Louisville AD Josh Heird: Getting 2013 banner back up is on “to-do list”

With Louisville’s most recent NCAA saga now officially closed, Cardinal fans have quickly changed their focus to next most-pressing off-the-court issue facing the program: When can the 2013 national championship banner go back up in the KFC Yum Center rafters.

During his post-exoneration press conference, former head coach Rick Pitino stated that the banner would have never come down in the first place if that investigation by the NCAA had been handled the same way as the most recent was by the IARP.

“You cannot take championships away,” Pitino said. “We won the 2013 championship. My players should be commended. They are champions. ... If the IARP was involved in looking at that case, that banner would still be hanging today.”

Pitino went on to state his belief that the banner will be back up at some point in the near future.

The question also came up during U of L athletic director Josh Heird’s time in front of the media on Thursday morning.

“This is something checked off the to-do list,” Heird said of Louisville receiving its punishment from the IARP. “There are other things on the to-do list. I’m not going to make any promises ... but if there’s an opportunity for us to do something along those lines, we’re going to do it.”

Whenever Louisville does get the go-ahead to put the banner back up — whether it’s from the NCAA dissolving, realizing that vacating records is an absurd punishment, or something else — I think we need to be as obnoxious as humanly possible.

For the first year, that 2013 banner needs to be 10 times as big as every other banner in the building. The floor? Needs to be a gigantic 2013 national championship banner. The uniforms for that season? You guessed it, 2013 national championship banners where every player’s number is 20 or 13.

Not possible, you say? We’ll get Neal katayl back on it. It’ll be fine.