Monday afternoon Cardinal news and notes

—Spread check: Louisville by 5.5.

—The Louisville field hockey team enjoyed arguably the best weekend in program history.

First, the Cards knocked off top-ranked and two-time defending national champion North Carolina 3-1 on Friday. The win snapped the Tar Heels’ 47-game winning streak. Next up was Boston College, whom U of L disposed of 2-1 on Sunday.

The Cards are now 3-0 in the ACC and 4-0 overall, and they have a legitimate claim to be the new No. 1 ranked team in America. You can check out highlights of the UNC upset here.

—Malik Cunningham has been practicing “without limitations.”

—Teddy Bridgewater tossing a touchdown pass to Reggie Bonnafon and then Lamar Jackson finding the endzone himself about five seconds later was a pretty cool thing to watch on Sunday.

Reggie also did some celebrating with another former Cardinal, John Miller.

—WRAL has Louisville at No. 9 in its latest ACC power rankings.

—Louisville still has a 250/1 shot to win the college football national championship, according to SportsBetting.ag. Kentucky, for what it’s worth, has the same odds.

—In a year where there’s been so little to smile about, at least we had early Saturday evening.

Also, I couldn’t resist.

—The U of L women’s soccer team moved to 3-1 on the season with a 2-0 win over Boston College Sunday afternoon. All-American Emina Ekic netted both goals for the Cards.

—The men’s soccer team also enjoyed a successful weekend, taking down Notre Dame 2-1 in its ACC opener.

—Each member of the CBS Sports college hoops staff gives their thoughts on the best way to handle the Louisville-Kentucky scheduling debate.

Play a best-of-five series

There’s been enough hand-wringing over this series to last a decade. Will they reschedule in 2020? Will the date be Dec. 26, as Coach Cal has indicated?

The real solution I propose as the czar of the bluegrass basketball scene comes in the form of a question: Why are we thinking so small?

Let’s lean into this beef and come up with not just one single rescheduled game, but rescheduled games. Let’s go with a full series of games over the span of two weeks to settle this once and for all. Give the people what they want.

Kentucky and Louisville proudly tout this as the best rivalry in college hoops. Even non-bluegrassers mostly agree. Setting up a best-of-five series would be a win for both programs to earn national exposure on multiple occasions, and it’d be a win for college hoops fans, too, who crave chaos. With John Calipari and Chris Mack at the center of it all, we’d be guaranteed at least some. Hold the games at a neutral site and let’s get this on the books. — Kyle Boone

—The AJC lists three ways Georgia Tech needs to improve heading into its game against Louisville.

—Grizzly Bear Blues has a draft profile of Jordan Nwora.

—Covers.com feels good about Louisville covering the spread and its point total on Friday night.

—It’s just nice to know that he’s doing well.

—Bud Elliott of 247 Sports breaks down every ACC game from week five.

—The 11th-ranked Cardinal volleyball team had little trouble with Boston College over the weekend.

—The Louisville men’s and women’s cross country teams each posted a fifth place finish in the 2020 Live in Lou Cross Country Classic Saturday at E.P. Tom Sawyer Park. Purity Sanga led the way for the women with a third-place finish while Shadrack Kipkosgei paced the men, finishing sixth.

—DeVante Parker continues to convert all non-believers.

—You can check out the ACC football individual award winners for week five here.

—The Louisville defense finally has some confidence after its solid performance against Pitt.

Still, it was an impressive showing that created an air of optimism that the defense can be a force the remainder of the season if it can develop some consistency.

Most impressive was that the Cards recorded 11 tackles for a loss, their most in three seasons, and three sacks while allowing 376 yards and 4.8 yards per play. Pitt’s longest rushing play was 21 yards, and Pickett completed only two of Pickett’s passes went for over 20 yards. While the Panthers’ yardage was substantial enough to produce more than 23 points, Louisville forced them into settling for three field goals in a bend but don’t break mode.

”We still don’t want to let them have 23 points on the boards,” safety Russ Yeast said. “But it’s a good starting point for what you should see from this defense. We’ve got to create more turnovers and just play more sound football. Limit our mistakes and get off the field on third down.”

Going into last weekend’s college football action, Louisville senior linebacker Dorian Etheridge leads the nation in tackles for a loss with 8.5 after getting 3.5 stops behind the line of scrimmage against Pitt. He also intercepted a pass, only the second of his career.

—As most people predicted, former U of L OL commit Zen Michalski has now committed to Ohio State.

—The Cardinal Sports Zone podcast gets ready for Georgia Tech.

—Safe to say Kyle Kuric’s teammates were happy to see him back at practice after his latest health scare.

—Louisville has made the top 10 for class of 2022 power forward De’Ante Green.

—ACC football kickoff times/TV assignments for the weekend of Oct. 17:

Saturday, Oct. 17
Clemson at Georgia Tech, Noon, ABC or ACC Network – network designation after the games of Oct. 10
Pitt at Miami, Noon, ABC or ACC Network – network designation after the games of Oct. 10
Liberty at Syracuse, Noon, RSN
Louisville at Notre Dame, 2:30 p.m., NBC (previously announced)
Duke at NC State, 3:30 p.m., RSN
Virginia at Wake Forest, 4 p.m., ACC Network
North Carolina at Florida State, 7 p.m., ESPN
Boston College at Virginia Tech, 8 p.m., ACC Network

—Louisville City FC is ready for the USL playoffs after ending the regular season by going 11 straight matches without a loss.

—I’m all here for the Henry Davis hype.

—Cardinal Authority has an offseason Q&A with Louisville baseball coach Dan McDonnell.

—With no high school football being played in North Carolina this year, Cardinal commit Bralyn Oliver is eagerly anticipating being able to enroll early at U of L.

—And finally, Friday night’s high school football game between Shawnee and Jackson County was easily the best local sports story of the weekend.