Despite terrible season, Louisville Football still on Collision Course

Since Howard’s “the only variable is time” vision, Louisville Football has made an impressive rise to national prominence in a relatively short amount of time. Now, the program seems to be at a crossroads.

When Bobby Petrino left Louisville the first time in 2007, fans were deeply hurt, not cheering. Bobby had built on the success of John L. Smith and then some. Louisville had reached near the top of the College Football world for the first time in program history.

Sure there was the Fiesta Bowl before, but there was nothing like THE Blackout, when our 5th ranked Cards beat #3 West Virginia in a historic top 5 match up. There was nothing like our first BCS win in the Orange Bowl.

We’ll never forget when we defended the bird against the Miami Hurricanes, and all of those fun blowout wins against UK.

In 2007, we had a team that could make another title run, and all the momentum in the world. But unfortunately we saw all of that momentum come to a screeching halt with Steve Kragthorpe.

The program was dead in the water, and fans wondered if we could ever get back to where Bobby brought this program.

Louisville went 4-8 in 2009, the program’s lowest win total since 1997 when Ron Cooper went 1-10.

But 3 years later Charlie Strong and Teddy Bridgewater were hoisting the Sugar Bowl trophy in the Superdome after embarassing a top 4 Florida team.

In January 2014, Louisville fans had to go through heartbreak again. Charlie Strong was off to Texas after leading Louisville Football to another historic 12 win season. But Louisville was off to the ACC, we had finally found our home, and a coach to lead us, too.

But this time, it would be a familiar face. This time, we had a coach to stay for good.

We brought back the guy that brought us to heights that this program had never seen before, and for the most part, Bobby Petrino picked up right where Strong left off.

After two solid 8-9 win seasons, we were anxiously waiting for Bobby’s breakout year. We all knew it was coming, we had all seen him do it before.

In 2016, our awaited breakout had come. Lamar Jackson took over the college football world. College Gameday finally came, and it was so much fun. Louisville destroyed #2 Florida State and was rolling over everybody else in the way, putting up ridiculous numbers. Bobby Ball was in full affect.

We were all ready to make another run at a national title. Howard’s vision was about to be fulfilled.

But after the heartbreaking loss to Clemson in Death Valley, the wheels came off, and they never really came back on.

This year, we saw it all come to a head.

Just two years removed from being on the brink of the College Football Playoff, blowing the doors off Florida State, and nearly beating the future National Champion Clemson Tigers in Death Valley… We are here, sitting at 2-8 and about to miss a bowl for the first time since 2009.

We’re also staring down the barrel of having our worst record since the Ron Cooper days. Setting records, but this time for the wrong reasons.

But Cards fans, I can assure you that Louisville Football will be just fine. Louisville Football has been knocked down before.

Howard’s vision is still alive. We are still on that same collision course. We’ve fought and crawled our way to the top of the mountain many times – and we’ll do it again.