Monday evening Cardinal news and notes

—Bye week spread check: Louisville by 21.

—Tyler Haycraft, Anthony Johnson and TuTu Atwell all make the Pro Football Focus ACC Team of the Week.

—David Grissom is leaving the U of L Board of Trustees.

The news is being met with enthusiasm by more than a few.

—Amid preseason top five hype, Chris Mack is challenging his team to earn everything.

—It should come as no surprise, but Scott Satterfield is one of the best-performing first-year head coaches in the FBS.

—Louisville checks in at No. 4 on ESPN’s updated ACC football power rankings.

There’s a genuine magic in this year’s incarnation of Coastal Chaos. Sure, we talk every year about how the ACC Coastal is the wildest (though far from the best) division in college football, but this year -- this year really is something special.

On Saturday, Miami-Pitt and UNC-Duke came down to dramatic endings, and for the season, eight of the 13 intradivisional games have been decided by a TD or less. There are only four teams in FBS with five games or more decided by a TD or less, and three of them reside in the Coastal. Favorites in Coastal matchups have lost more than they’ve won. And Virginia, a team that was handled by Louisville on Saturday, somehow remains the favorite to win the division.

It’s a sad, beautiful, dramatic mess. And with it, so are our power rankings. -- David M. Hale

1. Clemson

2. Wake Forest

3. North Carolina

4. Louisville

5. Virginia

6. Pitt

7. Florida State

8. Duke

9. Virginia Tech

10. Miami

11. Boston College

12. NC State

13. Georgia Tech

14. Syracuse

—Scott Satterfield’s “scrappy bunch” is no longer having a problem overcoming adversity.

—Via Evan Daniels, 4-star Bardstown High School star JJ Traynor will announce his college decision this week. All signs point to Traynor being down to Louisville and Cincinnati.

—Sports Illustrated’s list of the top 50 players in college basketball has Jordan Nwora at No. 6.

6. Jordan Nwora, Louisville, Junior

Nwora creates a unique matchup problem for defenses with his potent jump shot: placing a bigger forward on him opens up the paint for others, while assigning a smaller wing dares Nwora to simply shoot over the defense. He made big strides over the course of his breakout sophomore season (17 points, 7.6 rebounds), making his individual shot selection more team-friendly, giving Louisville an offensive dimension it otherwise lacked, and becoming more efficient in the process. Nwora has enough of a handle to attack closeouts and keep defenders honest, and will benefit big-time from the influx of talent around him, helping to mitigate his deficiencies as a playmaker and as a perimeter defender. Another uptick in production is on tap.

—Louisville is up to No. 36 in The Athletic’s ranking of all 130 FBS teams.

—Big Red Louie examines the five biggest questions surrounding the U of L men’s basketball team heading into 2019-20.

—DeVante and I have the same chain.

—The Nationals fan who took a home run ball to the chest instead of dropping either one of his beers made the right choice.

—U of L previews tomorrow night’s hoops exhibition against Bellarmine.

—Uniswag has Louisville’s red-black-red look as the 8th-best uniform in college football for the past week.

—The U of L volleyball team fell to No. 3 Pitt on Sunday.

—Streaking the Lawn recaps Virginia’s loss to Louisville.

—Jordan Nwora is a preseason First Team All-American according to The Athletic.

Jordan Nwora, junior forward, Louisville

Forget the deeply uncomfortable collapse against Duke, or the limp 4-9 finish in February and March. By any reasonable metric, the first Louisville season of Chris Mack’s tenure — and one that came after and among a raft of NCAA- and FBI-related questions about the future of the program itself — was a competitive triumph almost no one saw coming.

They see it coming this year. It is impossible not to. Mack has added a raft of newcomers (particularly starting grad transfer guard Lamarr “Fresh” Kimble) to that already impressive, surprising group of returners, players such as Steven Enoch, Dwayne Sutton and Malik Williams. Yet none are as exciting as Jordan Nwora. The 6-foot-7 wing was the ACC’s most improved player last season; he went from averaging 5.7 points per game as a freshman to 17.0 as a sophomore. The leap was enough to put him on the NBA’s radar. Nwora’s decision to return — and the frightening possibility he might maintain his previous developmental trajectory, and who knows what that looks like — make him the standout star from an extremely deep, hungry Final Four hopeful.

Cassius Winston, Myles Powell, Markus Howard and Kerry Blackshear joined Nwora on the First Team.

—Rick Pitino appeared on the latest episode of The Winner’s Circle podcast (a horse racing podcast) and revealed that he’s considering accepting an offer to coach Greece’s national team and attempt to help them qualify for the Olympics.

—Cole Anthony reportedly scored 28 points for North Carolina in a 104-100 scrimmage win over Villanova this weekend.

—Emina Ekic’s goal early in the first half proved to be the game-winner as the No. 12 Louisville women’s soccer team held off Miami for a 1-0 road victory on Sunday.

—Shake it off, Don.

—Payne Stewart’s daughter writes him a letter on the 20th anniversary of his untimely death.

—According to a report from CBS’ Dennis Dodd, a “set of principles” regarding the name, image and likeness rights for college athletes will be presented Tuesday by a working group to the NCAA Board of Governors.

—TuTu Atwell once again cracks the ACC’s top five plays of the week.

—Matt Zemek writes about the significance of Louisville’s win over Virginia.

—Louisville basketball seniors remember (Athletic link) their first collegiate baskets.

—Your Louisville-Virginia advanced box score.

—The Louisville men’s golf team will round out its fall season in Hawaii.

—Louisville checks in at No. 3 in USA Today’s updated ACC football power rankings.

—Eric Crawford writes about Scott Satterfield’s rapid restoration of the Louisville football program.

1). Intangibles matter. You do this job long enough, and a lot of those words you see on the motivational posters become just words. They are things we write about, but when it comes to making a real difference in real football games, they tend to fade in the presence of talent and speed and scheme.

”Culture,” as a rule, is an overrated concept in business and sport. Companies might have culture, but whatever the situation is in your individual department, that’s the culture for you. I suspect it’s the same with the football team. So when it comes to remaking the feel and vibe around the Louisville program, not only does Satterfield deserve a great deal of credit, but every member of his staff should take an equal share, too.

Beyond that, whatever the staff is doing, it has connected with the players and tapped into that part of them that brings out more.

Charlie Strong did this here probably better than anyone. It’s the “run through the brick wall for the coach” feel you get among players. It’s a little different with Satterfield. Strong was tough love, which is what the program needed after the Steve Kragthorpe era. After last season, these players needed to be “loved on,” as Satterfield said, but they also needed to be able to trust the coaching staff. Satterfield and his assistants won that trust, and the results are evident on the field.

Football is still about pure strength and speed and numbers. But for those of us who get jaded into thinking that some of these old-fashioned intangibles don’t matter, a look at this U of L season ought to set us straight.

When players are highly motivated and completely engaged, it matters.

—The CJ grades out the performance of Louisville players from the Virginia game.

—Louisville’s rushing prowess served as a wake-up call for a Virginia defense that entered the weekend with some gaudy stats .

—The Teddy love continues in New Orleans even with Drew Brees healthy and back on the field.

—James Burgess was activated from the New York Jets practice squad on Saturday and started at linebacker on Sunday.

—Louisville is up to No. 61 in the latest S&P rankings.

—Seems good.

—Despite being just one win away, Louisville isn’t focused on bowl eligibility.

—Here’s what Bronco Mendenhall had to say following his team’s loss inside Cardinal Stadium.

—And finally, we now have a projection of Louisville playing Kentucky in the Music City Bowl, which would be ... something.