Wednesday evening Cardinal news and notes

—Spread check (football): Louisville by 9.

—Spread check (basketball): Louisville by 36.

—What makes Javian Hawkins so special? Cameron Teague of the Courier breaks it down.

—I enjoyed this way too much.

—Scott Satterfield is a semifinalist for the 2019 George Munger Collegiate Coach of the Year Award.

—This Ian O’Connor story for ESPN on the relationship between Lamar Jackson and John Harbaugh is your must-read of the day.

The coach stayed with the youngest quarterback to ever start a playoff game, Jackson, who responded with two touchdown passes before getting sacked for the seventh time and fumbling away Baltimore’s final chance.

”At that point in time, Lamar was our quarterback,” Harbaugh said. “So I’m going to take our quarterback out? That’s the main thing. And the second thing, honestly, do you want to win that game? There’s no question in my mind that Lamar gave us the best chance to win that game, even when things weren’t going well. So it was also a football decision.”

And one that meant a ton to the betting favorite to win league MVP.

”Coach Harbaugh showed he was all-in [during that playoff game], and Lamar loved that,” said Harris, Jackson’s personal tutor. “Lamar’s biggest thing is loyalty, and he loves to see his loyalty reciprocated.

”The greatest thing I’ve seen from Coach Harbaugh is he’s bought into who Lamar is. Any time I talk to Lamar about him, he talks about him in an endearing way. He’s Harbs. He’s a person Lamar feels has his back.”

Mike Summers, Louisville’s co-offensive coordinator in 2017, understands how important trust is to Jackson. Summers arrived from the University of Florida after the quarterback’s Heisman season and yet found Jackson still willing to be coached “whenever he sees someone trying to make him better.” The retired Summers praised Harbaugh and his staff for incorporating the pistol principles that were used at Louisville. Harbaugh and Roman have run the pistol on 46% of their offensive plays this season, while the other 31 NFL teams have used that formation on 1% of their plays, according to ESPN Stats & Information research.

”He could have gone to another team and not nearly be the quarterback he is now,” Summers said of Jackson. “It’s to the Ravens’ credit that they understand that Lamar can make their team into a championship team, while other teams might try to make Lamar into their kind of quarterback instead and limit their chances.”

—U of L men’s soccer kicks off its NCAA tournament run on Thursday when it hosts South Florida. Here’s a preview.

—Tickets for just seven bucks are available for this weekend’s football game against Syracuse.

—The Louisville football Twitter account suddenly ranks in the nation’s top 15 in interactions.

—U of L volleyball is geared up for home matches this weekend against Notre Dame and Miami. The program will celebrate Senior Day on Sunday.

—The folks over at Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician discuss the Louisville-Cuse game on the latest episode of their podcast.

—Ballard High School cornerback Terrance Hearn is headed to Louisville as a preferred walk-on.

—It hasn’t gotten much attention because his team is so bad, but DeVante Parker is quietly having his best NFL season to date.

—Scott Davenport’s Bellarmine Knights are No. 3 in this week’s NABC Division-II top 25 poll.

—The basketball recruiting analysts over at Rivals look back at their biggest misses of the last decade. Donovan Mitchell earned a mention.

Bossi’s take: An explosive shooting guard, Mitchell’s final ranking of No. 31 overall in his class really isn’t that terrible. So why do I consider it such a miss? I consider it a miss because I only had him as the third-highest ranked guard on his own high school team behind Jalen Adams and Justin Simon. No disrespect to those guys, they are going to play for a while. But, ouch, ranking both of them ahead of Mitchell -- who Brewster coach Jason Smith told everybody would be a star -- is a pretty big L.

—Good story here from the Lansing State Journal on Cassius Winston, basketball and the fresh grief of recently losing his brother to suicide.

—Class of 2022 basketball standout D’Ante Davis likes the idea of joining his older brother, D’Andre, who signed with Louisville last week.

—Pro Football Focus re-ranks all 130 FBS quarterbacks and has Micale Cunningham at No. 68.

68. MICALE CUNNINGHAM, LOUISVILLE

Cunningham takes a dip in the rankings after spiking earlier this season as he’s struggled from a pressured pocket as of late, fielding just a 50.0 passer rating when the defense gets home with pressure. He’s been pressured on 37.4% of his dropbacks this year, the 29th-highest percentage. What separates him from the rest of the nation’s quarterbacks, however, is his pocket presence and ability from a clean pocket. He’s currently second to only Tua Tagovailoa in passer rating from a clean pocket and sixth in overall grade when kept clean. He lights up the field when given time to see the whole play and has thrown 13 touchdowns against one interception with 1,176 of his yards coming from a clean pocket. He’s a much better quarterback without play-action, proving stable from week to week, fielding a 9:1 touchdown-to-interception ratio without play-action. Keeping him clean and putting him in solid standard passing situations is clearly a big priority for not only his success but the team’s as well.

—Early season college hoops tournaments get underway on Thursday. Here’s a guide to Feast Week ... even though I don’t think anybody still calls it that.

—The U of L men’s soccer team has announced its 2020 fall recruiting class.

—This is the best trend in college football.

—Bet America’s updated college hoops power rankings have Louisville at No. 1.

—Syracuse.com serves up its overview of the U of L football team.

—Here’s what Dino Babers had to say about Louisville during his weekly press conference.

—And finally, beat USC Upstate.