By Gavin Lapaille

With the University of Louisville’s final football game of 2008 upon us, it’s obvious the season did not go the way many had hoped.
No, the Cardinals didn’t have National Championship aspirations like last year, but with eight home games and a weaker than normal Big East conference, a bid to the postseason should have been almost a guarantee. Instead, Louisville will have to win Thursday at Rutgers just to keep those chances alive.
Many blame Head Coach Steve Kragthorpe, who has led Louisville to one less win in two years (11) than the Cardinals had in the season before his arrival (12). This is not where many people thought this program would be following the Orange Bowl win in 2006.
Much backlash has been  toward Athletic Director Tom Jurich’s continual support of Kragthorpe. I’ve even heard some question if Jurich is still the right man to lead the Cardinal athletic program.
That’s where I have a problem. Yes, the results on the football field haven’t been great. It’s Jurich, however, that has put us in a position to be unhappy with missing bowl season and sub-.500 records.
When Jurich arrived, the Cardinals had just completed one of the worst seasons in school history, finishing 1-10. Going to a BCS bowl game, or any bowl game for that matter, seemed far, far away.
Jurich turned things around. He first fired Ron Cooper, bringing in John L. Smith to replace him. Smith brought the program back to respectability before giving the keys to Bobby Petrino, who took U of L to heights never thought possible just a few years before.
Now for the first time since Jurich came to Louisville, the football team has regressed. Even he admitted before the season the next couple of years were going to be rough. It couldn’t come at a worse time, right when the Cards looked poised to be a huge player in the national scene.
No matter what though, the program is better off now than it was before Jurich set foot on campus. We wouldn’t have had this success if Jurich hadn’t been in charge.
It isn’t just football that Jurich has turned around. Take a look around campus. You’d be hard pressed to find a team that isn’t significantly better than it was before Jurich’s arrival.
The facilities for all sports – not just football and basketball – are top notch, and continue to improve each year. We’re a model school when it comes to being in compliance with Title IX. All 21 varsity athletic teams are consistently in the mix for Big East Championships and routinely advance to NCAA competition.
Jurich has given so much to this University, it’s important that everyone give him the credit he deserves. You may not think Kragthorpe is the right man to lead the Cardinal football program and you may not like the direction of the program. Jurich is, however, the right man to lead Cardinal athletics.
If he says Kragthorpe is the best man to lead the U of L football team, then we should bow our heads and accept that he knows more about this than we do. He’s earned that much respect.
I for one, will continue to stand behind Kragthorpe for as long as he is our head coach, because I stand behind Jurich. It’s time for everyone else to start doing the same.