Former Louisville coach Steve Kragthorpe has been hired to run the offense at LSU, colleague Bruce Feldman reports.

It's a big gig for Kragthorpe on a potential national title contender. Kragthorpe was set to coach receivers at Texas A&M after getting fired from Louisville after the 2009 season, but he stepped down in the preseason because of health concerns with his wife.

Now he is being given an excellent opportunity to try and rebuild his coaching reputation after an unsuccessful three-year run with the Cardinals. The odd thing about Kragthorpe's Big East era was that he came to Louisville with the credentials as an offensive whiz, yet his teams never were very creative or all that productive with the ball. In his final season, Louisville averaged just 18.1 points per game, which was last in the Big East. Charlie Strong and offensive coordinator Mike Sanford got a whole lot more out of basically the same players this year.

But maybe it was a matter of fit. Kragthorpe will have plenty of athletes to work with in Baton Rouge. He'll also have a lot more critics if things don't go well.