Louisville’s coach has big shoes to fill

Steve Kragthorpe hopes to emulate Bobby Petrino’s
success — in his own way.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Steve Kragthorpe knows the comparisons are inevitable. It’s what happens when you’re the guy after The Guy.

“I’m not going to try and emulate somebody’s style just so people say ‘Oh, I like that,’ ” the new Louisville coach said. “It’s kind of like the Frank Sinatra song. I want to do it my way.”

Kragthorpe’s way will be about trying to put his stamp on a program that rose to national prominence under Bobby Petrino, peaking last season with a 12-1 record and berth in the Bowl Championship Series.

Just days after Louisville beat Wake Forest 24-13 in the Orange Bowl, Petrino bolted for the Atlanta Falcons and soon after that Kragthorpe was hired away from Tulsa.

Now the challenge for the Cardinals is to prove they can succeed without Petrino.

No. 10 Louisville returns the core of last year’s team, including quarterback Brian Brohm, but West Virginia is the favorite to represent the Big East in the BCS.

“It’s nice to be the underdog sometimes and know that we’ve got something still to prove,” Brohm said.

Guys on the field helped

Namely, that the eye-popping numbers the Cardinals offense produced under Petrino were as much a result of the guys on the field as their innovative but not exactly touchy-feely coach.

“There’s no excuse for us not to be competing for the number one [offense] in the country,” center Eric Wood said. “That’s our goal every year.”

Expectations remain high, particularly for Brohm, who threw for 3,049 yards and 16 touchdowns as a junior, despite missing time with a hand injury.

Ask Brohm about what he remembers most about 2006 and it isn’t the huge victory over West Virginia or the Orange Bowl.

Nope, it’s the Cardinals’ lone loss at Rutgers. Louisville led comfortably at halftime but fell apart in the second half and it cost the Cardinals a possible shot at a national championship.

“We were close last year,” Brohm said. “You get a little taste of that and you want to come back and try it again and give it your best shot.”

Kragthorpe has turnround

Brohm could have left for the NFL after last season. Instead, he’s entrusted his best shot to Kragthorpe, who put together a remarkable turnaround at Tulsa by taking a pragmatic approach that’s in stark contrast to Petrino’s exacting style.

“All I really care is that we score one more point than the other team,” Kragthorpe said.

That’s fine with Brohm, though what he has in mind is to “score one more point than the other team, then a lot more on top of that.”

The pieces are in place to do that.

Harry Douglas and Mario Urrutia are one of the top receiving tandems in the country. Running back Anthony Allen scored 13 touchdowns as a freshman last season. Art Carmody, who won the Groza Award in 2006 as the nation’s top kicker, is also back.

“For me to keep every offensive player happy this year,” Kragthorpe said, “I’m going to have to snap it 250 times a game.”