Friday afternoon Cardinal news and notes

—Spread check: Louisville by 2.5.

—DeVante Parker finally got on the field last night and responded with a career-high 134 yards receiving. Maybe, just maybe, he’s still pretty good at football. The only question now for Miami is whether or not Parker improved his trade stock too much.

—At a news conference on Thursday, Louisville and Adidas announced that they are partnering to fund an initiative that will be “focused on building ethical leadership in college athletics.”

Tyra said some of the areas in which he wants the entire team to be on the same page surround the department’s goals and values.

“Goals are certainly to strive for are national championships,” he said. “Goals are also to not have a repeat of any Level One or Level Two NCAA violations. And we had some financial goals about ending years with surplus and making good investments. And another goal is just to have a department and have a business that’s run on trust.”

Mooradian said the training will include topics like integrity and grit, critical for ethical decision-making. And the takeaways go beyond sports. He said the goal is to create well-rounded leaders across the board.

“Nobody wants to go in and cheat,” Mooradian said. “Cheating spoils the game for the person who wins by cheating. Cheating spoils the game for those competing fairly.”

To get the program started, Tyra donated $100,000 of his own money. And he helped secure funding from Adidas, $100,000 every year for the next ten years. He said it was important to get Adidas’ approval for the project, adding that the past unethical practices of “a few bad apples” at Adidas does not undermine the program’s efforts to move forward.

“They’ve been highly interested and involved as a partner and wanting to support this with the College of Business,” Tyra said about Adidas. “And I’m sure there’s going to be some takeaways for them. But it’s not a time for me to disassociate ourselves from them.”

—The ACC seems to believe it has a realistic shot of bringing its conference tournament to Madison Square Garden within the next decade.

—The U of L women’s soccer team ended its regular season with a 1-0 loss to Virginia Tech Thursday night. Still, the Cards qualified for the ACC tournament for the first time since joining the league in 2014. They’ll open postseason play on Sunday at No. 11 Virginia.

—Imagine being paid $5 million to talk about sports and still not feeling the need to learn the name of the head football coach of the biggest college in your area.

—The staff over at Blogger So Dear make their predictions for tomorrow’s game. Worth noting: All of the writers who have picked every Wake game correctly so far are picking the Demon Deacons to lose to Louisville.

—As offenses across college football continue to get more aggressive, scoring is going up while offensive turnover rates are, somewhat surprisingly, going down.

—Bobby Petrino released a statement Thursday night on the Kemari Averett situation:

“Kemari was already suspended from all team activity due to the incident on Oct. 15 when I was notified of the most recent charge against him. He remains on suspension from all football activities and facilities while an investigation is conducted. I take all charges of misconduct seriously and act swiftly when conduct does not meet our expectations.”

—U of L swimming got the best of Tennessee in a top 25 showdown.

—Samuell Williamson can get buckets.

But Donovan Mitchell believes there’s a limit.

Pretty nice asset for Chris Mack to have one of the best (and most likable) players in the NBA frequently interacting with commits and recruits.

—Jay Bilas thinks the college hoops trial was dumb and explains why he feely sympathy for Rick Pitino.

—Jeff Brohm has become the buzz of college football.

The third game of the 2013 season, Western Kentucky head coach Bobby Petrino benched Doughty. He didn’t take it well, skipping practice and then ending up hanging out with some friends. When he left, he noticed a car – there’s that famous Accord again – parked parallel behind him to block him from leaving the lot. Brohm popped out, and an hour heart-to-heart ensued under the dim parking lot lights.

“To be honest with you, if it wasn’t for that conversation, no one would know who the heck I am,” Doughty said in a phone interview. “I wouldn’t have been drafted or done any of that. He was the reason I continued to play football and kept it honest with me.”

Doughty didn’t just keep playing, he threw for 5,000 yards as a senior and combined for an NCAA-record 97 touchdowns his final two seasons. Those were Brohm’s first two years as head coach. Doughty capped off his career with a win over Willie Taggart’s USF team in the Miami Beach Bowl in 2015, which included five trick plays.

Looking back, Doughty marvels at Brohm’s knack for play-calling and in-game adjustments. He recalled Brohm having such a mastery of defenses that he could distill things to detail like, “The Z-receiver is going to be wide open on this play. I want you to throw it to him. If he’s not there, just throw it to the back.”

The Z was usually open, as Doughty can only laugh. He often said to himself about Brohm, “There’s no way this guy can be right seven times in a row. But it was incredible. He was right 95 percent of the time. He just has a feel. He’s seen so much and watches so much, he’s obsessive over it.”

The Dolphins drafted Doughty in the seventh round in 2016 and he spent some time with the Cardinals this spring before getting cut. He’s planning on getting into coaching, where he hopes to emulate Brohm.

“His balance is unbelievable,” Doughty said. “He’s an obsessive guy about football, but he still has time for his family. A lot of these coaches, if they can’t talk to you about football, they have no other social skills. He can talk about other things in the world.”

Seems like a cool guy.

—Here’s another feature on Brohm, who is unquestionably getting the most out of a roster that is noticeably lacking in blue chip talent.

—Shoutout to the U of L equipment staff for never slowing down.

—ESPN has obtained the recordings of the wire-tapped calls and transcripts that were used throughout the college basketball trial. To my knowledge, there’s nothing here that hasn’t already been reported.

—WDRB’s Eric Crawford listened to the snippets of recordings that involved Louisville.

What these particular tapes do not include is any Louisville coach discussing payment to a player -- though the FBI did conduct video surveillance of a meeting in which then-Louisville assistant coach Jordan Fair was present for discussion of payment to Bowen, and mentioned that the arrangement needed to be kept quiet because the program had been put on NCAA probation.

What they do include are many conversations between adidas representatives and Bowen Sr.

The recordings, often laced with profanities or racial epithets, range from open conversations about how adidas would funnel money to Bowen to some comical exchanges, like one in which Dawkins berates Bowen for worrying about the cost of a plane ticket from Louisville to New York, telling him, “You about to get some money,” and, “It’s never going to be cheaper going from Louisville to New York City. It’s f----ing Louisville, B.”

The recordings also feature a couple of voicemails from Gatto to then-Louisville coach Rick Pitino. Neither discusses financial arrangements. In one, Gatto is talking to Pitino about players in general and in another he’s congratulating Louisville for landing Bowen.

Pitino’s attorney, Marc Mukasey, said Wednesday after the trial’s conclusion that the proceedings had proven Pitino did not know about any of the arrangements, adding, “no one with any degree of credibility implicated Pitino.”

—The AP gives a general preview of Louisville’s 2018-19 basketball season.

—Cool to see Justin Thomas giving Louisville City some love.

—Jake Lourim of the CJ is predicting a 30-27 Louisville victory over Wake.

—Minnesota’s Adam Thielen, who might be having the best season of any wide receiver in the NFL, says he wouldn’t be where he is today without the help of Teddy Bridgewater.

“I probably wouldn’t be the receiver I am today without him,” Thielen said Thursday.

...

Bridgewater, now the backup to Drew Brees in New Orleans, returns to Minnesota for Sunday’s game against the Vikings at U.S. Bank Stadium.

“His impact really all of the years he was here was huge. … He kind of thought like a receiver, so it was really cool to have him as a quarterback that really thought like a receiver,” Thielen said.

Even last season, when Bridgewater’s only action was two series in a December blowout win over Cincinnati, Thielen said he provided valuable advice.

“So many times last year after a game he’d come up to me and say you could have done this better, you could have done that better,” Thielen said. “So many things that I wasn’t thinking about that he was thinking about. He’s a really special guy to me and I try to keep in touch with him as much as possible.”

—*Shockingly, Renardo Sidney says his family was paid by Mississippi State.

*there is nothing shocking about this story

—Were we aware that Peanut Whitehead played football for the Fort Lewis Skyhawks in 2015? Did I repress this? I have to get the full story here.

—Happy Friday:

—Wild story here about how a tweet turned two high school coaches against each other in the aftermath of Hurricane Michael.

—Moore High star JJ Weaver is excited for his official visit to U of L this weekend.

—Dogs love Scary T.

—Football Scoop takes a look at the Bobby Petrino situation at Louisville.

—Jeff Greer profiles (WARNING link from The Athletic WARNING) Louisville’s prodigal son, Akoy Agau.

When Louisville guard Darius Perry said Agau “has been in college for, like, 20 years, so he knows everything,” he was playfully referring to Agau’s journey through high-level basketball. Agau was a top-100 recruit in high school and became the first Class A player in Nebraska state history to start for four state championship teams, at Omaha Central. He was a three-time all-state selection. He made 22 appearances for Rick Pitino at Louisville, helping the Cardinals reach the Sweet 16 in 2014. He appeared in 59 games in two seasons at Georgetown and SMU, starting in 17 of them. He has played in games against 50 college programs.

“I love to pick his brain about his experiences and other schools and how they compare to here,” says junior captain V.J. King. “He’s more in a leadership role than he thinks because of his experience. I always try to pick little things to ask him about, little things we do on the court. I’m looked at as a leader, but sometimes I feel like I’m still learning and finding my way. In times like that, I look to him.”

When graduate transfer Christen Cunningham said Agau has “been through so much” and that his first impression of his new teammate was, “How is this guy still doing this?” he was referring to Agau’s multiple injuries, surgeries and recoveries through his career.

“It’s crazy how resilient he is,” Cunningham says. “I don’t know if I could do what he’s done.”

—Two Louisville CEOs are among the 100 best performing in the world.

—Non-stop flights from Louisville to Los Angeles are coming.

—A quick media day recap from U of L basketball.

—And finally, beat Wake Forest.