—Spread Check (football): Louisville by 14.5.
—It’s once again game day for the Louisville women’s basketball team, which will host Stetson tonight at 8 on the ACC Network. Here’s a preview.
—Pat Kelsey’s level of discontent after up and down wins typically hasn’t matched the anger level of Louisville fans over the last two years. That was not the case after Monday night’s win over Chattanooga.
—The 8th-ranked Louisville men’s soccer team will host 12-seed Stanford tonight at 6 in the first round of
the ACC Tournament. You can see the full bracket for the tournament, here.
—Josh Heird talks with Eric Crawford about, among other things, Louisville’s efforts to get the 2013 national championship banner back.
“I think I have to start with just by simply saying to our fans, I know how important this is,” Heird said. “Unfortunately, this hasn’t moved at the speed that I think anybody’s wanted it to.”
Heird said the university needed agreement from its leadership before moving forward. He has worked under four presidents in his nearly five years as athletic director, along with transitions on the board of trustees, and he believes that agreement is finally in place.
“We finally have that alignment, and I can tell you that we have put forth a strategy as far as how we see going about the best way for us to get this banner back, and we’re in the middle of that,” Heird said.
The first step, he said, is to exhaust the university’s administrative options with the NCAA.
“For me, we really have the administrative strategy, which is let’s go through every possible avenue that the NCAA provides to say, ‘Hey, we feel like we’ve been treated unfairly,’” Heird said. “And when I say unfairly, I don’t mean based on the merits of our case and what happened in our case. If you look at a number of other decisions after our case, I think any objective person would say that the University of Louisville was treated unfairly.”
Then came the part that could carry the matter beyond the NCAA’s own processes.
“Let’s try to exhaust every administrative opportunity, and then at that point, if we still feel like we’re being treated unfairly, then we’ll take a more aggressive strategy,” Heird said. “And that’s where we’re at right now.”
It sort of feels like this has been the messaging ever since the NCAA chose to do nothing to Michigan football a couple of years ago. I think we’re all ready to see tangible evidence that this is going to happen and that it’s going to happen in the relatively near future.
—An aggressive Adrian Wooley is a great thing for Louisville basketball.
—William McDermott of Cardinal Authority looks at(insider) the most effective lineups from Louisville’s season-opening win over Chattanooga.
—Brian Brohm is finding his rhythmas the new play caller for the Cardinal offense.
—Former Card and current Bellarmine head coach Monique Reid thinks Jeff Walz has a special squad.
—The first CFP rankings of the year are here, and them having Wake Forest at No. 16 makes no sense.
—Mike Malone’s first North Carolina team might stink.
—Isaac Trotter of CBS looks at the winners and losers from college basketball’s opening day/night.
—The CJ looks atthe five best local first round high school football playoff games.
—Oklahoma’s season-opening loss to East Texas A&M may have already given us the college basketball fan video of the season.
—It’s hard to believe that it’s already been a year since the UPS plane crash that claimed 15 lives. The Courier Journal has a really good storyon the aftermath for the family of one of the victims.
—The U of L field hockey team dropped a 4-3 heartbreaker to Syracuse in the quarterfinals of the ACC Tournament. The Cards finish the season with a 10-9 record.
—Louisville’s defense has a three play problem. With just four games left in the regular season, Jeff Brohm is trying to fix it.
—Here’s this week’s The Card Tape:
—Bill Connelly writes about the major flaw of every team in the new CFP rankings.
—The 24th-ranked Louisville women’s soccer team will wrap up the regular season on Thursday when it hosts No. 2 North Carolina. Here’s a preview.
—For the first time since before COVID, college football TV ratings are on the decline.
—There is no close second. There will never be a close second.
—As we enter the month of November, Louisville has the most explosive offensein college football. Even an average defense would have this team at 6-1 or 7-0.
—With No. 1 seed Tampa Bay being upset last Friday, Lou City is once again hosting this weekend in the Eastern Conference semifinals. The boys in purple will take on Miami FC at 7 p.m. inside Lynn Family Stadium. As always, Card Chronicle readers can get discounted tickets to the match by going here.
—Michael McCammon has three observations from Louisville’s season-opening win over Chattanooga.
—Kenny forever.
—Johnnie Brown and Tre Richardsonboth picked upACC Player of the Week honors.
—The rest of this week in Cardinal sports:
Wednesday, November 4
- Men’s Soccer vs Stanford – 6 p.m. ET (Dr. Mark & Cindy Lynn Stadium)
- Women’s Basketball vs. Stetson – 8 p.m. ET (KFC Yum! Center)
Thursday, November 5
- Swim & Dive at College Swimming League – 5 p.m. ET (Indianapolis, Ind.)
- Women’s Soccer vs North Carolina – 6 p.m. ET (Dr. Mark & Cindy Lynn Stadium)
Friday, November 6
- Women’s Tennis at North Florida Invitational (Jacksonville, Fla.)
- Volleyball at Virginia – 7 p.m. ET (Charlottesville, Va.)
Saturday, November 7
- Women’s Tennis at North Florida Invitational (Jacksonville, Fla.)
- Men’s Basketball vs. Morehead State – 12 p.m. ET (KFC Yum! Center)
- Football at Georgia Tech – 7:30 p.m. ET (Atlanta, Ga.)
Sunday, November 8
- Women’s Tennis at North Florida Invitational (Jacksonville, Fla.)
- Volleyball at Virginia Tech – 1 p.m. ET (Blacksburg, Va.)
- Women’s Basketball at Southern Indiana – 4 p.m. ET (Evansville, Ind.)
—The latest U of L football bowl projections are here.
—I don’t think we ever knew that Charlie Strong referred to Will Stein as “Little Favre.”
—C.L. Brown writes that U of L has a championship caliber offense, but unfortunately that’s probably not going to matter.
—Some notes from Pro Football Network on their grades for the Louisville-Stanford game:
- Lincoln Kienholz is the 6th-highest-graded QB in FBS this season (88.6, 180 qualifying).
- Tayon Holloway’s 85.1 was the highest Impact Grade of any player on either side of the Louisville–Stanford game.
- Louisville’s offense graded 84.3 vs. Stanford, the 2nd-best of any FBS offense in Week 9 (tied).
- Louisville’s offense is ranked 3rd of 138 in FBS this season (92.7).
- Louisville has 3 players ranked in the top 25 nationally at their position: Lincoln Kienholz (QB, 6th), Keyjuan Brown (RB, 15th, tied), Tre Richardson (WR, 20th).
- Isaac Brown’s 84.9 vs. Stanford was his best game of the season (previous high 84.6).
—Josh Heird says that more spending on Louisville football has put more pressure on Jeff Brohm.
—And finally, no Rutherford Show this afternoon as my entire house has fallen sick besides me, which means I’ll be spending the afternoon shuttling children and wives to and from the doctor. Back tomorrow.
