We're going to like Tom Jurich.

The man who brought in Rick Pitino as his basketball coach and Bobby Petrino as his football coach was asked about major hires of guys whose names sound similar.

"I can't spell very good," he deadpanned.

Jurich, the seventh-year athletic director at Louisville, is upbeat and funny and direct, but that's just the icing.

His work at Louisville could provide enough substance to give the Big East renewed credibility when the Cardinals join the conference in 2005-06.

It already was a given that the addition of Louisville will help turn the Big East from a top basketball league into one that is by far the best. Pitino, who was in the Big East previously for two seasons with Providence in the mid-1980s, is as big a name as anyone in college coaching.

Where Louisville will give the Big East a boost is in football, and the Big East needs that with Miami and Virginia Tech gone to the Atlantic Coast Conference and Boston College to follow next year.

Going into its ESPN game tonight against another Big East team in waiting, South Florida, Louisville (4-1) is ranked No. 17 in the Bowl Championship Series standings, higher than any other current or future Big East team. West Virginia is No. 20, the lone current Big East team among the top 25.

The Big East probably will never equal the days of having Miami in its midst.

It can still recover a solid reputation and retain its BCS affiliation long term, but it needs to have two or three teams regularly ranked in the polls and the BCS standings. Louisville could instantly fill one of those slots.

It's true the competition hasn't been top-rate in Conference USA. It's true the Cardinals' streak of six consecutive bowl games is made up of the Motor City, the Humanitarian, two Liberties and two GMACs.

It doesn't take a poker player to know one BCS appearance would beat that hand.

But Louisville is for real. Anyone who caught its Thursday night game against Miami last week knows that. The Cardinals led most of the way before falling, 41-38.

They were every bit the match for the Hurricanes, even with the game in the Orange Bowl.

With the exception of West Virginia, what other school that will be a football member of the Big East in 2005 reasonably can claim that? Not Pitt, Syracuse, Cincinnati, South Florida or Rutgers.

"I did not want to be known just as a basketball school," said Jurich, who hired Petrino before the 2003 season.

"I do think we will come in [to the Big East] and be competitive."

Probably more.

Jurich said he initially approached Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese about moving to the Big East around four years ago, but Louisville still had some work to do.

What Jurich has done at Louisville is commendable. When he arrived in October 1997, the athletic department was in trouble.

"I wanted to get in the Big East the day I took the job, but we weren't ready," Jurich said. "The basketball had disintegrated to ashes. They lost 20 games my first year. We had NCAA issues. We were looking down the barrel of the death penalty. We had academic problems.

"When we came here, I wouldn't even have had the nerve to ask Mike Tranghese to look at us.

"We weren't a good citizen. We are now. We had to clean everything up. We have done that."

In 1998, the school was put on three years' probation and the men's basketball and women's volleyball teams were further penalized for NCAA violations, but the Cardinals avoided a stiffer crackdown and have emerged strong.

In his three seasons, Pitino has taken his teams to one NIT and two NCAA tournaments, and the Cardinals have been ranked as high as No. 2.

Petrino is 13-5 with a football team on the rise.

Jurich seems to care about all 21 sports at Louisville. There are new venues for swimming and baseball, new practice facilities for football, basketball and volleyball.

The timing for Louisville to jump to the Big East could only be better if it had happened this year.

"The breakup is what allowed this to happen, but if it never would have broken up, I was still going to be hounding Mike Tranghese to get in," Jurich said.

"It's one of the premier leagues."

He realizes that sounds awfully rosy, especially in football terms.

"They've taken a shot to the jaw, but they'll bounce back," Jurich said. "That's what all good fighters do.

"I think five years from now we'll look back and say, 'The Big East went through some tough times, but now they're as strong as anybody.' "

A little optimistic, perhaps, but if Jurich is close to being right, he'll be part of the reason.