Howard Schnellenberger- father of Louisville football- dead at 87

Legendary Louisville football coach Howard Schnellenberger passes away at age 87. On the legacy of one of the greatest.

There was a photograph on the wall in my house growing up. A black and white shot of the incomparable Howard Schnellenberger. The former Cardinals coach stood out in a crowd. His hallmark mustache, floppy white hair, signature pipe in hand, dressed more like he was about to give a lecture in Davidson Hall than coach a football game. A textbox at the bottom of the photo read “Louisville football is on a collision course with a national championship. The only variable is time.”

Schnellenberger, in many ways, impacted those in the Louisville area more than we often realize. But, it was the how and why behind his stint for Louisville football that shaped his legacy.

A coach of his caliber making the move to Louisville in today’s times would be comparable to Clemson coach Dabo Swinney planting his flag at a school like UAB or Arkansas State. It’s simply a move that just wouldn’t happen.

An unlikely pairing

Schnellenberger took over a downtrodden Miami Hurricanes program in 1979 and quickly turned “The U” into a national power. In 1983, Schnellenberger and Miami won the national championship. He used a roster littered with South Florida talent to ascend from mediocre to the best team in the country in a matter of 3 years. This transformation played a large role in Miami becoming a recruiting hotbed for coaches across the country.

Shortly after his national championship in Miami, he bid adieu to college football and moved into an ownership role with the Miami USFL team. However, the USFL never panned out and he was quickly back on the job market.

That’s when Louisville football called, and just two years after winning a national title, Schnellenberger found himself as the head man for the raggiest, taggiest football team in the country. Hiring Schnellenberger was Louisville’s last-ditch attempt at salvaging the football program. The Cardinals were hemorrhaging money. An independent school with a winning record only once in the previous decade, Louisville football shared a minor league baseball stadium with the Louisville Redbirds. Cardinal Stadium was a massive slab of concrete and astroturf smack in the middle of the Kentucky Fairgrounds. Louisville was giving away tickets at the time just to get fans in the stands.

Anyone could look at the state of Louisville football in the mid-80’s and see a dumpster fire. A program set up to continue to fail. Schnellenberger saw future national championships. And that’s exactly what he told the world at his introductory press conference in 1985.

The Louisville football collision course

By 1990, Schnellenberger had Louisville football in its first bowl game in 13 years, and it was a big one. The Cards dominated Alabama in the Fiesta Bowl. In 1993, Schnellenberger guided Louisville to the Liberty Bowl where the Cardinals defeated Michigan State.

As an independent school, Schnellenberger was hellbent on scheduling and playing the best programs in the country. In his nine seasons with Louisville football, he notched wins over Alabama, Texas, West Virginia, Pittsburgh, and North Carolina, among others. The Cardinals also hosted No. 1 Penn State and played teams like Texas A&M and Tennessee.

Schnellenberger coached a number of Cardinal greats including Sam Madison, Ray Buchanan, and Jeff Brohm.

In 1998, Louisville erected the largest all chairback college stadium in the country just off campus. In the north endzone, the Howard Schnellenberger training complex houses one of the finest facilities in college football. Cardinal Stadium hosts a two-time BCS bowl-winning, ACC Conference regular season champion, and nationally respect program in Louisville football. A far cry from what it was when he took over 36 years ago.

From considering shutting down the program to competing with some of the Power Five’s elite, Louisville football has come a long way. None of that would have been possible without Howard Schnellenberger.

Rest in peace, coach.