Monday afternoon Cardinal news and notes

—U of L recaps Saturday’s football media day festivities.

—Donovan Mitchell is one of 17 finalists to make the World Cup roster for USA Basketball.

—Pro Football Focus ranks all 130 projected starting FBS quarterbacks, and has Jawon Pass at No. 128.

128. LOUISVILLE: JAWON PASS

Pass’ accuracy was an effort in futility a season ago and he finished with an adjusted completion percentage of just 63.7%. He returns as the second lowest-graded full-time quarterback from a year ago and will have to improve to keep his job this season. Pass is entrenched as the starter at this point with an injury to backup Malik Cunningham unlikely to create much competition.

—An updated look at who is currently set to carry the ACC Network.

—The No. 2 jazz album in America right now is “Follow the Leader” by local artists Jonathan Hay, Benny Reid & Mike Smith. The album features the track “Another Whiskey Shot (John Tong Dedication),” which is obviously a nod to the legendary Cardinal PA man. The track also features a mention of LaBradford Smith.

—Would love to see more sealing action in the post from Steven Enoch this season.

Get the hard work done early so the easy part comes last.

—Eric Crawford reminds us that 90 percent of preseason college football coverage is basically meaningless.

—Corey Evans of Rivals talks about the standouts from the Nike Skills Academy over the weekend, including top U of L recruit Devin Askew.

DEVIN ASKEW KNOWS HOW TO RUN A TEAM

Askew was very vocal in facilitating for his team in the half-court and calling out orders for where each of his teammates should be on the defensive end. He is a more than solid shot-making threat, case in point being his above 40 percent 3-point numbers on the EYBL circuit this summer, but it was his playmaking and intangibles that really separated himself from the pack.

Askew is a reclass candidate but, for now, he has decided to stay in the 2021 class. He will visit Louisville during Labor Day weekend and could also see Kentucky, Memphis, Villanova and a few others within the coming months.

—U of L volleyball senior outside hitter Melanie McHenry is a preseason All-ACC honoree. Louisville was picked to finish third in the ACC in the league’s preseason coaches poll.

The Cards will host their annual Red-White Scrimmage Saturday at 6 p.m. inside L&M Federal Credit Union Arena.

—Five different players scored as Lou City crushed Atlanta United over the weekend.

—No one at ACC Kickoff hated the “What’s in the Box?” game more than Seth Dawkins did.

—Starting Notre Dame TE Cole Kmet will be out for the Irish’s season-opener against Louisville after suffering a broken collarbone.

—Louisville native Darryl Drake, who was in his first year as the Pittsburgh Steelers’ WR coach, died over the weekend at the age of 62.

—SHOCKINGLY, a Bruce Pearl-led program may have needlessly complicated an NCAA matter by not being totally truthful.

While the Auburn men’s basketball program waits for a seemingly inevitable Notice of Allegations from the NCAA, it appears that the Tigers have created even more problems for themselves than they were already facing.

A report last week from AL.com said that the school “did not conduct recruiting of any kind from September 2017-April 2018.” The media outlet cited Auburn athletics as the source for that information, adding that there were “no official visits, no unofficial visits, and no contacts or phone calls made to any recruits during that time.” The school never publicized this self-imposed sanction, and it may have remained a secret had coach Bruce Pearl not alluded to “some real strong penalties that were never made public” on a July podcast with CBS’ Jon Rothstein.

Last Wednesday, AL.com published its story about the self-imposed recruiting ban. But there was just one problem: The ban that supposedly stretched from the Sept. 26, 2017, arrest of assistant coach Chuck Person as part of the nationwide federal corruption investigation until the end of that season, wasn’t exactly ironclad. And if Auburn implemented a compliance policy in direct response to a potentially major NCAA rules violation by a member of its staff, and then flouted its own policy, that could magnify the issues that lie ahead for the basketball program.

“What Auburn was hoping could be a mitigating factor in dealing with the NCAA could wind up being an aggravating factor,” said a source with extensive knowledge of the NCAA investigative process. In NCAA parlance, “mitigating factors” often are steps a university took to be in compliance with the rules; those are taken into account by the Committee on Infractions when it comes to levying sanctions. “Aggravating factors” are just the opposite: Rule-flouting actions by a school that can increase the severity of sanctions.

—Everyone with the Vikings still loves Teddy Bridgewater and can’t help but wonder what might have been.

—Some highlights from U of L’s Saturday scrimmage here:

—Christen Cunningham is headed to Croatia to kick off his professional career.

—Behind the scenes at the ACC Network, women are running the show.

—The President of the United States is coming to Louisville on Aug. 21. I’m sure there will be no strong reaction to this news in any direction.

—Two legends.

—Rich Paul offers up an official response to the “Rich Paul Rule.”

—Trey Lewis is back in France (website is in French) for another season.

—Rivals looks at seven basketball programs currently without a 2020 commit that could be on the verge of a major recruiting run. Louisville is included.

LOUISVILLE

After celebrating the best recruiting class that he has ever assembled, Chris Mack is prepared for another strong run this fall. The Cardinals have kicked the tires with a handful of the nation’s top guards including

Deivon Smith, Caleb Love and DJ Steward. All are within grasp, though decisions from each is nowhere near. Devin Askew could potentially reclassify later in the year and Louisville is the one that might be ahead of the others in the race for his signature. Adam Miller, Nimari Burnett and RJ Davis may be difficult, but Josh Hall, Isaiah Jackson and Jaemyn Brakefield are three others to watch for.Don’t forget about

Hunter Dickinson, who is down to a final seven and was wowed by his trip to Louisville. In two months, it is within reason that the Cards are sitting again with a top-10 class nationally.

—Louisville quality control coach Pete Thomas is a 247 Sports “30 Under 30” honoree.

—A writer for Saturday Down South says Louisville should be a top five candidate for relegation if the practice ever were to come into existence in college football. His argument is poor.

—Since the day he signed with Louisville, the understanding amongst all parties involved seemed to be that Quinn Slazinski would redshirt the 2019-20 season. That may no longer be the case (Athletic link).

2. Maybe no redshirt?

Chris Mack, in a podcast interview with Aaron Torres, said he and his staff may reconsider their plan to redshirt freshman forward Quinn Slazinski. The Huntington Prep product is further along in his development than anticipated, impressing his coaches and teammates with a strong summer. Slazinski is an intriguing player — a 6-foot-8, 215-pound point forward who is a versatile scorer. Two redshirt seniors, Ryan McMahon and Dwayne Sutton, noted his progress in their scouting report of offseason workouts. “You don’t expect (Slazinski) to be effective when you’re looking at him, but he’s a hooper,” McMahon said. Sutton compared his playing style to that of Jazz forward Joe Ingles.

No matter what Mack and Co. decide to do, Slazinski’s improvement is an encouraging sign for a team that presumably will have to replace Jordan Nwora at the stretch forward spot after this season. Before summer workouts, the staff thought Slazinski and fellow combo forward Jae’Lyn Withers might need more than a year in the program before they were ready to take on the stretch-4 position in Mack’s system. Maybe that time frame has shortened a tad.

—Jordan Nwora scored 19 points to lead Nigeria to an exhibition win over Canada on Friday.

—Jarren Williams, and not Tate Martell or N’kosi Perry, has been named Miami’s starting quarterback for 2019. The Hurricanes open the season on Aug. 24 against Florida.

—Major love for the Derby City and the Louisville Bats from Primetime.

—Jawon Pass says he’s having fun playing football again, which is a nice first step.

—NBC previews Louisville as part of its “Notre Dame’s Opponents” series.

SEASON OUTLOOK

Throughout this writing, it has been tough to resist writing, “Things cannot get worse for Louisville.” Because with one upset, they could. 2-10 would become 1-11, but that should hardly matter in Satterfield’s first year.

It is that kind of schedule, though. After the Irish visit on Labor Day, the Cardinals host Eastern Kentucky and then face Western Kentucky in Nashville. They got by the Hilltoppers by a field goal last season.

Louisville will not be favored in another game, all ACC opponents until the season closes at Kentucky. The Cardinals best chance at a third win may be Oct. 5 vs. Boston College, but the idea of Eagles star running back A.J. Dillon against this defense is not a thought prompting confidence in Louisville’s chances, let alone its odds of topping a season win total over/under of 3.5.

—The Miami basketball team that Louisville will open the season against on Nov. 5 is off to Italy for a summer exhibition tour.

—Will Smith refuses to stop hitting jacks.

—”College GameDay” will be making its first stop in Clemson in a couple weeks for the Tigers’ Thursday night season-opener against Georgia Tech.

—Big Red Louie has three defensive stats you need to know for the 2019 Cardinal football season.

—The 2019 team photo is here.

—The CJ’s Cameron Teague wonders how Louisville will handle Malik Cunninham being temporarily sidelined with a knee injury.

—Louisville is 14th out of 14 teams in USA Today’s preseason ACC power rankings.

—And finally, we’re back on the radio from 3-6 this afternoon on 790-KRD talking about all the events of the weekend except for the Reds bullpen being the absolute worst. You can listen here.