Thursday afternoon Cardinal news and notes

—Spread check: NC State by 17.5.

—After a successful signing day, the CJ’s Brooks Holton looks at what’s next for Jeff Brohm.

—Could Cal transfer QB Jack Plummer be part of what’s next? There’s certainly plenty of buzz.

—RIP to former Male High and Louisville hoops standout Bobby Turner, who died recently of a heart attack.

I loved hearing his story a few years back of how Denny Crum had Muhammad Ali call him and Darrell Griffith to convince them to sign with U of L.

“I tell you what when we were seniors in high school when we got that call from the Greatest of All of Time, Muhammad Ali, for us to go to Louisville,” Turner says. “So look, he calls me, I hang up, cause I thought somebody was playing, so he calls right back. He says “Son, don’t hang up.” He said, he got the rhyme, he said, “you’re talking to the Greatest of All-Time.” I said, Champ I’m sorry, I didn’t know it was you. He said, “look, since you hung up on me, you gotta do me a favor and stay home and go to the University of Louisville, cause you know I’m a big fan.” He said and plus, “I would love to see you guys stay home, cause you know I go to the games and everything,” which, that meant a lot, for a 17 year-old kid, getting a call from Muhammad Ali. You know I went to school the next day, I said, Griff, did you get your call, and he started smiling, I said, Muhammad Ali call you, he said, “yeah he called me too man.” I said, Coach Crum must have had him give us a call and that call went a long way with us.”

Turner was Louisville’s second-leading scorer behind Griffith during the 1978-79 season, the year before the Cards captured their first national title.

—Highlights from last night’s women’s basketball victory at DePaul are here.

—Louisville is No. 6 in the preseason poll from Collegiate Baseball, which was released earlier this week.

—Love to keep coaches here who love The Ville.

—The NCAA has approved a blanket waiver in FBS and FCS football to “increase the institutional limits on official visits by 14 (e.g., 56 to 70) during the period of April 1, 2022 through March 31, 2023.”

—Former Louisville defensive tackler Jarrett Jackson is transferring from Florida State to Michigan State.

—Here’s the GoCards.com preview of tonight’s game at NC State.

—The Jeremy Reaves portion of this video, a player who has been a final roster cut in each of the last four seasons and who lost his mother on Thanksgiving of last year, is just awesome.

—St. X product Micah Carter realized his dream yesterday when he signed with Louisville.

—Matt McGavic is taking NC State over Louisville by 26 tonight.

—Regression is the focus of Jeff Greer’s latest U of L hoops newsletter.

Now, I have a few problems with this approach to press conferences and interviews. The first problem: It doesn’t come across that the coaching staff realizes that maybe its messaging isn’t working. If the staff realized that and acknowledged it, then I wouldn’t have the second problem, which is with the lack of accountability and responsibility taken by the coaches in charge of Louisville’s 2-10 squad. We don’t hear that enough or, really, at all.

The following are all Kenny Payne quotes from the postgame press conference or the postgame radio interview after Louisville’s loss on Tuesday to Lipscomb, which was the Cardinals’ fourth defeat to a team ranked worse than 175th in Ken Pomeroy’s efficiency ratings:

“I can tell you that we think our practices are tough. I wish I could say that we could practice an hour and 45 minutes, but most days we are going for three hours. I am not leaving that gym until I feel like we have addressed some of our issues as a team. I hate it that way. I don’t want to coach that way, but we have to address the elephant within our team — turnovers. We have to address it. Rebounding. We have to address it. Passing the ball. We have to address it. Continuity on offense and spacing. We have to address it. Toughness and conditioning and playing basketball when we are tired. We have to address it.”

“We talked about (ball pressure) for three days.”

“We worked for two or three days on back cuts. We gave up at least 10-12 points on back cuts.”

You hear all that and you have to wonder: If you spend that much time talking about and working on these issues, and the results continue to be what they are, at what point do you question the quality of the film review, the scouting report, the walk-through and the practice? Yes, we can blame players, too. Everyone is. But I still don’t hear a whole lot about that disconnection between what the coaches believe they are coaching — and what the players on the floor are actually doing.

I’m trying to be reasonable in my criticism, and I know this all feels like we are just spinning in circles every week. As many of you know, I am typically a forgiving observer who tries to avoid jumping to conclusions, especially 12 games into a coach’s tenure. But again, the lack of responsibility taken by the coaching staff is just really problematic for me. Every postgame press conference is the same collection of comments blaming players for the struggles. But I’ve seen very little to suggest a whole new roster will just fix everything. Have you?

—Jeff Brohm is “fired up” to work with new QB signee Pierce Clarkson.

—Luke Burgess already gets the rivalry.

—I still can’t get over this Francis Sherman scoreboard point.

—Backing the Pack previews tonight’s game featuring a Louisville team bringing a “truckload of problems” with it to Raleigh.

—NC State’s Rivals site says it’s wild to see a top 10 program in the history of the sport having a season like this.

—The Athletic highlights the start of Louisville’s 2022-23 season as one of the worst sports performances of the year.

—Uncle Luke: Football guy.

—Cal got its first win of the season last night and it came by 22 over a UT-Arlington team that was coming off of a road win over San Francisco ... which beat No. 25 Arizona State by 37 last night.

—ACC hoops last night:

Boston College 70, No. 21 Virginia Tech 65 (OT)
North Carolina 80, Michigan 76
Clemson 79, Georgia Tech 66
Florida State 73, Notre Dame 72

—The CJ announces its First Team All-State offense for the 2022 high school football season, which features Louisville RB recruit Cortez Stone.

—And finally, beat NC State.