[Quality88]

There weren't many seats in Papa John's Cardinal Stadium that anyone wanted at the end of yesterday's 38-35 Syracuse shocking of the University of Louisville football team.
With one exception. The seat right next to athletic director Tom Jurich.
With six minutes to play and Syracuse leading by 17, the usually bustling Jurich suite had emptied out in large part. He sat in the middle, looking as shocked as any of the 10,000 or so others who remained in the stadium or the 30,000 or so on their way home.
His expression was somber, his sentences clipped.
But the detail Cardinals fans want to know, the question most would ask if they were in that seat, was simple: What are your thoughts on new coach Steve Kragthorpe?
"Steve knows what he's doing," Jurich said. "He's got a great pedigree. He's been through tough times before. He will fight through this."
Before anyone reads between the lines, looking for the dreaded "vote of confidence" or lack thereof, save yourself some time. Jurich isn't second-guessing this hire. And he fully knows how unpopular that might be.
"Sometimes you just have to put blinders on and go to work," he said when asked what kind of fallout he expects after a totally unexpected 2-2 start. "We'll get in a bunker and go."
Meanwhile, outside the bunker, the carnage is considerable. Former "Dateline NBC" anchor Stone Phillips was among the guests in Jurich's suite yesterday. They could base a whole episode on this fall from power.
A preseason top-10 program and Orange Bowl champion suddenly disappears, and a fan base is left looking for answers. A team that expected to contend for the Big East Conference title and a Bowl Championship Series berth loses -- convincingly -- to a team expected to be the worst in the Big East. At home. Where the Cardinals had won 20 straight games. In front of a crowd of 40,922.
The fans showed up. Where was the team?
Last year the Cardinals' rallying cry was "hold the rope." This year it might be "hang by a thread."
It is a team that is kissing goodbye not only its BCS hopes but perhaps its bowl hopes, period. Because if it cannot beat Syracuse, what is to happen against Utah, West Virginia, South Florida, Rutgers and Cincinnati?
Syracuse linebacker Jameel McClain said of the Orange yesterday, "We were rolling on all four cylinders."
Before the season Kragthorpe likened the Cardinals to a cruise ship. Now they're being run over by a Hyundai?
Eighteen times in his six-minute postgame news conference, Kragthorpe said, "It's on me," or some variation.
A partial montage: "That falls on me; I accept full responsibility. … It's on me, it's on me. … That's on me, that's on me. … If you want somebody to blame for this game, blame me. … It's all on me; I'm responsible for everything that goes on in this program, and I accept full responsibility. … The buck stops with me. … That's my responsibility -- you're either coaching it or letting it happen, so I'm obviously not doing a good enough job coaching it."
He told reporters, "Take your shots at me. That's fine."
I want to turn, though, to another set of assessments. These were made by U of L players. All are supportive of Kragthorpe. All who spoke yesterday took responsibility themselves. Defensive tackle Earl Heyman said: "Coaches don't miss tackles. Coaches don't blow assignments."
Still, consider these statements:
Eric Wood: "I don't think we prepared well enough for this game."
Brian Brohm: "We've got to have more of a sense of urgency out there. Maybe we've got to have that in practice."
There were vows to bounce back, to fix things.
But all week Kragthorpe & Co. said the blown coverages were being addressed. After a week of work, on the first play yesterday Syracuse receiver Taj Smith got so open that it made Kentucky's Steve Johnson look well-covered. Touchdown.
I asked Kragthorpe, after a week of emphasizing it, what he can do differently to get it changed.
"You continue to look at things that will make it better," he said. "We've got to obviously defend the deep ball better."
Kragthorpe likes big-picture answers, but the small stuff is killing him.
Nobody takes things like this harder than Jurich. The football program has been perhaps his greatest pride at U of L, and his greatest pleasure. When the Cards were on their last TD drive, he kept repeating softly, "Don't give up, guys. Just don't give up."
When Harry Douglas went down with an injury, he put his head down and said, "No, please. Not this guy."
Then he used the R-word. Not for replace the coach. Another one.
"There will be no spin from this program, no excuses," Jurich said. "We will rebuild this."
I had the image of a Bentley up on blocks.
Today the athletic director and coach will talk, as they usually do.
"I'm just going to tell him to keep fighting," Jurich said. "And I know he will. … This is when we find out what we're made of, and who believes. This can still be a good football team."
Kragthorpe has a lot of things working against him now. He's right: It's all on him. Those 30,000 empty seats at the end of yesterday's game don't represent votes of confidence.
But he also has one important thing going for him. The guy in the most important seat in the house still believes.

SYRACUSE 38, LOUISVILLE 35: Lonely as it is, AD in coach's corner

[Lefty Noob]

Good to see the AD going to bat for Kragthorpe, but the new coach better start paying some dividends. If Louisville continues to struggle and lose games, the heat is only going to become more and more intense. Hard to follow what a coach like Bobby Petrino did, but 2-2 with a loss to a team that came in winless like Syracuse isn't exactly inspiring confidence in his abilities.

[Quality88]

Originally Posted by Lefty Noob

Good to see the AD going to bat for Kragthorpe, but the new coach better start paying some dividends. If Louisville continues to struggle and lose games, the heat is only going to become more and more intense. Hard to follow what a coach like Bobby Petrino did, but 2-2 with a loss to a team that came in winless like Syracuse isn't exactly inspiring confidence in his abilities.

My father in-law is a retired High school AD. He played Golf with Jurich before. He told me how Jurich told him he always has someone in mind to fill a position. It shows, look at Card athletics all around. I wish we had Jurich instead of Barnfart.