Wednesday afternoon Cardinal news and notes

—GoCards.com recaps Louisville football’s National Signing Day.

—As always, Keith Wynne was on top of all the Signing Day action from before the sun came up until the last NLI was signed. You can read his profiles of all 21 Cardinal signees here.

—The CJ’s Cam Teague hands out superlatives for Louisville’s 2021 football recruiting class.

—This pre-signing day video was awesome.

—USA Today’s annual coaching salary database reveals that Dwayne Ledford and Bryan Brown are the 59th and 60th, respectively, highest-paid assistants in college football.

—Four of MLB.com’s top 100 draft prospects are Louisville Cardinals. Alex Binelas is the highest-ranked at No. 9.

—Virginia Tech has announced that it will not accept a bowl invite if one is extended. The Hokies join Boston College, Georgia Tech, Pittsburgh and Virginia as ACC programs that have opted out of the 2020-21 postseason.

—Donovan Mitchell kicked off his fourth season in the NBA by repping the Cards.

—Virginia Tech sophomore offensive lineman Bryan Hudson is in the transfer portal and is a name Louisville fans should keep an eye on. Hudson played his high school ball at Scott County.

—Cardinal DB Telly Plummer is transferring to Chattanooga.

—Lamar Jackson now has four of ESPN’s eight highest QBR scores ever (data starts in 2006).

—There is also this:

—For the seventh time in his short career, Lamar Jackson has been named the AFC’s Offensive Player of the Week.

—For the first time in more than three decades, the Supreme Court will hear a case involving the NCAA and what it means to be a college athlete. The NCAA released this statement on the matter.

—It’s 2020, Bobby. Find someone who has a basic handle on Photoshop.

—Louisville men’s basketball’s national title odds have somehow gone up from 40/1 to 50/1 on BetOnline. Gonzaga is the betting favorite at 9/2.

—A century after the Negro Leagues were formed, MLB is finally recognizing them as major leagues and counting their records in its statistics.

—Scotty Davenport is the guest on the latest episode of Jeff Greer’s Floyd Street’s Finest podcast.

—Steven Enoch is making moves overseas.

—The Louisville Diving team kicked off the season with a virtual international diving competition comprising of countries all across the world. The Cards were the only American team involved in the event.

—This weekend’s highly anticipated showdown between Virginia and Villanova has been called off.

—The College Football Playoff rankings are always complete dogshit, but last night’s helping was even more indefensible (Athletic link) than usual.

There are 13 people on the College Football Playoff selection committee, and each week their chairman tells a national television audience how much football they’ve been watching.

This is one of the most important responsibilities of the chairman, reminding everyone else who watches a lot of football that he, too, watches a lot of football. Establishing an aura of football acumen is critical here because the chairman will inevitably say a lot of things in an effort to justify ranking one team over another and both ahead of a third, and none of those things he says will make any sense.

For example, during Tuesday’s rankings release show, current CFP selection committee chairman Gary Barta tried to explain why Florida, 8-2 and fresh off a 37-34 loss to an unranked LSU team with a depleted roster, was ranked No. 7 in the country. It was just one spot lower than the Gators were last week, before they lost by three to an unranked team that has had a good portion of its team opt out. It’s also two spots ahead of 8-0 Cincinnati, five spots ahead of 11-0 Coastal Carolina and six spots ahead of 5-0 USC.

Barta also had to try to justify two-loss Big 12 leader Iowa State checking in at No. 6, 13 spots ahead of Louisiana, which beat the Cyclones by 17 in September. He’s been having to try to justify this for weeks, by the way, because there has been clear separation between the two in every set of rankings the committee has put out, with the loser of the head-to-head matchup placed well ahead of the winner for … reasons.

So what’s the point of playing the games at all? On Tuesday night’s media teleconference, I posed this question to Barta, who has to answer questions like this on behalf of 13 people with 13 different opinions and present the committee’s reasoning as unanimous. Which isn’t easy.

—It was a drama-less signing day for Louisville, which was nice.

—The CJ keeps tabs on the area high school football players who signed national letters of intent today.

—Last night in the ACC:

No. 15 Florida State 74, Georgia Tech 61
Virginia Tech 66, No. 24 Clemson 60

—Today/Tonight in the ACC:

Syracuse vs. Northeastern (3 p.m./ACC Network)
Miami vs. Pitt (6 p.m./ACC Network)
Notre Dame vs. No. 21 Duke (9 p.m./ESPN)

Both Louisville-NC State and Virginia-Wake Forest were scheduled to be played tonight but were postponed.

—Three days before the event happens, the CBS Sports Classic announced that the opponents for its annual double-header are being switched. Ohio State will now play UCLA and North Carolina will now play Kentucky.

That is ... certainly something.

—Best news of the last 24 hours here:

—Chris Mack will talk with the media and preview this weekend’s Wisconsin game on Thursday at 1:50.

—And finally, reports came out last night that former McDonald’s All-American Nyah Green has entered the NCAA transfer portal. With the Cardinal backcourt being so crowded and talented at the moment, it’s hard to blame her. Best of luck to Nyah wherever she lands.