The next step in the “will U of L fight the NCAA to get its 2013 national championship banner back” appears to have been taken. Sort of. Maybe.
Louisville athletic director Josh Heird told The Courtier Journal’s Payton Titus that he is looking to have a conversation with the NCAA about getting the banner back up.
“The situation, everything surrounding the NCAA, the landscape in college sports is drastically different,” Heird said. “The recent punishments that were handed down to Michigan (football).
There’s just a number of things that we can point at, I think, for us to be able to say, ‘Hey, look, we need to engage in a conversation here about having the opportunity to have this banner up.'”
While Heird admitted that “there is no playbook” for a school looking to have a title (and, presumably, other record) reinstated, his comments are an acknowledgement of the widespread belief amongst the Cardinal fan base that aggressive action on that front is warranted.
“While I’m not going to sit up here and make any promises, I can tell our fan base unequivocally that if there’s an opportunity for us to do something along those lines, we’re going to try to do it,” Heird said. “So while that’s (the March-April run itself) never going to be taken away from our fans, from our student-athletes that played in that game, to recognize them is important to me. And if there’s an avenue to get that done, then that’s what we’re going to try to do.”
Maybe this time will be different, but up until this point, brute strength seems to have been the only stance the NCAA has been willing to recognize.
If it gets to that point, I’m still hopeful that the powers that be at U of L will be willing to flex for what’s right.
