Tuesday afternoon Cardinal news and notes

—Spread check: Florida State by 6.5.

—Jimbo Fisher says Saturday isn’t a “revenge game,” but his players are pretty much like “uh yeah it’s a revenge game.”

Florida State cornerback Levonta Taylor was asked the same question, and he would respond with the direct opposite of an answer to Fisher’s.

“Yeah, we’re taking this week very personally because of what happened last year.” Taylor said, via the Orlando Sentinel.

“Just preparation, that’s all we gotta do,” Taylor said when asked about the mindset of the team this week. “Come out with that fire and desire that we need and we want, and that’ll handle itself on Saturday.”

Louisville quarterback Lamar Jackson scored four rushing touchdowns and one passing during last year’s win.

“I just remember him scoring a lot, they had the bell ringing. This year, I don’t want to let that happen.”

—Eric Crawford looks back at the wild ride that was the Rick Pitino era at Louisville.

—Tom Crean and John Thompson III are both joining ESPN as college basketball analysts for the upcoming season.

—It sounds like we should expect to have a completed basketball staff by the end of the week.

—Florida State has adjusted its depth chart in preparation for the Louisville game.

—The “one and done” era of college basketball appears to be nearing an end, which is good for the players, but probably bad for the sport at the college level.

—If you would like to help the youngsters at Hawthorne Elementary have a basketball season, there is a way to do that.

—I love this picture.

—U of L field hockey’s Taylor Stone has been named the ACC Defensive Player of the Week.

—Miami Central's Robert Hicks, Chandler Jones, both Under Armour All-Americans, are sticking with Louisville.

“I’m sticking with Louisville right now,” Hicks said. “I have a couple of fun visits with my teammates, like Southern Miss, but that’s about it.”

Central knocked off last season’s Super 25 champion Bishop Gorman (Las Vegas), and the Rockets’ lone loss was to No. 2 IMG Academy (Bradenton).

...

Jones said when he and Hicks went on their official visit together to Louisville, they were sold.

“I’m locked into Louisville right now, maybe 99 percent,” Jones said. “When Robert transferred (to Miami Central) and we went on our official visit together, we just fell in love with Louisville,” Jones said. “That was it for us.”

—We found out yesterday that Brian Bowen’s family had been living at the Galt House as recently as a month ago. That’s ... probably an issue.

—We also found out that Rick Pitino took a polygraph exam and passed after being asked two questions about Bowen being paid $100,000.

—Is Rick Pitino done coaching forever? Gary Parrish asked 10 people in basketball, and they said ... probably.

"I think anyone who hired Pitino would literally be putting his job on the line," said one Division I athletic director who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "How could you have any confidence he would stay straight?"

This is probably the place where it's only fair to note that Pitino has never been directly tied to any wrongdoing -- neither with the prostitution scandal nor with this Adidas deal. He has not been charged with a federal crime. And he's forever and consistently denied knowledge of NCAA violations and federal crimes. But, at this point, that's pretty much beside the point. Because the point is that too many scandals -- first a high-profile personal scandal, then two high-profile professional scandals -- are connected to him. At best, he's shown no ability in recent years to run a program that doesn't have assistants operating outside of the NCAA rulebook. At worst, he's something much worse. So it's just very, very difficult, in this ever-changing climate of college athletics, to imagine an athletic director being willing to put his job on the line to hire a 65-year-old with this baggage -- even a 65-year-old as terrific at coaching as Pitino is terrific at coaching. And even if some athletic director did, how many university presidents or chancellors would sign off on it and invite the public relations hit his school would undeniably take?

Zero, I think.

—Board chair David Grissom is advocating a “closed search” for U of L’s new president, which runs counter to what the university is supposed to be doing right now.

—The U of L men’s soccer team looks to continue its unbeaten streak Tuesday night at Charlotte. Here’s a preview.

—Wednesday is expected to be decision day as far as the future of Tom Jurich is concerned. It’s possible that the vote could be postponed, but if it isn’t, the C-J has a rundown of what to expect.

—Nailed it.

—Teddy Bridgewater chose to stick around and do the bulk of his rehab in Minnesota, which meant the world to his teammates.

—Robbie Bell got left hanging.

Lamar feels bad about it.

—Iowa’s Fran McCaffery admits that he’s turned other coaches into the NCAA for cheating.

—Regardless of how you feel about Rick Pitino, this is a really gross negotiating tactic.

Again, every day is more dumb than the previous one.

—Western Kentucky fired assistant coach (and former Big East POY) Ben Hansbrough following a DUI arrest.

—And finally, the AP has a full list of how 84 schools responded to a question about whether or not they were reviewing their men’s basketball program. DePaul is not.