Wednesday afternoon Cardinal news and notes

—Spread check (football): Louisville by 1.5.

—The second-ranked Louisville women’s basketball team opens ACC play tonight at 7 at Duke on Fox Sports South. Here’s a preview.

—The Blue Devils are off to an extremely hot start under first year head coach Kara Lawson.

I’m going to make a bold prediction that this streak comes to an end in a few hours.

—Louisville’s men’s basketball game against NC State a week from tonight was already in jeopardy because of U of L’s Covid issues, but now the Wolfpack have paused all team activities because of positive tests within their own program. We may not see the Cards in action again until after Christmas.

—Last night, Kansas State lost by 13 to a Division-II team that entered the evening 0-3 against other Division-II opponents. Here are eight things you need to know about the Wildcat embarrassment.

—The Cards will be sporting all red on Saturday to celebrate Senior Day.

—SHOCKINGLY, the Big Ten is changing the arbitrary rules it created two months ago to make sure that Ohio State can play in its conference championship game.

—The Cincinnati Reds have invited the Louisville Bats to remain their Triple-A affiliate.

—Louisville’s program is in disarray and Wake Forest’s head coach just gave the least confident game week quote in college football history.

Could be one for the ages on Saturday.

—The Big Ten dominated the first night of the ACC-Big 10 Challenge, claiming a 6-1 lead that’s going to be impossible for the ACC to overcome since three of Wednesday’s scheduled games (including our’s) have been canceled or postponed.

Here are the games that are going to be played tonight:

Maryland at Clemson | ESPN2 | 5 PM
Indiana at #20/21 Florida State | ESPN | 7:15 PM
Georgia Tech at Nebraska | ESPN2 | 7:15 PM
Pitt at Northwestern | ESPN2 | 9:15 PM

The most notable cancelation for tonight was the “Battle of the Hauser Brothers” game between Virginia and Michigan State, which was set to be the night two headliner.

—If you missed it yesterday, the most recent episode of the CC Podcast is here.

—Love this move by WKU.

—Purdue and Indiana have mutually agreed to cancel Saturday’s game in Bloomington because of rising Covid numbers in both programs. This will be the first time since 1919 that the rivalry game hasn’t been played.

—Lamar Jackson was back to looking like himself last night in a blowout win over the Cowboys.

—Read the room (or the world), Scott. Some pretty big things have changed over the last year.

—Chris Mack has offered class of 2022 small forward Ty Rodgers out of Michigan. Rodgers is ranked as the No. 50 player in the class by 247 Sports.

—Former Louisville basketball walk-on Tyler Sharpe is the guest on the latest episode of the Nobody’s Safe podcast.

—What happens if he gets tossed?

Here’s some additional info (Athletic link) on how Chicago State found itself in this unique position.

—U of L has offered class of 2022 LB Micah Pollard out of Jacksonville.

—Another Florida LB, Adarius Hayes, has also been offered by U of L.

—Bellarmine’s Nick Thelen has been a Duke fan his whole life. Last week, he led the Knights in scoring at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

—Gary Barnidge is still alive in his quest to be champion of “The Amazing Race.”

—Katie George is the guest on the latest episode of the WDRB Sports Pod.

—Coach K said Tuesday night (after his team’s ass kicking at the hands of Illinois) that we probably shouldn’t be playing college basketball right now. Mike DeCourcy of The Sporting News disagrees.

—By the way that 15-point loss to Illinois matched a 15-point loss to Louisville in 1983 for the most lopsided home loss for the Blue Devils against a non-ACC opponent in the Coach K era.

—The NCAA is reportedly looking at San Antonio as the host site for this year’s women’s NCAA basketball tournament.

—Big Red Louie takes an early look at Louisville basketball’s class of 2022 recruiting targets.

—Malik Cunningham’s mom is understandably excited about her son receiving his U of L degree.

—A look at how Cards in the NFL fared in week 13.

—Blogger So Dear previews the Cardinal offense.

—Here’s what Dwayne Ledford and Dez Fitzpatrick had to say to the media following Tuesday’s practice.

—Without question, one of my favorite U of L games from the ‘90s.

—Louisville QB commit T.J. Lewis was named Georgia’s Class 6-A, Region 2 Player of the Year.

—And finally, TuTu Atwell spoke with the Courier Journal on Tuesday about his decision to forego the rest of his college eligibility and enter the NFL draft.