Louisville...Don’t Think We’ve Forgotten Your Indiscretions...HATE

Welcome back friends, it’s time for another installment of good, old fashioned, wholesome, pH balanced, gluten free, vitamin enriched, patent pending, HATE. I’ve got an easy target this week, as the Tigers from the real Death Valley head to Kentucky to take on the second best basketball school in the state.

Clemson enters this game on a 21 game winning streak. I’ve watched the sports talk shows this week, and I can assure you, based on the information I’ve gathered, this is the worst 21 game win streak in the history of college football. According to people in the know, the Tigers are a mid-level SEC team playing in the equivalent of the Patriot League. They just get lucky when playing exhausted SEC, Big10, and Big12 teams.

Could Trevor Lawrence start for Mississippi State or Arkansas?

I’m just asking the question.

Dabo and company roll into Louisville on the heels of yet another disappointing and uninspiring victory over Florida State. The Noles managed to outscore the supposedly “elite” Tigers 7-3 in the 4th quarter, showing that Clemson struggles to finish games and would probably lose to a decent SEC squad like Missouri. I know, I know, you’re going to tell me that Clemson outscored Florida State 42-7 before the 4th quarter, but nothing is less important than the actual score in college football. It’s all about the eye test, and my well trained eyes saw Clemson’s 3rd team struggle to put points on the board, and that’s something we all need to think about.

Are we witnessing the end of Clemson’s dominance?

Again, I’m just asking the question.

The good thing about college football is redemption is only a weekend away, and Clemson has a chance to stop the bleeding against the toothy red birds from Kentucky.

Let’s get to the hate.

I Demand a Refund

Louisville and Miami are neck and neck in the “teams the ACC should have never let in the conference” race, but I’m going to go ahead and give the nod to Louisville. They need something they can put on a banner that the NCAA won’t take away. When the ACC added Louisville, they thought they were getting a blood basketball program and an up-and-coming football program....they received neither.

When you talk about Louisville, you should always lead with basketball, because that’s the only sport their fans understand. In fact, here’s a comparison they might understand: Clemson is about to do the same thing to Louisville’s football team that Kentucky did to their basketball team last year. Namely, embarrass them. Now I’ve got them hooked. If I started talking trash about their football program first they would tune out. No one in Kentucky cares about football, it’s just something that occupies time until basketball season starts.

Looking back at the record book, adding Louisville can only be considered a desperation move by John Swofford. According to the NCAA, the Cardinals were coming off 3, 0 win seasons before joining the ACC, and then put up another doughnut in their inaugural ACC season. Clemson may not have a storied basketball program, but they’ve never had a totally defeated season.

Louisville has 4 in the last decade.

Since joining the ACC, the supposed “blue blood” Cardinals have officially made the NCAA tournament twice, and managed to win 1 total March Madness game. Starting in 2014, Clemson has 2 more wins than Louisville in the tournament, and yet, Swofford brought them in because they were good at basketball. I doubt John kept the receipts, but if he did, he needs to check into a refund. If nothing else, give us store credit so the ACC can go out and find a school that actually brings something of value.

Speaking of value, I normally don’t bring academics into my athletics hate...but Yikes, UL’s academics are a quarter step up from Tri-County Tech. Actually, scratch that, because of the Bridge Program at Tri-County, that allows students to work towards enrollment in an actual institution of higher learning, Louisville is a quarter step behind Tri-County. Clemson is ranked 27th in public universities and 70th nationally, while Louisville comes it at 95th in public universities and 192nd nationally. Pitt may not bring much to the table in terms of athletics, but at least it’s a respected University and not a junior college with nice facilities.

This article is supposed to focus on football, but much like Louisville fans, I have a hard time focusing on such a bad product. I do find it amusing that they think we’ve had our memory wiped, Men In Black style, by the hiring of all-around good guy Scott Satterfield.

I haven’t forgotten about Bobby Petrino and neither should you.

Louisville was more than happy to give safe harbor to the most all-around hated coach in college football as long as he was winning. The Cardinals faithful would brag about their “offensive genius” on the sidelines while Petrino was alienating every person that came within a 60 mile radius of northern Kentucky. It’s not like Petrino being an absolute trash person was a secret. Everyone that’s had a brief interaction with Bobby will testify that he’s a scumbag, but Louisville “fans” were more than happy to roll around in the muck if it meant they had a shot to win 9 games and lose the Belk Bowl. They sold their soul to a coach who couldn’t finish a season ranked in the top 20 with Lamar Jackson at quarterback.

If you’re going to sell your soul, you should at least hope for a better return than a Citrus Bowl loss to LSU.

In some way, it’s hard to blame Louisville. I’ve had the misfortune to visit a few times and the smell alone is enough to make you never want to go back. At its best, Louisville smells like a stagnant retention pond down hill from a turkey farm, but when the breeze hits the fetid Ohio River (the most polluted river in America) just right, the pungent odor of pig crap and chemical runoff overwhelms people uninitiated to the Louisville stank. They accepted Petrino as one of their own because he was a perfect match for the city; shady, slimy, and altogether unpleasant.

Once Bobby started losing, the fan base was quick to turn, but Petrino is like herpes, once you’ve got him, you’ll never get rid of him. You can fire him, but he’s always there in the background waiting to flare up. You can get rid of Bobby Petrino the coach, but you’ll never rid yourself of his legacy. I’m convinced the Falcons blew the lead in the Super Bowl due to the lingering karmic taint of hiring Petrino. Prove me wrong.

This brings me to Scott Satterfield.

You’ve got to hand it to coach Satterfield, the man enjoys a challenge, and there is nothing more challenging than taking over for Bobby Petrino. Hell, home town hero Jeff Brohm told Louisville AD Vince Tyra, “thanks, but no thanks” and stayed at vaunted football powerhouse Purdue instead sinking into the soul sucking muck of Louisville football. As a Purdue fan, watching the confidence of Louisville twitter go from “Brohm is a lock!” to the infantile rage of “BROHM SAID NO! BURN EVERYTHING TO THE GROUND (somewhat literally in-fact)” was the most entertainment twitter has ever provided. Watching an entire fan base soil their pants in real time was a spectacle for the ages.

The only explanation I can come up with for a respected coach like Satterfiled taking the Louisville job is that he views it as a way-station to a higher profile job. Consider coaching the Cardinals football as purgatory. It’s better than football hell, but you don’t want to hang around too long. Looking at Louisville's history it makes a ton of sense, considering...

John L. Smith left Louisville to coach Michigan State

Bobby Petrino (first go around) left to coach the Falcons.

Charlie Strong left to coach Texas.

Any coach with a hint of success with the Cardinals is headed out the door faster than Bobby Petrino can take a curve on his hog. All Satterfield needs to do is put together a couple 7 or 8 win seasons and he’ll be off to greener, less purulent, pastures.

That’s not exactly difficult in the ACC right now.

Knock off two directional Kentucky teams in the non-conference, then beat B.C., Wake, NC. State, Syracuse and Kentucky and win a lower level bowl and you’re at 7 wins. Knock off cratering programs like FSU and Miami and Satterfield might crack 9 or 10 wins sooner rather than later just by being slightly above average. He’s got Louisville at 4-2 heading into the 7th game in his first season. Sure, Clemson is going to stomp his team into the fake turf of Not Papa John’s Stadium (because a team residing in the blue grass state can’t figure out how to grow grass) but I hope Satterfield made the prudent real estate choice and found a nice place to rent, because he won’t be in Kentucky long enough to recoup his initial investment.

The good news for Louisville fans is they’re only a few seasons away from crawling back to Petrino and begging for forgiveness. As an admittedly twisted individual, that’s the sort of comedy I’m into.