Thursday afternoon Cardinal news and notes

—Spread check (bowl game): Air Force by 1.5.

—U of L defensive coordinator Bryan Brown talked with the media after practice on Wednesday. Here’s a transcript of what he had to say.

—Lamar Jackson is headed back to the Pro Bowl.

—Louisville offensive guard Caleb Chandler has been named a first team All-American by Pro Football Focus.

LG CALEB CHANDLER, LOUISVILLE

Chandler played near-flawless football in the second half of the season to catapult him to this first-team All-America spot. From Week 6 on, he earned pass-blocking and run-blocking grades north of 90.0, which is something no other Power Five guard accomplished. Overall, he earned an 85.2 PFF grade.

—Despite a lack of depth in a couple of areas, Louisville is still heading to Dallas with confidence.

—”The Alliance,” which is still a real thing that exists, has completed an initial series of student-athlete focused initiatives.

—Louisville setter and First Team All-American Tori Dilfer has been named as a finalist for the Honda Award for Volleyball.

—Jordan Nwora did a bad, bad thing last night.

—Kentucky destroyed Western Kentucky by 35 last night. We still would have won by 15.

—Boston College star wide receiver Zay Flowers is returning to school for another year.

—Louisville CB Greedy Vance announced on Wednesday that he was entering the transfer portal. A likely starter next season who got progressively better as the 2021 campaign wore on, Vance’s departure seemed to take everyone by surprise.

U of L defensive coordinator Bryan Brown told the media on Wednesday that Vance wanted to stay at Louisville, but a family situation was forcing him to leave and transfer somewhere closer to home.

“Greedy has been coming along all year long,” Brown told the media following the team’s Wednesday afternoon practice. “I love that kid to death. He’s a great football player, he’s going to be a pretty good football player. He has been practicing, but Greedy just has some family issues, some personal things back at home. He wanted to try to get closer to home. He’s from New Orleans and he’s from a nice-sized family, where he’s used to those guys being around a lot. We’re you’re an 18-19 year-old kid, that can get to you sometimes. We had multiple conversations and I didn’t want him to leave, he doesn’t really want to leave, but there just certain circumstances back at home that he wants to get a little bit closer to home.”

—Malik Cunningham is excited about both the upcoming bowl game and the remainder of his college career at Louisville.

—The latest episode of the From the Pink Seats podcast is here.

—The CJ looks at the post-Christmas schedules for area high school basketball teams.

—Jeff Greer covers a ton of territory in his latest U of L hoops newsletter.

Let’s start here: Yes, I do think the IARP ruling on NC State is a good sign for Louisville. The panel emphasized punishments for NC State that didn’t hurt current players, doling out scholarship reductions, recruiting restrictions, vacation of records (lol), show cause orders for two former coaches and fines. Importantly missing from that list: postseason bans.

Louisville’s case is different from the others because the program was on probation when the alleged wrongdoing occurred in the FBI case. But U of L fired all parties involved, and, unlike NC State, none of players implicated in the impropriety ever played a second for Louisville. That’s in addition to shaky evidence and testimony that cash for players was ever actually exchanged by Louisville staff members. The more recently alleged violations stemming from the Dino Gaudio extortion attempt were also dampened by the NCAA’s efforts to actually allow the very things Mack was accused of illegally doing — permitting GAs on the floor in practice and making personalized videos for recruits. I have a hard time imagining the IARP agreeing with those Level 2 violations, or the coach responsibility charges, in this case.

I don’t have to lay out all the different elements of this case — against their wishes, Louisville fans know the ins and outs of this infractions case. The situation is so complicated that forecasting specific punishments from an IARP that just issued its very first ruling is difficult. That said, there has been a noticeable movement away from postseason bans and other punishments that hurt uninvolved parties by the NCAA and now the IARP, and that is a very good thing for Louisville.

—The Dallas Mavericks have signed Carlik Jones to a 10-day hardship contract.

—As far as the possible rescheduling of the Louisville-Kentucky game goes, there aren’t a whole lot of options for the Cards.

—Send this man some Christmas cards.

—And finally, the last pre-Christmas installment of the Mike Rutherford Show is rolling from 3-5 today on 1450 The Big X. You can stream it here.