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Monday evening Cardinal news and notes

A group of U of L fans on a bye week road trip to Vegas took some time to show their love for the Cards.

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—Spread check: Bye week by two blown coverages and one roughing the kicker.

—Tomahawk Nation has a breakdown of the advanced box score from Louisville-Florida State.

—The crowd for the Louisville-Florida State game was the lowest attendance Doak Campbell Stadium has seen for a home game in 36 years.

—Happy Louisville Live week.

—Dez Fitzpatrick’s long TD reception was one of the five best plays in the ACC (video) this week.

—U of L senior midfielder Cherif Dieye has been named the ACC men’s soccer Offensive Player of the Week.

—Dieye and the Cards rallied for a big 2-1 win over No. 17 Virginia Tech on Friday night.

—Making his first start since 2015, Teddy Bridgewater tossed two touchdowns in a huge New Orleans road win over Seattle. Afterward, the former Cardinal star was understandably emotional.

—Busting Brackets has five reasons why the Louisville men’s basketball team will win the ACC in 2019-20.

—The 20th-ranked Louisville women’s soccer team took its first loss of the season Friday night when No. 4 North Carolina came into Lynn Stadium and left with a 3-0 victory.

—Your FanPulse data for week four:

—The 25th-ranked Louisville volleyball team fell to Kentucky on Friday but knocked off Cincinnati on Sunday.

—The U of L women’s golf team finished ninth at the Mason Rudolph Championship.

—The Top Whatever rankings have a great idea for the next time Louisville hosts a game under the lights.

1. EXCITING colors, by Spencer

First of all, this entire game would have been much more entertaining if they’d played the whole thing under the red lights of BULLDOG HELL.

University of Georgia

Something I did not know before we looked into this: there isn’t any specific rule against leaving the lights like this the whole time. The rule only says that all field markings must be visible.

A new rule would appear, for sure, if someone did turn their stadium into a terrifying demon’s playroom for three and a half hours. But until the rules catch up? Go ahead, y’all. Put smoke machines in the opposing team’s end zones. Turn every red zone possession into the Undertaker’s entrance. Beam pastel tones when the home offense is on the field, and watch as the opposing defense fails to get its edge on when bathed in soothing lavender light.

All of this, any of this would have made Notre Dame-UGA considerably more entertaining than it was. A hard-fought battle between two marquee programs with national title hopes turned out deeply conservative and less interesting than at least three other games happening at the same time.

With added stagecraft, we could have enjoyed this remix: the Georgia Bulldogs ROARED out of the gates, SCORING zero points in the first quarter before an ELECTRIFYING muffed punt THUNDERED out of the hands of Tyler Simmons and gave Notre Dame a TOUCHDOWN that might have been LASERED into the hands of the wrong receiver but WORKED ANYWAY.

Some ACTION ensued. Jake Fromm NIBBLED away at the Notre Dame defense, only throwing it WAY DOWNFIELD when he absolutely had to and only after Notre Dame took a COMMANDING 10-7 LEAD. Notre Dame quarterback Ian Book WAS not much BETTER, and only a fainting spell by the not-at-all DYNAMIC Georgia offense let the Irish back in the game. EXCITEMENT was rare, so rare that Kirby Smart calling a time out to prevent a touchdown had to PASS for THRILLING ACTION.

Both teams seemed reluctant to win, and that’s fine — even if watching Fromm throw another three-yard curl or waiting on Book to hit another dull route in the flat is enough to drive someone insane with boredom.

But if you’re going to dare the other team to do something, anything to win the game, all while doing very little to do that for yourself? Let us have horror movie effects to keep us amused. Or at least put real entertainment like Nebraska-Illinois on the jumbotron.

—Scott Satterfield continues to be pleased with his team’s effort, but is as annoyed as the rest of us by the mental mistakes.

—Dez Fitzpatrick and TuTu Atwell make Pro Football Focus’ second team All-ACC squad for week four.

—Chris Mack continues to push hard for his top target.

—The Athletic has a look at the FSU-Louisville game from the Seminoles’ perspective.

—Florida State’s offense snapped into place at exactly the right time on Saturday.

—The ACC Digital Network recaps week four in the conference.

—UCLA’s comeback win over Washington State Saturday night may have been the greatest college football comeback ever.

—Louisville has offered a scholarship to wide receiver Isaac Smith, a Wisconsin commit.

—Brendan McKay’s first Major League home run was an absolute moonshot.

Not to be outdone, Will Smith did this:

It could be very fun to watch both of these guys in the playoffs next month.

—Eric Crawford reacts to Louisville’s loss to Florida State and its state of mind going into its first bye week.

—Forget booing Santa Claus, this is the new greatest Philly sports fan moment of all-time.

—The Nolecast reacts (podcast) to FSU’s win over Louisville.

—Former Texas Tech hoops star Andre Emmett was shot and killed at the far-too-young age of 37 over the weekend.

—The range is still there.

According to those in attendance, McMahon didn’t miss a single one of his seven or eight shots from deep during the session.

—The CJ has some more reaction from Louisville basketball’s second day of open pickup.

2. Speaking of Williamson, his wing-on-wing matchup vs. Nwora was easily the most entertaining aspect of Saturday’s game. On defense, the freshman sometimes sagged too far behind the 3-point line and gave Nwora space to easily shoot over him. But Williamson was able to get a few stops by staying alert, including intercepting a pass from Perry and then throwing it off the backboard to Jaelyn Withers for a dunk. On offense, Williamson was the afternoon’s most consistent scorer. His athleticism and movement off the ball were spectacular, and he was able to free himself up for spot-up 3’s or slip inside to finish dart passes.

—Jaire Alexander continues to establish himself as one of the best cornerbacks in the NFL.

—A chunk of the cast of The Big Bang Theory is teaming up for a new TV show that will be set in Louisville.

—The paper of Note in Tallahassee says that FSU’s commitment and buy-in was on full display during their win over Louisville.

—WE BREATHIN’ THIS WEEK, FOLKS.

—The ACC’s full slate of game times for week six reveals that the ACC Network isn’t covering a game in the noon slot, but Louisville-Boston College (12:30 kick) is still getting the RSN treatment. I thought this was what the ACC Network was for, but apparently not.

Look forward to another “how to watch” post a week from Friday.

—And finally, Louisville is No. 69 in the updated S&P rankings. Nice.