This is surely old innuendo, but I didn’t hear the purported details until I was at a Super Bowl party with somebody very close to the U of L Athletic Department.
The gist of it all is that there is definitely a New Sheriff In Town.
I’m advised that new Cardinal football coach Charlie Strong had a team meeting when he returned from Florida’s bowl game. He had prepared a short film, highlighting — or, rather, lowlighting — the team’s play last year. After five to ten minutes or so, the lights came on and Strong advised the team, something like this: “We will not be playing football like this anymore.”
Then I’m told he called out a player with some personal issues, told him he needed to get a job, and dismissed the player from the team. On the spot. Then he called up four players who garnered a less than glossy 0.0 grade point average. And immediately dismissed them from the team. On the spot.
I’m advised there was a stunned silence in the room.
Maybe it happened like that. Maybe it happened in a different way that has gotten juicier in the telling through the weeks. But I have no doubt that Strong has taken steps to assert his authority, and let the team know, well, that there’s a new sheriff in town, that mediocrity is a thing of the past.
The more one hears about Steve Kragthorpe, the more of a charlatan he apparently is. I’m actually kind of peeved at myself that I gave him a pass for what seemed like a heartfelt farewell. Now I’m not sure the fellow wasn’t as big a fraud as many naysayers claimed all along. I just thought he was a bad coach. Silly me.
Oh well, it matters not anymore.
– Seedy K
5 Comments
i have spoken with someone who is very close with the brohms, and we got to talking about the football program when he-who-shall-not-be-named was still the coach. what you said about those dismissed players jibes with what he said was going on behind the scenes.
he also said that he spoke with donovan arp when hwsnbn was hired, and donovan said that he wouldn’t be a success because he tried being everyone’s friend instead of their coach. how prophetic.
All of which calls into question Tom Jurich as well. They were friends, after all. I don’t know how we give TJ a pass for hiring K and sticking with him when all of this crap was going on behind the public scenes. TJ had to know. HAD TO.
I think the belief that Jurich and Kragthorpe “were friends” has been misconstrued, because Jurich invited SK to Derby on occasion before hiring him. My observation is that they were never that close personally. Jurich identified Kragthrope as the guy he wanted to coach the team when Petrino left. So he courted him. They are very different personalities.
Jurich is astute enough that I too believe he understood early on that he’d made a mistake. (Though I believe Kragthorpe, based on his time at Tulsa, was a legit hire.) My sense is that he wanted to give SK a reasonable shot at turning it around without seeming a knee jerk reactor. Plus TJ’s ego took a hit and he ill-advisedly dug in his heels against the fan base. Turning on the Petrino era and the Brohms was also a mistake.
Strong = the next Ron Cooper.
Hate to say I Told you so on Fraudthorpe, but I told you so. And pecker head ^^^^^ you don’t have a clue.