Howard Schnellenberger - Louisville

Louisville

In 1985, Schnellenberger returned to his hometown to coach another struggling program, the University of Louisville Cardinals. Schnellenberger inherited a situation that was as bad, if not worse, than what he'd inherited at Miami. The Cardinals had not had a winning season since 1978, and only two winning records in the previous 12 years. They played at Cardinal Stadium, a minor-league baseball stadium, and often hosted crowds so small that the school was forced to give tickets away. They also played in the long shadow of the school's powerful men's basketball team. The situation was so grave at Louisville that officials were considering dropping the football program down to I-AA. Nonetheless, at his opening press conference, he stunned reporters and fans by proclaiming the program "is on a collision course with the national championship. The only variable is time."

After going 8–24–1 in his first three years, Schnellenberger was able to turn the program around and go 24–9–1 the next three seasons. In 10 years, he led the Cardinals to their fourth and fifth bowl games in school history. They won them both, including an unprecedented 34–7 thrashing of the Alabama Crimson Tide in the 1991 Fiesta Bowl, capping a 10–1–1 season and the school's first-ever appearance in a final poll (11th). The Fiesta Bowl appearance was the school's first-ever New Year's Day bowl game.

Schnellenberger left Louisville after the 1994 season. He recalled in a 2012 interview that his move to Oklahoma was a direct result of the impending creation of Conference USA:

I didn't leave because of money. I wasn't looking to go anywhere until that president (Dr. Donald Swain) pulled that baloney and put us in that conference that I didn't want to be in. I wasn't going to coach in a conference where I didn't have a chance to compete for the national championship.

Although Schnellenberger's record at Louisville was two games under .500 (largely due to his first three years), he has remained in the good graces of Cardinal fans due to the poor state the program was in when he arrived, giving him a reputation as a "program builder." He is also credited with laying the foundation for the program's subsequent rise to prominence. The Cardinals went to nine straight bowl games from 1998 to 2006. The Howard L. Schnellenberger Football Complex at Papa John's Cardinal Stadium is named after him; Schnellenberger initially proposed building the on-campus stadium during his tenure at Louisville and is credited with keeping the project alive.