Louisville football: The rebuild and life after Lamar Jackson

Bobby Petrino and Louisville football have a massive task ahead of them in 2018. Can they fill the Lamar Jackson sized hole in their offense?

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There’s a certain feeling that starts to permeate around a program when Bobby Petrino has run it for a while. I wouldn’t quite call it an impending sense of doom, but it’s not far from it. It’s essentially an inescapable feeling that something hasn’t happened in a while, and something needs to happen soon. It happened during his original stint at Louisville, during his time at Arkansas, and that feeling is starting to come back.

It’s not fully arrived yet, but the end of a Bobby Petrino tenure could be here sooner than we expect. Without his star quarterback and just four returning defenders, 2018 could be a big step towards the end of Petrino’s time at Louisville.

Could they recover and rebuild? Sure. But with Lamar Jackson off to the NFL, it won’t be easy. Petrino hasn’t recruited very well, and while talent is on the roster, we could see a lot of the same struggles in 2018 as we’ve seen in the past few years. Petrino has yet to win double-digit games in a season during his second stint at Louisville, and I don’t think he breaks through in 2018.

The more important question will be if he can avoid falling below .500 for the first time since 2008. If he does, it’ll likely be because of his offense.