People on this board who's opinion I respect have said that this team is "close". And it's fair to say that with a few breaks we could have beaten both UVA and Pitt. So maybe that is true.
But this game has to be where we're not just close, but we win. Full stop, end of story.
Louisville is nothing special. They're a mediocre team in what is proving to be a largely mediocre conference. Their offense is lousy, statistically speaking. Their D is good, but not dominant. There are precious few college D's that can't be scored on these days, it's the nature of the game, as we all know.
So hopefully Shafer and Lester recognize reality. We are desperate. We need to go for it. We have tried to slow the game down and it hasn't worked. So play fast and play to win. Call the game with the kind of abandon we did when we played LSU. Play like you know your D will not help you all that much, because its likely that they won't. Reality, not theory. Go down swinging for Pete's sake.
We're relatively healthy for this point in the season. We're on our 4th road game, the experience should no longer be new or intimidating. There really aren't excuses if we lose on Saturday, other than that we're simply not good enough.
Big time college sports is about winning. All the other stuff is a side show, like it or not. Enough with youth and progress and all that. It's time to win.