On Cardinal Sports on the Crunch Board, I just read a great post about how Louisville football fans feel. Here it is and it will be followed by the link.

Quote:Why we're so confident (long) by 80,86:

Now that the season is only days away from starting, I think it's time for our guests who visit the Cardinal rivals site to know why we Cardinal fans are so confident. Well, we had a taste of it not that long ago, and we want it back!

Before Bobby Petrino, the Cardinal football program was by no means a feared program. Yes, we were more relevant due to Howard Schnellenberger, but there was no serious belief that Louisville could play for the national title. Until 2005, Louisville was just another non-BCS team who rarely broke through to a major bowl game. But once Petrino arrived and the Cards moved to the Big East, suddenly a BCS bowl and maybe even a title game was possible. The recruits were interested, ESPN was interested, and the results were awesome. The 2006 season could have had Louisville in the BCS final game. That late season loss to Rutgers after being up 25-7 still haunts the program today. The Cards went on to win the Orange Bowl and finished #5 at 12-1. And all of that happened after RB Michael Bush broke his leg in the opener against Kentucky. (what could have been)

Louisville fans saw a program averaging 45 points a game and kicking almost everybody's ass. The Cards beat North Carolina 69-14, beat Oregon State 63-27, beat TCU 55-28, and beat Cincinnati 70-7. It looked like Louisville football had arrived and a title game was close. But, as the story goes, the head coach bolts for the NFL, and the new coach wasn't the right fit. Since the program hadn't maintained a long enough stretch of dominating football, it didn't take long to fall all the way back to where the program was before John L Smith.

It would take a great hire to get back with any swiftness at all. Charlie Strong appears to be that great hire. Cardinal fans have seen the recruiting skyrocket after Strong was named the head coach. It's much better than the Petrino years where there were just a handfull of top level recruits committing to Louisville. Coach Strong has built a roster full of players that would have been at places like Alabama, Florida, Auburn, LSU, Ohio State, Michigan, Florida State, Oklahoma, and USC. Then there's all these guys who had offers from Clemson, Miami, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Virgina Tech, West Virginia, and Tennessee. I think only Notre Dame and Texas are the only top dog programs that hasn't lost a recruit to Louisville.

These young players are sprinkled all over the roster. They're at skill positions like QB, RB and WR. They're on both lines, and really strong at LB and DB. Louisville is one of the youngest teams in America with only 10 seniors, and half of those are walk-on who rarely play. The Cards start only four seniors out of the 22 starters. This team is picked to win the Big East and is ranked in alot of pre-season polls despite all of this youth. There's all of these talented, speedy players who are jumping at the bit to be a great team.

The fans see this and recall the success of the Petrino years. We see again another opportunity to take that next step and become a perennial power in college football. Hopefully, this time the head coach will remain loyal and build Louisville to a traditional power. That's why moving to the Big 12 is big talk around here. So you Southern Miss fans can understand why we're not thinking about you. The same thing with fans of other teams who play us today. It's not that we think we're head and shoulders above all of you, just that we see much bigger things ahead.

This is year three of Charlie Strong and it's his team, his players now. The hype surrounding this team is real, and even if they don't meet the high expectations they have this season, the foundation is strong and the future is bright. It may take another year with a junior and senior laden team to reach the pinnacle of college football. We Louisville fans witnessed it with basketball program in the 80's and are ready to witness it again, this time in football.

Link

I am Wilkie and I concur with this quote.

I agree fully!