Steve Kragthorpe has to know he’s on his way out. Or he has a wicked sense of humor.

For weeks, blogs and boards have been buzzing at the prospect of Jon Gruden coming to coach at Louisville and C. L. Brown of the Louisville Courier-Journal wrote that yesterday, Kragthorpe opened his weekly press conference with a nod to that. Joking that he’d just taken a call from Gruden, the embattled coach said, “He wanted to know how tall Will Stein was.”

 Now Stein is a helluva story. He’s a walk-on from Brian Brohm’s alma mater, a kid listed at 5-10 who’s maybe 5-7 on a good day and who quarterbacked Lousiville to a win over Arkansas State Saturday. He got his chance because Justin Burke (who opened the season as starter) and Adam Froman (who replaced Burke in Game 5) were both hurt, but then he completed 20 of 39 passes, threw for 232 yards, didn’t have one pass batted down and prompted Kragthorpe to say yesterday, “We have a quarterback controversy now.”

Here’s the question: Kragthorpe said all three QBs are healthy and all three are available for Saturday’s visit to Morgantown. He claims he’s not leaning any one way yet and he said he likely won’t make a call on the starter till later in the week. Attendance is down, Louisville’s site and Louisville-related sites aren’t clocking massive eyeballs, Kragthorpe’s probably gone anyway… does it make sense to just go with the story? To generate some positive attention and some isn’t-this-cool stories and maybe appeal to recruits? Because going with Stein either says a)pedigree doesn’t matter if you work your tail off and are the best option or b)that program desperately needs some real players.

Because in the end, if Louisville somehow pulls a miracle in Morgantown, I’m thinking it won’t be because of who’s under center.