I don't think we're disrespected at all because it's not personal.Well, regardless of the example I used, Louisville can achieve elite status in my opinion if Jeff Brohm stays on for 10+ years. It won't be exactly like Clemson or any other program, but good enough to stop being a hunter program and be a hunted program.
I don't enjoy being the disrespected team that needs to be overlooked to win against great programs. I want to stroll into Notre Dame and remind them that there's a new elite program in the ACC.
It's more Notre Dame being overrated.
Living in SEC country in Nashville, I met A LOT OF COLLEGE FOOTBALL fans. We may rag on the $EC and such, but their fans have passion about the sport, all of them. They know it very well and you can find it all over the south. Nashville has so many people from the surrounding states that you'll see so many SEC fans in your office.
I always got some respect in terms of they thought we always had a good team and program. Now they do not respect any ACC program outside of Clemson and FSU when they're good, which is typical, but again that's a conference that has earned their respect in terms of talent and passion. But they don't knock us at all.
The friends I made there now do think of Brohm as a solid coach. I think they think he could be a Bill Snyder or even Frank Beamer type of coach, but remember it took those guys decades and several wins on the big stage to earn that legacy, which we as much as we think we have we haven't gotten on the stage like those programs the last 20-30 years where the casual fan saw them. We're a team that essentially had 2 BCS Bowl wins and then we added Lamar, but it's never been a consistent thing. People think of some cool moments with us and all, but there's no consistent thing like a packed stadium and crazy environment every week that people know about.
Jeff can only do so much though, which people do know that and that's why they think he's a great coach for here. But to duplicate the jump Dabo made at Clemson is going to be very hard.
Now I will say this, they had a sh*t ton of respect for Bobby Petrino's coaching ability and until his decline, they always loved talking about him how he's just a winner that doesn't have a soul. Bobby gave us a lot of credibility in those circles until the end lol.
It takes a lot to get that respect. Beating Notre Dame last year was awesome and going to the ACC title game was nice, but we have to remember the fans of other teams don't follow closely. Yes we beat Notre Dame, but then they lost to Northern Illinois and that hurts that perception a bit. We got to the ACC title game, but didn't look great. There's also the fact that Pitt won the ACC title game and there was always a FSU/Clemson invitational of teams rotating to get beat up by Clemson/FSU for a decade.