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 Before you ask, that is indeed the very first thing to come up in google image search when someone wants to know what Steve Kragthorpe looks like. I honestly feel bad for most bad coaches, especially at relatively decent and large programs like Louisville. What Kragthorpe has done in two years at Louisville - an 11-13 overall record, two losses to Syracuse (Syracuse!) - is certainly not undeserving of scorn. Common sense indicates that Kragthorpe absolutely must deliver this year or his ass is grass. If he's out, I say this to the Louisville AD: charliestrong charliestrong charliestrong charlietstrong.

Now, Louisville is kinda-sorta one of those schools that makes a modicum of geographical sense when it comes the Big Ten. It extends the conference a little farther south, and this would be an opportunity for Big Ten teams to expand their own spheres of influence to recruit the famed "southern athlete", an übermensch the likes of which we clearly haven't seen before. Also, Louisville has good basketball, and would help make the Big Ten even more of a force to be reckoned with on the hardwood. Hey, we may even win the ACC-Big Ten challenge once in a while.

Benefits for the conference

 - Expanding south couldn't hurt. Bringing Big Ten football outside of Ohio State (and lately, under Richrod, Michigan) at least into the consciousness of southern talent will eventually help the overall talent level

- Louisville is a basketball power. Add them to a conference with Michigan State, Wisconsin, Purdue, an improved Indiana, and an Ohio State that will be loaded for as long as Matta sticks around - the "ESS EEE SEE of college basketball" label will not be going anywhere anytime soon.

- Louisville sorta fits as a Big Ten university overall, though it would be one of the smaller schools in terms of overall enrollment with only about 20,000 students

Drawbacks for the conference

- Barring miracles from Kragthorpe, another team in the midst of a transition won't help the conference's overall image, if you care about that

- It's a really small school for the Big Ten - every school but Northwestern has more undergraduates than Louisville has students

- Not really a drawback, but Louisville is rather firmly entrenched in the Big East. A transition period, if it ever were to happen, would be difficult.

Could it happen?

Um. No. It might even be less likely than Notre Dame. Louisville was being tossed around a lot more as a potential new team when they were good in both sports, but I imagine that any movers and shakers that were interested have had their enthusiasm tempered by the (ahem) "growing pains" of the Steve Kragthorpe era. This is a little shortsighted, however, since Rick Pitino is kicking ass and taking names on the basketball side of things. Overall, I think this move was a lot more likely when Bobby Petrino was at Louisville. Nowadays, not so much. I think the Big Ten will look elsewhere for the next team.