Tuesday afternoon Cardinal news and notes

—Spread check: Virginia Tech by 3.5.

—Rick Bozich writes that with its losing streak over and the toughest part of its schedule in the rearview, Louisville football now has a shot to win out.

—GoCards.com highlights the major takeaways from Scott Satterfield’s Monday press conference.

—It’s nice to have victory highlight videos back in our lives.

—Virginia Tech took a disappointing loss to Wake Forest last weekend, but the Hokies have been good at bouncing back under Justin Fuentes.

—A recap of how Louisville players in the NFL fared in week seven.

—Two full weeks of practice and two gold jerseys for Carlik Jones.

—Friend/foe of the site Jeff Greer will be hosting a Louisville basketball-centric podcast on a new network created by college hoops writers Jeff Goodman and Rob Dauster. Sure, he’s going to have guests like Chris Mack on regularly, but will the audio quality sound like something recorded inside a public restroom on the moon? Nope. Still only one place to go for that.

You can subscribe to “Floyd Street’s Finest” here.

—As most expected, former Louisville commit Bryce Hopkins switched his allegiance to the dark side on Monday.

—Hopkins’ father says (Athletic link) that while the whole family liked Louisville, it was the looming NCAA punishment that ultimately led his son to Lexington.

Clyde Hopkins had no idea the Kentucky-Louisville rivalry was so intense before his son, Bryce, a 6-foot-7 small forward and top-30 recruit nationally, committed first to one of the programs, then the other. But now the Chicago native understands it quite well. The first inkling came months ago, when the family arrived on the Louisville campus for a visit and stepped out of their car with Clyde sporting a New York Giants T-shirt and his wife wearing a royal-blue blouse covered in shiny blue rhinestones.

“Oh, my God, I’ll never forget it. They were so upset,” Clyde recalled on Monday. “I thought they were joking, but one of the assistant coaches said, ‘You can’t be here with that on. This is Louisville! No blue in here.’ They meant it. They said they’d have to go get us some red to wear. I really didn’t know it was that serious.”

The Hopkins family should probably avoid Bryce’s social media mentions, then, after he pledged a new allegiance to Kentucky on Monday night. He had backed out of his commitment to Louisville this summer over concerns about potential NCAA sanctions from the scandal-filled Rick Pitino era. John Calipari, who always loved to agitate Pitino and now seems equally pleased to poke successor Chris Mack, was the first coach to reach out and offer a new landing spot.

“Bryce just didn’t feel comfortable signing a letter of intent in November not knowing what the outcome of those allegations was going to be,” Clyde Hopkins said. “It was tough, but I think any parent would’ve done it. It’s unfair to the athlete to be penalized for something he didn’t do. I know it wasn’t Coach Mack and his staff, so it’s sad, because we really did like Louisville. But Kentucky has always been a dream school of his, and it was like a dream come true when he decommitted and Cal called to make that offer.”

—Jeff Walz’s 2020-21 Cardinals might be the deepest squad he’s coaches at Louisville.

—Trevor Lawrence is now hinting that he might return to Clemson for his senior season instead of entering the 2021 NFL draft. You’ve gotta think that wanting to right the wrongs of the last two seasons against Louisville is the driving force behind this potential move.

—Pervis Ellison funneling players to Kentucky isn’t cool.

—There’s never been a better time for a Card Chronicle Bird Mask out.

Bring the murderbirds back and we’ll call it even.

—College GameDay coming to Augusta National might be a top five weird sports story of 2020, which is a tough list to crack.

—The college hoops crew over at CBS has unveiled its preseason All-American teams.

—Saved by the Bell and college basketball returning on the same day is too much for me to handle.

—After stepping into the role of head coach and leading Purdue to a season-opening win over Iowa, Brian Brohm has been named National Coordinator of the Week.

—Baseball America looks at five key questions for Louisville to answer heading into 2021.

—The Virginia Tech defense is spending this week preparing itself for a suddenly “explosive” looking Cardinal offense.

—An important lesson in perseverance.

—For its first season as a D-I member, Bellarmine men’s basketball games will be carried live on the radio by 93.9 The Ville. Women’s games will be on 1450 AM and 96.1 FM.

—Matt Brown offers up a humble defense of the AP top 25 poll.

—The University of Louisville secured nearly $170 million to support groundbreaking research in 2019-20, the university’s most successful year ever for competitively-funded research.

—This is good. Let’s keep doing this.

—Racing Louisville FC’s first two signings include the 2018 Rookie of the Year runner-up and a former World Cup winner.

—Louisville field hockey’s Mercedes Pastor was named the ACC Offensive Player of the Week, while Alli Bitting was tabbed the league’s Defensive Player of the Week for the period ending October 25.

—Louisville is trending for three-star defensive end Caleb Banks from Michigan. Banks was previously committed to Arizona State.

—And finally, congrats to U of L outside hitter Anna Debeer, who has been tabbed as the ACC Freshman of the Week for volleyball.