MORGANTOWN - If nothing else, Steve Kragthorpe has proven time and again that of all the things he's lost at Louisville - games, mainly - his sense of humor is not among them.
MORGANTOWN - If nothing else, Steve Kragthorpe has proven time and again that of all the things he's lost at Louisville - games, mainly - his sense of humor is not among them.
Take his Monday afternoon press conference this week, for example. The Cardinals' coach walked in knowing full well that he would get a ton of questions about Will Stein, the 5-foot-10 walk-on quarterback who led Louisville to a 21-13 win over Arkansas State Saturday.
But he also understands well the elephant that has been in any room he's entered since Louisville began the season with five losses in the first seven games and returned him squarely to the coaching hot seat. The rumor mill in Louisville has been going strong ever since, all but skipping the should-he-be-fired talk and going straight to potential replacements.
The favorite name early in the process was Jon Gruden, the former Tampa Bay coach and current ESPN talking head.
All of which apparently rolls right off of Kragthorpe.
"Sorry I'm a little late. I was actually talking to Jon Gruden,'' Kragthorpe said, without prompting, as he began his weekly press conference. "He wanted to know how tall Will Stein was. I said, '5-7 on a good day.' ''
Later, though, another of Kragthorpe's forays into tension-breaking humor might come back to bite him. Saturday afternoon, he brings his Cardinals (3-5, 0-3 Big East) to Morgantown to face West Virginia (6-2, 2-1). Given Louisville's ineptitude for most of this season and the Mountaineers' lackluster performance in last Friday's 30-19 loss at South Florida, the game didn't figure to spark any particularly unusual interest from WVU fans.
Kragthorpe changed all that by addressing the atmosphere at Mountaineer Field.
"It's loud. It's a stadium where they're right on top of you. They're got a rabid fan base,'' Kragthorpe said. "And they all have good arms, whether they're right-handed or left-handed. They throw those batteries extremely well. And they're very accurate, very accurate with those, too. So I think I'm going to have to have a hard hat when I come out of the locker room.''
Ouch.
Quite often coaches or players are guilty of providing bulletin board material for opposing teams. But for an opposing fan base?
If that didn't do the trick, then maybe this did:
MORGANTOWN - If nothing else, Steve Kragthorpe has proven time and again that of all the things he's lost at Louisville - games, mainly - his sense of humor is not among them.
Take his Monday afternoon press conference this week, for example. The Cardinals' coach walked in knowing full well that he would get a ton of questions about Will Stein, the 5-foot-10 walk-on quarterback who led Louisville to a 21-13 win over Arkansas State Saturday.
But he also understands well the elephant that has been in any room he's entered since Louisville began the season with five losses in the first seven games and returned him squarely to the coaching hot seat. The rumor mill in Louisville has been going strong ever since, all but skipping the should-he-be-fired talk and going straight to potential replacements.
The favorite name early in the process was Jon Gruden, the former Tampa Bay coach and current ESPN talking head.
All of which apparently rolls right off of Kragthorpe.
"Sorry I'm a little late. I was actually talking to Jon Gruden,'' Kragthorpe said, without prompting, as he began his weekly press conference. "He wanted to know how tall Will Stein was. I said, '5-7 on a good day.' ''
Later, though, another of Kragthorpe's forays into tension-breaking humor might come back to bite him. Saturday afternoon, he brings his Cardinals (3-5, 0-3 Big East) to Morgantown to face West Virginia (6-2, 2-1). Given Louisville's ineptitude for most of this season and the Mountaineers' lackluster performance in last Friday's 30-19 loss at South Florida, the game didn't figure to spark any particularly unusual interest from WVU fans.
Kragthorpe changed all that by addressing the atmosphere at Mountaineer Field.
"It's loud. It's a stadium where they're right on top of you. They're got a rabid fan base,'' Kragthorpe said. "And they all have good arms, whether they're right-handed or left-handed. They throw those batteries extremely well. And they're very accurate, very accurate with those, too. So I think I'm going to have to have a hard hat when I come out of the locker room.''
Ouch.
Quite often coaches or players are guilty of providing bulletin board material for opposing teams. But for an opposing fan base?
If that didn't do the trick, then maybe this did:
"It's a 12 o'clock nooner, so they won't be quite as tanked as they were when we were there two years ago,'' Kragthorpe said.
Double ouch.
One thing Kragthorpe and the Cardinals can be certain of is that there will be more fans at the game Saturday than have been at any Louisville home game this season. Thanks to Louisville's precipitous slide - after going 32-5 in Bobby Petrino's last three seasons and finishing a streak of nine straight bowl seasons, U of L is 14-18 in 21/2 Kragthorpe years - the crowds at 42,000-seat Papa John's Cardinal Stadium this season have been, in order, 39,344, 39,948, 37,268 and 21,497.
The last was for Saturday's win over Arkansas State, the smallest crowd ever in the stadium. This is the same place that in 2006 packed in a record 43,217 for a game with West Virginia when both were unbeaten.
"I thought we had a great group of loyal Louisville fans at the game,'' Kragthorpe said. "I appreciate everybody coming and I know the players appreciated the people that were there. People can make their decision whether they want to come to the game or not. I'm not going to influence that. But I do appreciate the people that were at the game and I know the players did, too.''
Not all of Kragthorpe's comments about the West Virginia crowd were disparaging, of course.
"They get after it. Man, they love football,'' Kragthorpe said. "They love playing football there and they love coaching football there and they love watching football there. It's a great football place. I've had friends that have gone to school there. It's a great football town.''
But apparently he has also mentioned batteries and such to his players.
"It's something you dream about all your life,'' said Stein, the little walk-on who could be making his second start at WVU, although that won't be determined until later in the week. "You want to be the underdog. You want people throwing batteries at you or whatever they throw. I heard they were pretty crazy. But it's always a lot more fun going on the road and getting a win.''
Reach Dave Hickman at 304-348-1734 or dphickm...@aol.com.
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