ACC Football Kickoff: Hey, there's Louisville

At last year's ACC Football Kickoff, Louisville was only an announced, future member of the conference. This year, they're in. I'm here in Greensboro for Card Chronicle, taking in Louisville's first appearance at the preseason media get together. It was fun to have lunch with Paul Rogers and have him tell us how amazing it is to have gone from calling road games at Drake (!) to looking at and preparing to call this year's football schedule as a member of the ACC.

In his opening address, commissioner John Swofford made many of the same statements we heard from Mike Slive last week and will hear from the commissioners of the Big 12, Big Ten, and PAC 12. He supports the move to restructure the NCAA, to give the power five conferences greater autonomy, is excited about upcoming College Football Playoff, and supports an early signing period for college football (he is probably in the minority on that). In addition to his general comments, Swofford welcomed Louisville to the league, noting, "I know of no other institution that has come as far as Louisville has in the past 15 years." As has been his custom, he also noted Louisville's "tremendous upward trajectory".

Here are some images of Louisville in various ACC things. It's official, folks. The Cardinals are in.

Your ACC players and the commish. #ACCKickoff pic.twitter.com/AQy22Sc5YX

— Mark Ennis (@MarkEnnis) July 20, 2014

(That's Lorenzo Mauldin next to Jameis Winston, if you were curious).

Be sure to check back throughout the day as we'll add interviews with Mauldin and DeVante Parker as well as other ACC players and media and then tomorrow with Bobby Petrino. Additionally, Bud Elliott and I voted on our preseason ACC Ballots, you can sad them here.