LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- In year three, University of Louisville football fans were gaga about Charlie Strong. His recruiting connections to Florida were dazzling. Teddy Bridgewater was thriving. Maybe Strong would not use the U of L job as a connecting flight to a dream destination.
In year three, boos percolated during the Steve Kragthorpe era. He wasn’t close to figuring out his quarterback situation. He lost to Kentucky for the third-straight season. He was going, going, gone at season’s end.
The football coaching job at Louisville is an intriguing position. None of the last six coaches stayed in place more than five consecutive seasons.
But year three has been a season to talk about. For many of the last six coaches, it defined whether their run would be successful or terminated. This season — the one that begins Sept. 6 when the Cardinals play Ole Miss in Atlanta — will be Scott Satterfield’s third season at U of L. Overall, he’s 12-12: an 8-5 introduction followed by 4-7 in the strange 2020 format.
John L. Smith won nine games in Year three. Strong won 11. Kragthorpe and Ron Cooper flopped and were fired. Louisville fans can give up on a coach as quickly as any fan base in America.
Bobby Petrino 1.0 had the Cards a year away from the Orange Bowl with Brian Brohm and Michael Bush on board. Bobby Petrino 2.0 was the major curveball in the group, because nobody was predicting Petrino would lose his fastball after year three, when Lamar Jackson won the Heisman Trophy and the Cards were a legitimate contender for the national playoffs.
With Satterfield entering year three to mixed expectations, I looked at what happened to the last seven U of L coaches during their early seasons, starting with Schnellenberger. The program he took over in 1985 lacked credibility, facilities, a proven fan base and a conference affiliation. It was a mess.
But he’s the guy who started pushing Louisville toward the place where the program sits today.
Here’s a rundown on what happened in year three for the last seven U of L football coaches:
Howard Schnellenberger — 1987
- Year 2: 3-8
- Year 3: 3-7-1
- Quarterback On Board: Jay Gruden
- Breakthrough Moment: Schnellenberger needed more runway and got all the time he needed in the pre-social media world. No wonder he stayed for a decade.
- Weeks Ranked in AP Top 25: Cards would not be ranked for three more seasons.
- Synopsis: For Schnellenberger, year three was as much of a struggle as his first two seasons. It didn’t look like the Cards were going anywhere great. They lost to Southern Miss by 59 and Memphis by 35. Attendance at the last three home games averaged less than 21,000. He had more work to do to get the program rolling, and the Cards surged to eight, six and 10 wins the next three seasons. These days, not many schools would stick with a coach who went 8-24-1 his first three years.
Ron Cooper — 1997
- Year 2: 5-6
- Year 3: 1-10
- Quarterback On Board: Chris Redman
- Breakthrough Moment: Nothing to see here.
- Weeks Ranked in AP Top 25: Cooper’s teams never cracked the poll.
- Synopsis: Cooper needed three seasons to squander the Schnellenberger momentum, sliding from seven wins to five to one to unemployed. Once Tom Jurich was recruited from Colorado State to become the athletic director and only 12,850 fans showed up for U of L’s last home game, the final act was writing Cooper a check for more than $1 million.
John L. Smith — 2000
- Year 2: 7-5
- Year 3: 9-3
- Quarterback On Board: Dave Ragone
- Breakthrough Moment: An overtime win against Kentucky to start the season and a three-touchdown rout of No. 11 Southern Miss in November got the Cards to 7-2.
- Weeks Ranked in AP Top 25: The win against UK pushed U of L into the top 25 for the first time in seven seasons. The Cards were ranked for seven weeks, as high as No. 17.
- Synopsis: Smith got it fixed ASAP. He had Ragone, defensive end Dewayne White and other pros on board by year three, and the Cards won nine games, including four when they were underdogs. Smith was a popular man in year three.
Bobby Petrino 1.0 — 2005
- Year 2: 11-1
- Year 3: 9-3
- Quarterback on Board: Brian Brohm
- Breakthrough Moment: Petrino broke through from his first day on the job. He won nine or more games during all four seasons, success that created the constant flirtations with other jobs that eventually pulled him to the Atlanta Falcons after year four.
- Weeks Ranked in AP Top 25: Cards were ranked all season, starting No. 12, climbing as high as No. 9 and finishing No. 19.
- Synopsis: Although the Cards record in 2005 was not as good as it was in 2004, they scored 40 or more points seven times. Yes, the Cards beat Kentucky, because Petrino owned Kentucky during his first four-season run at Cardinal Stadium.
Steve Kragthorpe — 2009
- Year 2: 5-7
- Year 3: 4-8
- Quarterback on Board: Adam Froman
- Breakthrough Moment: Unavailable
- Weeks Ranked in AP Top 25: Kragthorpe exited the poll five weeks into his first season and never returned.
- Synopsis: Unlike Petrino, Kragthorpe did not own Kentucky. In year three, he lost to the Wildcats for the third straight season, 31-27. Double-figure losses to Utah, Pittsburgh, UConn, Cincinnati, South Florida and Rutgers convinced Jurich that he had to dismiss the coach he was certain would win big.
Charlie Strong — 2012
Charlie Strong doesn't have receivers like Eli Rogers or quarterbacks like Teddy Bridgewater at South Florida.
- Year 2: 7-6
- Year 3: 11-2
- Quarterback on Board: Teddy Bridgewater
- Breakthrough Moment: Hanging an 18-point loss on Kentucky in the season opener.
- Weeks Ranked in AP Top 25: The Cards opened Strong’s third season ranked No. 25. They improved to No. 11 and finished at No. 15.
- Synopsis: The Cards won their first nine games, climbing from No. 25 in the AP preseason poll to No. 11 in early November. All the pieces were in place for the team that went 12-1 the following season and put Strong in line to make his regrettable move to Texas.
Bobby Petrino 2.0 — 2016
- Year 2: 8-5
- Year 3: 9-4
- Quarterback on Board: Lamar Jackson
- Breakthrough Moment: Take your pick: The Lamar Leap at Syracuse. The 43-point beatdown of Florida State. Hanging 54 on North Carolina State and 52 on Boston College. That season was magic.
- Weeks Ranked in AP Top 25: U of L ranked No. 19 in the AP preseason poll, moved all the way to No. 3 and finished 20th.
- Synopsis: Anything seemed possible. The Cards buried Florida State and played snap for snap with Clemson and Deshaun Watson before losing by six points in South Carolina. Still, they rallied to win their next five. They were 9-1 and ranked fifth (behind Alabama, Ohio State, Michigan and Clemson) in the College Football Playoff poll until all the mojo disappeared in season-ending losses to Houston and Kentucky. Petrino never got that mojo back.
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