Week Eleven Mailbag Part 1

I’ll come right out and own the fact that some of these questions end up being repeated each week but my thinking of answering some of the similar questions is simple. My opinion on things changes as the season goes on. I also like to look at different angles of the question. I figured that I should point that out for some of you who (hopefully) read the mailbag each week. As usual, send tweets to @keith_wynne or shoot me an email at keithwynne2@gmail.com. Use the email if you have a protected Twitter account.

So, I think that we all understand that Bobby Petrino is in his last season as the head coach of this football team. He has also built a staff that doesn’t have a single member that would warrant being retained by whoever takes over next season. But, I think that the idea of a “total rebuild” has been overlooked. I know a couple of the folks that are members of the “behind the scenes staff” and I’m not including them or the folks that do those types of jobs when I say this. Louisville needs to rid itself of a lot of the “staff” members in the football program.

What I mean by that is that the people in the program who have shamed kids that decided to leave the program need to go. The members of the staff that have fed false information to members of the local media to provide some type of cover for Petrino? They need to go. A huge issue with this program is that they have done an absolutely terrible job of trying to shield the program instead of providing opportunities for fans to gain insight into it.

It’s insane to me that Louisville football provides so little access to the coaches and players. It’s insane to me that they use certain media members to run interference for them. It’s absurd that even when they shun national media members that want to write anything about the program even when they have seen for five straight years that those media members will just find people that can’t wait to talk to them off the record. It’s ridiculous to me that coaches themselves — or the people that run their accounts — block fans on social media. Especially when the basketball coaches and athletic director utilize it so well.

The people that make it harder for fans of this football program to be fans need to go. Vince Tyra should know exactly who those folks are and he should sweep them out with this coaching staff.

I’m not sure “common” is the word to use here, but it’s not out of the question for recruits to follow a coach once they get a new job. I also think it’s silly for fans to complain when coaches recruit players at their new school who were committed at their past school. Recruits make decisions on where they are going to go and that is typically based on the coaches or atmosphere that the program provides. If your school loses players when a coach leaves, you should probably expect your new coach to be able to either hold onto the guys that are committed or bring in similar or better talent when they get the job.

To speak directly to Jeff Brohm, he brought five guys in at Purdue when he was hired that had been committed to Western Kentucky. He was also able to land a couple of guys that WKU had been recruiting but hadn’t committed yet. Brohm doesn’t seem to have an issue with trying to flip kids and I think he could do so if he were to be hired at Louisville. I don’t know if Brohm would be able to pull all of the current four stars he’s landed, but I do think that he could get at least one and I think Milton Wright and David Bell would love the opportunity to stay close to home and get early playing time.

Also, I know that some UofL fans hated the idea that Charlie Strong wouldn’t recruit players from Florida but did so once he took the Texas job. My feeling on that is twofold. I don’t think that any of the guys that were committed to Florida at the time were going to follow him to Louisville. I tend to think that Charlie knew that and thought that was the way to handle it. By the time he left, I think he realized how dumb that was and he was recruiting guys that were on the level of Texas talent. If Strong was taking over a better Louisville program, I think he would have went after some of those UF guys. That’s just my thinking, but it could have just been a loyalty type of thing like some folks think.

I’ll die on the hill that Alabama’s defense isn’t as good as usual so give me Clemson. I know that sounds crazy but Alabama has struggled on defense in the big playoff games over the last few years and now they will be headed into those games with a defense that has taken a step back. Bama’s offense is absurd as we all know, but they will also be going against one of the top two defenses in the country.

Clemson’s offense is the issue that gives me some pause in this hypothetical. They have all the talent they could need and their offensive line would be able to handle the Bama front. The issue is that the play calls are so odd at times. They don’t take enough shots down the field. You have Tee Higgins and Justyn Ross. Use them. Then they get away from running one of the most dynamic backs in the country and get pass happy. I truly think that Clemson is the better overall team but the offense can get in their own way sometimes.

Plus you have the special teams factor which goes in Clemson’s favor since Bama doesn’t have a kicker for the 83rd year in a row.

Footballs are shaped that way because back in the olden days when football players didn’t need stupid pads and played on fields of razor wire, the ball was actually an enlarged pig bladder. Now that the game has gotten soft, it’s just a glorified participation trophy with air instead of pig entrails.