Thinking big in the 'Ville

ChiTownBull · April 23, 2005

Cardinals enter Big East with serious BCS aspirations

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Drivers headed south on I-65 coming out of downtown Louisville this spring have been greeted by a billboard with the message: "THINK BIG." Only the "I" in "Think" is actually a picture of Cardinals quarterback Brian Brohm, and the "I" in "BIG" running back Michael Bush.

It's a catchy marketing slogan, and an appropriate one considering the current state of Louisville football. Not only are the Cardinals about to embark on their first season in a new conference, the Big East, but they're doing so fresh off an 11-1 season and a school-record No. 6 ranking, and with a roster considered even more talented than 2004's.

Thanks to its impending membership in a BCS-affiliated league, a program that just a few years ago was thrilled to be playing in the Motor City Bowl now has realistic aspirations of reaching the Sugar, Orange or ... don't laugh ... Rose Bowl national title game.

"We want to win a national championship here," said Louisville AD Tom Jurich. "Seven years ago, it sounded ridiculous, but now I think it's a legitimate goal."

Jurich's statement will surely be met with its share of skepticism, but not from anyone who watched the Cardinals' game against five-time national champ Miami last season. On a balmy Thursday night at the Orange Bowl, Louisville coach Bobby Petrino's inventive offense had the Hurricanes' renowned defense on their heels all night, gaining 507 yards and holding leads of 24-7, 31-14 and 38-34 before Brock Berlin led Miami on a game-winning touchdown drive in the final minute. Had safety Kerry Rhodes not dropped an easy interception earlier that same series, the Cardinals may have been looking at an undefeated season and BCS bowl berth.

Gone from last year's team, which led the nation in both total offense (539 yards per game) and scoring (49.8 points per game) and which during one five-game stretch never scored less than 55 points, are starting quarterback Stefan LeFors (73.5 percent completions), who led the country in pass efficiency, top receiver J.R. Russell (73 catches, 968 yards) and top rusher Eric Shelton (938 yards, 20 TDs). And yet, practices this spring -- which conclude with Friday night's spring game -- have shown no reason to believe the offense will be any less powerful.

Sophomore Brohm, the former USA Today high school offensive player of the year who spurned Tennessee and Notre Dame to play for his hometown school (where older brothers Jeff and Greg both played and are now on staff), has shown the same clockwork efficiency running Petrino's offense as LeFors, going a combined 38-of-59 for 460 yards and six touchdowns in his last two scrimmages. Tailbacks Bush (another hometown hero and former all-everything recruit) and Kolby Smith, both rising juniors, have demonstrated the same knack for power running as predecessors Shelton and Lionel Gates. And an already deep, veteran receiving corps, led by Joshua Tinch, Montrell Jones and Broderick Clark, has been boosted by the play of breakout star Mario Urrutia, a 6-foot-6 redshirt freshman who has been their top playmaker this spring, and speedy sophomore Harry Douglas.

And they'll be playing alongside four returning offensive line starters, including All-America candidate Travis Leffew.

"I think the ball will be all over the place this year," said Bush. "We have a lot more speed at the receiver spot. And Brian's getting everyone in the right position and right spot, he knows what's going on on the field, like a general."

All the offensive talent in the world, however, doesn't guarantee another season full of 55-7 blowouts for the Cardinals. Say what you want about the Big East, which was considerably down last season after losing heavyweights Miami and Virginia Tech to the ACC (Boston College will follow this fall), but it's a definite step up in competition from Conference USA. With Temple booted from the league after last season, there will be no Tulanes or Houstons to kick around anymore.

While Louisville will likely enter as the prohibitive favorite, Pittsburgh, which won the league with a young team last season, should be even stronger under former NFL head coach Dave Wannstedt, West Virginia has been a consistent winner under Rich Rodriguez and tradition-rich Syracuse could return to prominence under new head coach Greg Robinson. Connecticut is a rising program, and even Rutgers isn't nearly as hapless as it once was. In a challenging and somewhat bizarre schedule, the Cardinals play just three conference home games -- all in November -- while hosting non-conference games against Oregon State, North Carolina and upstart Florida Atlantic, the latter game marking the return of Howard Schnellenberger, who coached Louisville from 1985-94 and led them to the '91 Fiesta Bowl.

"Week in and week out, it's going to be much tougher," said Petrino, 20-5 in two seasons at the helm. "We were lucky last year that we could get a lead and play a lot of guys, so our starters didn't have to play a lot of snaps. Therefore we're going to have to make sure we're in great physical condition."

Petrino, who was hired just months before the national conference shakeup that cleared the way for Louisville's move, has been preparing for this day ever since.

"The last two years in recruiting and our offseason program, we've really tried to work on our size and speed along the offensive and defensive lines," he said. "I really thought that would be the difference between the two conferences. Here at Louisville, I think we'll always be able to get the speed and skill, but can you match up with the big, physical guys from the Northeast?"

Off the field, all the pieces are already in place for such a jump. When the visionary Jurich arrived from Colorado State in 1997, Louisville's athletic department, outside of Denny Crum's basketball team, was among the worst in the country, including a football team that had just gone 1-10. Jurich immediately set out to "turn this into a football school," hiring head coach John L. Smith from Utah State, under whom the Cardinals began their current run of seven straight bowl trips (and whose original offensive coordinator was Petrino, who later went to Auburn and the Jacksonville Jaguars), and snapping up Petrino as his replacement nearly the same day Smith left for Michigan State.

He also began a relentless fundraising drive that has seen Louisville more than double its athletic spending to the point where, even while still in Conference USA, its $35 million budget in '03-04 exceeded that of all but one remaining Big East member (Connecticut). Drive along Floyd Road on the east side of campus and you'll see a row of one sparkling new athletic facility after another (the school has invested more than $100 million over the past decade), culminating with 42,000-seat Papa John's Cardinals Stadium, which opened in 1998, and its accompanying state-of-the-art football complex, which houses an 8,500-square-foot weight room.

"There were a lot of naysayers around here and we took a lot of criticism for investing in football. Everybody told us you can't have both [a major football and basketball program]," said Jurich, whose other big hire, Rick Pitino, just led the school to its first Final Four since 1986. "Those people are the same ones trying to jump on [the bandwagon] fast now."

The one thing that could have put a dent in Jurich's grand plan, however, almost took place last December when Petrino nearly left for LSU. His decision to interview with the school prior to the Cardinals' Liberty Bowl game -- just days after agreeing on a new contract, no less, and on the heels of his controversial, secret meeting with Auburn a year earlier -- infuriated Louisville fans and tried the patience of close friend Jurich.

Four months later, Jurich insists that awkward period is "all behind us. I'm a big Bobby Petrino fan. I want Bobby to be here as long as I'm here, and he knows that. If I'm selfish, so be it. He tells me he wants to be here, and I believe him."

With Petrino's guidance, Brohm will likely emerge as one of the nation's top quarterbacks over the next couple seasons. A 6-4, naturally gifted thrower with uncanny poise and maturity, he showed flashes of what's to come as a freshman, playing in nearly every game (an intentional decision by Petrino to ensure he wouldn't go into the Big East with an inexperienced quarterback), completing 67 percent of his passes for 819 yards. In his most memorable moment, he entered the Miami game in the fourth quarter after LeFors suffered a concussion and, on his second series, went 4-of-4 for 37 yards and ran for seven more on a scramble to lead his team to a go-ahead touchdown.

For a Louisville native and lifelong Cardinals fan who grew up watching every game, the fact his ascension to starting quarterback coincides with the program's rise in stature seems like something of a perfect storm.

"I've dreamed since I was a little kid about Louisville making it to the national title," said Brohm. "If I could be the quarterback that led them to that title, it would be a dream come true."

Stewart Mandel covers college sports for SI.com.