense. With the FBI investigations still playing out, as well as the changing of the guards at president, and athletic director in Louisville, this would be the most opportune time for any coach to head for greener pastures. Particularly when a school like Mississippi State has so thoroughly owned UofL over the course of 18 months.

But, will Dan McDonnell leave? In this writer’s educated opinion, no.

It is easy to get caught up in the Grantham Curse. But, let’s see the situation for what it really is. Dan McDonnell is a Louisville man through and through. We have heard this phrase uttered often, particularly by men who many thought fondly of in this city for many years, but have been shown the door (Pitino and Jurich). However, McDonnell is cut from a different cloth than many high level coaches.

McDonnell has planted his roots in Louisville. You can see his finger prints all over the baseball program. For the most part, Dan McDonnell IS Louisville baseball. From the team’s success, to it winning traditions, to it’s incredible facilities, to the outstanding men that it produces, McDonnell has entrenched himself in the city and university.

From day 1, McDonnell has been a consummate professional. He never says the wrong things. He is a leader and a motivator, both on and off of the field. He is a spiritual guide, actively participating and growing one of the largest FCA programs in the country. His family is here. His career is here. And he loves being here. He has never flirted with other programs. He has never once made a Louisville supporter, player, student, etc feel like he wants to be, or shouldn’t be exactly where he is. As much as Dan McDonnell has impacted this city and university, the city and university have molded him. Dan McDonnell is Louisville.

Looking to the future, McDonnell has consistently brought in the best players, and in turn produces the most quality product. As well as McDonnell recruited the south at Ole Miss, he recruits the north even better at Louisville. In a down year, McDonnell once again produced a 40-win season with an extremely inexperienced team.

McDonnell had a commitment from Jo Adell, who was selected no. 10 overall last year and went to the Angels, and he had a commitment from Jarred Kelenic, who was chosen sixth in this years draft, but will likely turn pro. As good as his teams have been in the years past, they could be even better going forward. He is on top of the recruiting game, and he is molding solid prospects into great men at Louisville.

Related Story: Ray Spalding & Donovan Mitchell Back Together Again

The Grantham Curse is over.

Mississippi State could top Louisville in an important game in the near future, who knows?

But, one thing that MSU won’t be able to take away is one of the strongest links that the Cards have left.

“I always end with two things,” McDonnell said minutes after the Cards final out of 2018. “One: God has blessed this program, and two: we’ll be back.”

McDonnell is going to break the curse, and Louisville will be back with a vengeance in 2019.