Like a lot of you, one of the things I was looking forward to most about the upcoming football campaign was the season-opener at Georgia. Sure, the program is still probably a least year away from being able to compete at that high of a level, but this was the big-name opponent and appearance in the national spotlight that had been so obviously missing for the past four years.
Then, of course, ESPN stepped in and got Georgia to back out of the game in order to make room for a tilt against Boise State. Louisville's consolation prize was a home-and-home with North Carolina, a program it had stomped in a pair of meetings in the 2000's. Still, UNC appeared to be a program on the rise under Butch Davis, and Chapel Hill isn't exactly a bad place to travel to in October. It could have been worse.
It's about to get worse.
On Tuesday, North Carolina received a notice of allegations from the NCAA outlining numerous "potential major violations" in the football program, including unethical conduct by a former assistant coach as well as failure to adequately monitor the conduct of former and current players. You can take a full look at the findings that UNC discovered after a year-long investigation right here. It's not pretty.
So now it looks like there's a very real chance that Louisville will be facing a team on probation when it enters Kenan Memorial Stadium on Oct. 8. At the very least, the UNC program will be surrounded by controversy and questions about its future.
Another blow to a game Cardinal fans already weren't crazy about.