Crumbling Cards

Louisville Football has been no stranger to this blog, and here we are again. The cardinal football team has had nothing short of a bumpy ride this year that just continues to get bumpier. The cards are on track to be 2-10 after this season, leading fans, players, and students to express their outrage toward head coach Bobby Petrino.

Louisville’s misfortune this season has also caught the attention of many of their future recruits. Failure to fire Bobby Petrino and set a plan in motion to get the cards on the right track has led to multiple decommits by promising future players.

This definitely spells trouble for Louisville football, and shows that if athletic director Vince Tyra does not step in soon, Bobby Petrino will continue digging a monumental hole for the football program.

As of now, the University of Louisville has the smallest incoming 2019 class of recruits after receiving multiple notices of players recommitting. The 2019 class also now ranks 69th in the country, behind Miami of Ohio and just ahead of Maryland.

Something holding Louisville’s AD Vince Tyra from firing Petrino is the whopping $14 million buyout. That’s right… Bobby Petrino would have to be paid $14 million just to be fired.

The loss of some current Louisville players may spark even more conversation and push to get Petrino out. Fans have taken to twitter to joke about the team’s misfortune and express how upset they are.

On twitter, you can see Louisville decommit tweets left and right. But the number of transfers is also becoming worrisome. Of the first of them to announce a transfer was quarterback Jordan Travis. The most recent was another valuable and decorated player, Russ Yeast.

Louisville players are now not even looking to finish their current season before transferring, due to the reported terrible treatment from Bobby Petrino. News has also circulated of multiple players threatening Vince Tyra that if Bobby is not fired soon, they will transfer as well.

Louisville football has absolutely gone under this season, what happens next will likely have a large impact on the University and its athletic department.

Did you know about Dance?

The world of college dance is vast and wide in variety, there are hundreds of college dance teams just in the United States alone. College dancers serve to provide entertainment and school spirit at sporting events and appearances around their campus. Typically, you can recognize a college dance team by their flashy makeup, big hair, and lots of sparkle.

Pictured: Louisiana State University Tiger Girls dance team

What many people do not see is all of the hard work that these dancers put into their routines, gameday material, and appearance. Most college dancers have trained for many years of their life in multiple styles of dance to be on a college team. College dance teams require vigorous training and being able to have a quick memory and high levels of athleticism. A typical week of a college dancer could include workouts with a trainer, multiple team practices, games, and multiple appearances in the community on top of school work and possibly a job.

Other than pumping up the crowd and providing entertainment on gameday, a college dance team’s main goal is doing well at the national championships each year. Teams can choose between participating in National Dance Association (NDA) nationals or Universal Dance Association (UDA) nationals. Each company provides a national championship experience for college teams, but they occur at different dates and different places. UDA tends to occur in Disney World on February 1-3, while NDA occurs at the Daytona Beach bandshell in Florida on April 3-7.

Pictured (Left to Right): UDA pom and jazz double national champions Ohio State, NDA hip hop and team performance double national champions Louisville Ladybirds, NDA pom and jazz double national champions Texas Tech.

The work put in for a nationals routine is incredibly tough, teams typically learn their routines months before nationals so they have time to perfect them before competition. The ultimate goal at nationals is, of course, to win and receive a big trophy and rings to commemorate accomplishing a huge goal with your team.

Pictured: Louisville Ladybirds nationals rings

A lot more goes in to college dance than people see, most fans who watch the team all year never get to see the team’s true talents that they put on the nationals floor each year. Next time you see your favorite college team’s dance team, consider all of the blood, sweat, and tears they put in to putting on a show for the fans.

Football Fiasco

The University of Louisville athletic program has gone through multiple trials and tribulations over the past few years. This being said, the fans are absolutely begging for something to go right. The football team this season is already traveling on a bumpy road, starting their season with a tough loss to Alabama, and then barely scraping by Indiana State and Western Kentucky University.

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Pictured: (Left to right) Jawon Pass, Lamar Jackson, Malik Cunningham

The cardinals football team seems to be going through quite a quarterback controversy after star quarterback Lamar Jackson was selected by the Baltimore Ravens in the last NFL draft. Both Jawon “Puma” Pass and Malik Cunningham have been playing the role of quarterback in the last few games to see who is the best fit. On September 17, head coach Bobby Petrino announced that Cunningham would be the new starting quarterback for the cards, and the fans seem to be pretty hopeful and excited about the replacement.

Many Louisville fans are upset by the team’s performance throughout the season so far, feeling that the team should be beating teams like Indiana State and WKU way easier than they did. Fans are also crying out for coach Petrino to be fired on social media sites. Fans are saying Petrine is not the coach he once was and does not deserve to even finish out this season. The cardinal fans are hungry for a good football team similar to the 2016-17 team which held the Heisman winner.

Pictured: Tweets from frustrated Louisville fans.

The cardinal football team heads to Virginia this weekend to face the cavaliers and hopefully pull out another win. The change in the starting quarterback position will hopefully help the cards get the ball rolling earlier in the game and get them geared up to play ACC foes Florida State and Georgia Tech at home in the next few weeks.

Bobby Petrine’s team still has a lot of growing and developing to do. Anxious fans will continue to worry if the cardinals will be good enough this season but the coaching staff really just needs a chance to coach the team and mold them to Louisville football standards.