Sullivan: Uphill climb for playoffs for U of L
These are the times that try fans' souls. The week after the first loss of a college football season is a time to face unpleasant facts and uncharitable friends. It is the time when reality sacks euphoria, when shortcomings previously glossed over become glaring and preseason hype attains the approximate relevance of an election promise.
And never more than now.
As the highest level of quasi-amateur football embarks on its first year with a postseason playoff, an early loss to an unranked opponent does not necessarily mean elimination from national championship contention, but it raises a team's hurdles to Himalayan heights. Vanquished Saturday at Virginia, 23-21, the Louisville Cardinals returned home to find their 2014 prospects further dimmed by the sustained strength of Notre Dame, the continued competence of North Carolina State and by Boston College's eyebrow-raising ambush of USC.
With 34 Football Bowl Subdivision schools still undefeated — 29 from the five power conferences plus the Fighting Irish of South Bend, Ind. — the possibility of Louisville rallying to reach the inaugural four-team playoff would appear, already, remote.
Consider this a rude introduction to life in a swanky new neighborhood. Instead of having their success tainted by suspect scheduling — and, man, don't you miss that? — U of L has stepped up in class to find the W's could be harder to get in the Atlantic Coast Conference than in any of its previous affiliations. Also, that life after Teddy Bridgewater is bound to be bumpier.
"It's certainly emotional," Bobby Petrino said Monday of the first loss of his second tour as Louisville's head coach. "It's hard. On the plane ride back and at night when you're watching the Pittsburgh-FIU game on TV till 1:30 in the morning, you think about every single play and what could've happened and what could've been the difference.
"Then you come in here Sunday and grade it all and go through it with the staff and then we go out and work out last night — that's when you put it to bed."
Though college coaches and players plainly take losses more personally than do alumni and students, the demands of preparing for another game makes them less likely to brood about their disappointments beyond the 24-hour mourning period. While Kentucky fans are still bemoaning the play-clock penalty that wasn't called against Florida and Texas fans are belaboring team captains choking on the coin toss and giving UCLA the ball to start both halves, college football's participants are obliged to move on lest they be run over by their next opponent.
(A digression: In analyzing Charlie Strong's first season at Texas, former Oklahoma and Dallas Cowboys coach Barry Switzer told a radio audience last week that "It's down to Charlie Weak right now." When asked if his honeymoon was over, Strong replied, "Did I ever have one?")
One of the reasons coaches are so eager to get back to work after a loss is to insulate themselves from the complaints, criticism and gratuitous cheap shots of harsh media types striving to be heard above the crowd and internet authors emboldened by distance and/or anonymity.
Coacheshotseat.com, a website primarily dedicated to provocation, declared Petrino's the 14th hottest seat in its most recent college football rankings. Since No. 13 on the list was Alabama's Nick Saban, Petrino probably needn't worry. From here, Nick Saban would seem to have about as chance of getting fired as a Supreme Court justice.
Petrino's most immediate concern is improving protection and coaxing more consistent play from his quarterback, presumably Will Gardner. Petrino said Monday that Gardner is prone to look where he's throwing too soon, and to work from a crouched position that deprives him of some of his 6-foot-5 stature.
Attending to these kind of technical issues can be therapeutic for a coach. If nothing else, it gives him something to do other than to dwell on what didn't get done.
Tim Sullivan can be reached at (502) 582-4650, by email at tsullivan@courier-journal.com, and on Twitter @TimSullivan714