Monday evening Cardinal news and notes

The last few days have been full of major life events for the Louisville and Card Chronicle family. We'd be remiss if we didn't begin by congratulating Mike on getting married. As you can see, Mike's reception didn't disappoint.

Oh, but there's more. In addition to Mike joining the ranks of the happily married up, Peyton Siva's wife gave birth to their first child, a baby girl.

Tomorrow at 2:00, the university will announce a $14 million gift to the athletic department that should put the academic center planned to be built into the south end of the stadium over the hump and allow to construction to begin in the near future. Charlie Springer with UofL Card Game suspects the gift will come from Maker's Mark and be named after Bill Samuels of Marker's Mark.

I hesitate to even bring it up and dignify it, but, Thayer Evans added a little nugget today on SI to his reporting on Bobby Petrino that evidently wasn't worthy of being included in his and Tim Layden's article that ran in last week's issue. As of now the full article has only appeared in the print edition. In the nugget added, Evans cites an anonymous source that Petrino has friction with new defensive coordinator Todd Grantham and were it not for his large buyout, he would have already replaced him. He also quotes dismissed defensive tackle Jamaine Brooks to the effect that despite his public relations blitz, Petrino isn't a changed man

Getting dirt from dismissed players and anonymous sources was Evans' preferred method in his near disastrous expose on Oklahoma State. In the print piece, Layden/Evans were able to get quotes on the allegedly terrible locker room culture from a guy named Craig James. Not that Craig James. A player from Jacksonville who soon transferred in 2005. Nobody I've talked to knows or remembers him. How Jamaine Brooks knows Petrino is a bad guy and a bad coach when he barely survived a week or two into his tenure and never practiced once is beyond me. Is the stuff about Grantham true? None of us will know for quite some time. If the defense struggles or costs Louisville a game or two, you can bet any tension will be plain to all and Grantham won't be long for Louisville, despite his contract figures. If the defense works out fine, we probably won't give this much thought again.

It's odd that SI would run this little blurb when the magazine actually presents Petrino as a bit of a redemption story. For those who were worried about it, it's not that bad. We know about Petrino's past. It's his job to make people believe he's changed. Time will tell, but, so far so good.

CBS Sports has its bowl projections up. They project Louisville to the Music City Bowl to face Missouri. That wouldn't be terrible, but I suspect most fans are hoping for a Florida bowl game. A Music City Bowl bid would probably mean Louisville goes 8-4. That seems doable, but I'm a little more optimistic.

While Louisville's opening night opponent is still working on picking a quarterback (Brad Kayaa and Jake Heaps continue to battle for the starting job at MIami with the game two weeks from tonight), Louisville's final opponent settled on a quarterback. Mark Stoops announced Patrick Towles would start. Mike Hartline was the last Kentucky quarterback, so Reese Phillips and Drew Barker shouldn't consider it over by any means. Color me surprised that Barker, who enrolled early and was even a part of Kentucky's Super Bowl ad, didn't win the job. Not convinced it will matter by the time the season finale rolls around.

The lingering pot charge against sophomore wide receiver James Quick was dismissed today according to WDRB. The school will continue to test Quick, but, like his former teammate Jason Hatcher, the charge itself has been dropped and there's no reason to suspect that Quick won't be out there from the opening snap on September 1.

Ben Garvin of the St. Paul Pioneer Press captured this fantastic picture of Teddy Bridgewater at Vikings camp. Teddy is just as kid and fan friendly in Minnesota as he was for three and half years in Louisville. After his performance against the Arizona Cardinals last week, Bridgewater drew praise from virtually everyone and while not likely to be the day one starter in Minnesota, he's clearly the future at quarterback.

Here's tmro's @PioneerPress sports cover. I doubt I'll ever make a photo like this again :) pic.twitter.com/5VoSeo6hAp

— bengarvin (@bengarvin) August 14, 2014