We Hardly Knew Ye: Bush Bails on AgroKrag

More championship fallout to follow, but first, the business of the business marches on: Louisville reacts to the departure of Bobby Petrino - swiftly, almost as if the university was expecting it - by snatching up Tulsa's Steve Kragthorpe. Tulsa won at least eight games three times in four seasons under the coach dubbed hence by SMQ in the name of obscure references "AgroKrag," as well as the 2005 Conference USA title in its first year in the league. Southern Miss was on the wrong end of two ball-control beatdowns in as many years by the Golden Hurricane, who frankly were substandard in the bodily-kinesthetic sense even by C-USA standards but regularly overcame it with maddening discipline, execution and subtle deception. Kragthorpe was one of two coaches (Art Briles in the C-USA Championship being the other) SMQ was left feeling this year had taken Jeff Bower's USM staff behind its own fundamentals-based woodshed. Louisville's talent - especially Brian Brohm, who, unlike Tulsa's heady Paul Smith, can zip catchable balls slightly deeper than 15 yards downfield - under AgroKrag is not a much happier thought for Rodriguezes and Schianos grappling for Big East domination than it was in Petrino's merciless hands.

But he'll have to do it without 250-pound all-purpose titan Michael Bush, who impressed scouts by missing the entire 2006 season to a severe broken leg and declared for early draft entry today. The final collegiate ledger on Bush, who played with Eric Shelton and Lionel Gates his first two seasons and was part of such a diverse attack his career numbers don't add up to a record workload:

The leg is an overrated element of the running back position, anyway.