Tuesday Morning Cardinal News And Notes

So Louisville is going to host the defending national champions and likely preseason No. 1 next season inside Papa John's Cardinal Stadium. I enjoy thinking about that.

Shoni Schimmel has been named the AAC Player of the Week.

Also earning AAC honors was our man Chicken Knowles, who was named the league's Rookie of the Week.

Seriously, you can't tell me that Card Chronicle University (Chicken, Bryce Cotton, Danuel House and any other 10 guys who read this site and have eligibility left) would finish any worse than 6th in the American this season.

An Arizona Daily Star writer makes the case that taking the Louisville job wouldn't be a move up for Rich Rodriguez.

Money blurs the difference between Louisville and Arizona. Money talks so loudly that Texas hired Strong away from Louisville, even though the Longhorns have to pay Strong's $5 million buyout.

Louisville can pay its next football coach as much as it takes. Market value? What's that?

The Cardinals don't have any more football tradition than Arizona, and probably less.

Louisville has won the Fiesta Bowl, the Orange Bowl and the Sugar Bowl - the last two in the past seven years. Arizona is the only original Pac-10 team that has never appeared in the Rose Bowl.

"I heard Jerry Wainwright is a candidate" is a line that was spoken with sincerity during an actual production meeting somewhere in Kentucky on Monday. Not exaggerating at all when I say it's probably one of the top five accomplishments of my "professional" career.

A Twitter account that was setup for Steve Kragthorpe now belongs to the head football coach at Texas.

What a world.

Deion Branch has agreed to terms with the Indianapolis Colts less than a week before they take on his old team, the New England Patriots, in the NFL playoffs.

There's an NFL scout out there who believes Teddy Bridgewater is a second rounder.

Another AFC college director called Bridgewater, "a second-rounder. Shorter and smallish in size, but he has solid arm strength, he's a good athlete, solid accuracy. Not dynamic or a special talent, but he has NFL starter-caliber skills, and he's a good kid with all the intangibles." Basically, what you can surmise there is that the eye test, and what Bridgewater physically looks like in front of evaluators, will make all the difference. Louisville lists him at 6-foot-3 and 205 pounds -- and if you know anything about how football coaches do measurements, you know it's a good bet he's at least a little shorter and lighter than that.

There's an NFL scout out there who is horribly mistaken.

The first 5,000 fans into the Yum Center Thursday night will be given a Thorntons Frequency Rewards card. If the number on the back of your card is announced at halftime, you will win free gas for a year (a gift card in the amount of $50 a week for 52 weeks). In addition, fans are encouraged to register their cards (there will be iPads on site in the lobby prior to tip off or they can do it from their phones or at home on a computer) to enter a larger sweepstakes through Jan. 31 where Thorntons will give away weekly prizes such as free gas for a year, free drinks for a year, vacations, mountain bikes and a ton of other stuff.

The KFC Yum Center is the 14th "most-bucketed" college hoops venue in America.

Jay Gruden to Louisville probably isn't going to happen, but he says the thought of it is nice.

Jay confirms will interview w/ Minn, Tenn, Wash. Lap asks about alma mater UL: "That would be nice, I'd have to think about it" #Bengals

— Lance McAlister (@LanceMcAlister) January 6, 2014

Though many U of L fans have already pointed out the fact that he's had consistent issues with his hands, one SB Nation writer still makes a valiant case for Chane Behanan pursuing a career in football.

Louisville is an 8 seed in Jerry Palm's latest Bracketology for CBS. Dead serious.

This paragraph from a story on Poona Ford's solid performance in the Semper Fi All-American Bowl might the best summation of major college football recruiting that I've ever seen.

Ford's immediate future is up the air. The Louisville commitment has reopened his recruiting following the the departure of Cardinals coach Charlie Strong to Texas, though he still remains firm to his initial school of choice.

So he's a "commitment" who "remains firm to his initial choice" while also being someone who has "reopened his recruiting" and whose "future is up in the air." All in two sentences.

I mean I get it, but only because I read the Pink Monkey notes on Beowulf my sophomore year of high school. If you haven't then I could see how you could be confused.

Today's helping of "which Google News search result is unlike the others":

I don't exactly know why, but Mark Wiedmar of the Chattanooga Times Free Press is writing about the potential of a Louisville basketball dynasty.

Louisville is not going to be upset that it didn't sign Matt Elam. I'm very confident about that.

Mark Coomes of Insider Louisville says that fans shouldn't expect coaches to do what they do: stay forever.

Petrino and Strong showed the way to Miami and New Orleans and five top 20 finishes in 10 years. They beat UK seven times in eight tries.

The pain passes. Bowl trophies, stadium expansions and bragging rights remain.

One way or another, a new coach will be hired soon. He will, of course, say he is here to say. And who knows? Maybe he will.

But don't count on it. This time, just sit back and enjoy the ride.

The Cards are five seed opening their NCAA Tournament run against UAB in the first in-season bracket from NBC Sports.

Some solid new Cardinal wallpapers from Adam Lucas.

There's a Wikipedia caper somewhere in the city.

People in this state, especially Michigan State fans, are left wondering if this means Pat Narduzzi's days are numbered in East Lansing.

The defensive coordinator for MSU's top-ranked group won the Broyles Award as the top assistant in the country and has been listed all over the Internet as a candidate to replace Strong.

But one website had him already leading the Cardinals on Sunday.

Someone edited Narduzzi's Wikipedia page to read: "On Monday, January 6, 2013, Narduzzi was named luckiest man alive as well as head coach for the University of Louisville cardinals. immediately following this announcement, he changed his name to CARDuzzi."

Could we not have taken an extra three seconds to get the basic grammar right? Do they all have to be Wikipedia drive-bys?

Because of bowl tie-ins, there is a possibility that Louisville and Texas could meet in the postseason next season. Of course they could also theoretically meet in the new four team playoff.

The latest "ouch Charlie" moment is the news that Strong approached Texas before they expressed interest in him.

Another foreign big man may be close to pulling the trigger on a U of L commitment.

There has been a Louisville run on #Crystalball for Michal Cekovsky (teammate of Louisville signee Matz Stockman): http://t.co/k4UwEr0z5p

— Jerry Meyer (@jerrymeyer247) January 6, 2014

Despite dealing with an injured wrist, Peyton Siva is developing nicely.

An NFL Draft scouting report on Marcus Smith.

French President François Hollande is really bad at shaking hands, and a Dutch newspaper made a collage to prove it.

Former U of L assistant Mike Summers is headed to Florida.

And finally, a quick look into the past which shows that Louisville is probably going to come out of this thing better than it was before.