Louisville Cardinals vs Utah Utes Preview

This week isn't about the Xs and Os for the Louisville football team. As the saying goes, week four will be "all about the Jimmies and Joes" for a wounded collection of Cardinals.

It's impossible to deny the dreary, depressing, dejected nature of life for the Louisville football family these days. Coach Steve Kragthorpe's understandably angry postgame press conference in Lexington, in response to UL's gut-punching 31-27 loss to rival Kentucky, publicly revealed what many people privately knew: UL's leader needed to win against the Wildcats in order to expect a long and fulfilling future in the Commonwealth. Now that his opportunity for redemption has been denied, Kragthorpe and his club have a massive project in front of them: Keep coaching and playing even though a coaching change is becoming increasingly likely at the end of this regular season.

As Louisville prepares to tackle Utah--the team that just saw its FBS-leading 16-game win streak come to an end last weekend in Oregon--the main challenge is not necessarily to beat the Utes (giving Utah a two-game losing streak, and doing so in Salt Lake City, would constitute a rather remarkable feat), but to prove to everyone back in Kentucky, plus a very concerned UL athletic director, Tom Jurich, that this team won't pack in the season before the beginning of October. Forget, for a moment, about the need to contain Utah running back Matt Asiata. Toss aside the importance of confusing Ute quarterback Terrance Cain, and coaxing multiple interceptions from the unproven signal caller's right arm. The biggest key--the first, last and greatest priority for the Cards--is to play fully inspired ball for the duration of this evening in Utah's capital city. If Louisville gives up the ghost before the day is done at Rice-Eccles Stadium, Kragthorpe will have no leg to stand on as this already-agonizing season tries to find a path to a more pleasant place of peacefulness.

Effort is the only thing the Cards--this bleeding band of brothers in a wounded locker room--can turn to at this point. They need to know that their college football season, like life itself, will go on regardless. Louisville might as well treat each game on the schedule with the respect it deserves. In so doing, the disappointed fans of this downward-trending program will still be able to admire the fight of their football team... even if the results might not accompany the on-field exertions.

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By Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer