Monday afternoon Cardinal news and notes

—Spread check (First Responder Bowl): Louisville by 1.5.

—Russ Smith revealed on Twitter that he will be having his jersey retired during a ceremony later this month.

—Louisville Report previews tomorrow’s First Responder Bowl.

—It’s indescribably beautiful.

—The Fenway Bowl between Virginia and SMU has been canceled after the Cavaliers were forced to pull out because of a Covid outbreak.

—The Military Bowl (Boston College vs. East Carolina) has also been canceled, and the Sun Bowl is on life support after Miami was forced to pull out. At this point, Louisville might be one of like three ACC teams that actually gets to play a bowl game.

—Things aren’t any better on the hardwood, where pretty much the whole damn ACC is on pause at the moment.

The Atlantic Coast Conference announced today that the following men’s basketball games for Wednesday, Dec. 29 have been postponed:

Duke at Clemson
Florida State at Boston College
Virginia Tech at North Carolina

Boston College, Duke and Virginia Tech are adhering to the outlined COVID protocols within the ACC Medical Advisory Group report, which is available on theACC.com (full report).

Following the ACC’s modified 2021-22 COVID-19 Game Rescheduling Policy, the ACC will look to reschedule the games.

—We are now at more than 50 college basketball programs that are currently on a Covid pause. January is going to get wrecked because, unlike a year ago, the 2021-22 schedule was not built to be Covid-flexible.

—Joe Lunardi’s latest Bracketology for ESPN has Louisville as the 8th team out of the field of 68.

—A lot of people are asking how much longer Louisville can carry this conference.

Tomorrow, let’s be responsible for the ACC’s two most recent bowl victories.

—Richmond.com’s Mike Barber looks back on a memorable year in the ACC.

—The CJ’s Cam Teague writes that Malik Cunningham has a chance to build his legacy even further on Tuesday.

—If you have a friend or a group of friends who would like to play the Knights, please contact Scotty D.

—The public is all over Air Force when it comes to First Responder Bowl betting.

—Cardinal Authority previews the Cards vs. the Falcons.

—”Not finishing on a low note” is the goal for Louisville in the First Responder Bowl.

Louisville coach Scott Satterfield has been selling his players on the importance of writing a new ending to their season, on putting more distance between his program and the events of Nov. 27. And he said his team has prepared for this bowl as if that is its intention.

“Not finishing on that low note,” Satterfield said, when asked about some of the positives of a bowl opportunity. “I mean, we got to finish on a high note. There’s no question about it that we’re not out here just to go through the motions. Our guys have come out like they have a purpose. . . . They’ve been focused, they’ve come out, they’ve gone to work.”

Satterfield said he didn’t see the blowout loss to UK coming. Looking at Kentucky and how it had played over the course of the season, and looking at his own team, he figured the game would be competitive. He saw a Kentucky team that had won some close games, and he knew his team had been close to victories against some good opponents.

What happened, however, was disastrous.

“You have to come back from that,” he said. “You know, we picked a bad day to have a bad day. That’s not the day you want to have a bad day. I really had no idea — I thought it’d be a very competitive game, we’d be, you know, neck and neck all the way to the end of that game. And it didn’t happen. They played a great game, we played a terrible game, and that’s what happened. So we’ve got to continue to get better. As you go through the season, we were very competitive in every conference game, you’re right there, you’re close, you won some but you’re close in the others. And then you also go back and look at Kentucky play, what was there? See, they had a lot of close games as well. So, I was like, ‘Man, this is going to be one of these games, it’ll come down to it.’ We scored, we tied it up, you think, ‘OK here we go,’ and all of a sudden, they just got on a roll, and we never got any kind of momentum back. We just lost it. But we’ve got to bounce back. That’s why I was encouraged when we came back to practice, the guys were energetic. There was a lot of negativity that’s been floating around the last little bit, and it’s easy to get caught up into that if you start listening to it. We don’t have time to do that. As coaches, as players, we don’t have time, we’ve got a job to do. We’ve got to come back and get better and continue to try to improve.”

—State of Louisville looks at the keys to a Cardinal victory in Dallas.

—Louisville Report takes a closer look at new U of L football commit Adonijah Green.

—Might get a tattoo of this exchange.

—Louisville is No. 2 in the latest women’s basketball power rankings from ESPN.

—The latest From the Pink Seats podcast previews the First Responder Bowl.

—The CC Person of the Year nomination process has started.

—Cards by 72.

—Cardinal Authority has a First Responder Bowl notebook.

—Some points of emphasis for tomorrow’s game.

—At least there’s no confusion amongst the Cardinal defense about what to expect from the Air Force offense Tuesday afternoon.

—It’s been 18 years since Otis George and the boys took down No. 1 Kentucky inside Rupp.

—U of L DB Qwynterrio Cole will play in the East-West Shrine Bowl.

—Athlon likes Louisville over Air Force by a field goal.

—Nine of The Athletic’s 12 college football writers also like the Cards to win the First Responder Bowl.

—The Mike Rutherford Show is back this afternoon from 3-6 on 1450 The Big X. You can stream it here.

—And finally, beat Air Force.