Monday afternoon Cardinal news and notes

—Spread check: Notre Dame by 6.5.

—We will be doing a “where we’re watching” post for this Saturday’s game against Notre Dame. The post will go up on Friday, so if you’re outside of Louisville and watching the game in public with other Cards fans, shoot your locations to MikeRuth5@aol.com to be added to the post.

—Louisville is No. 31 in Chris Vannini’s ranking of all 133 FBS teams for Sports Illustrated.

—The week ahead in Cardinal sports:

Monday, October 2

Men’s Golf at Notre Dame Invitational
Women’s Golf at Windy City Collegiate Classic
#8 Men’s Soccer vs. Kansas City - 7 p.m. ET (Dr. Mark & Cindy Lynn Stadium)

Tuesday, October 3

Women’s Golf at Windy City Collegiate Classic

Wednesday, October 4

Men’s Tennis at ITA All-American Championships

Thursday, October 5

Men’s Tennis at ITA All-American Championships
Women’s Tennis at Martha Thorn Pink Invitational
Women’s Soccer vs. #2 Florida State (Dr. Mark & Cindy Lynn Stadium)

Friday, October 6

Men’s Tennis at ITA All-American Championships
Swim & Dive vs. Auburn - 5:30 p.m. ET (Ralph Wright Natatorium)
#5 Volleyball at North Carolina - 6 p.m. ET
#5 Field Hockey vs. Wake Forest - 6 p.m. ET (Trager Stadium)
#8 Men’s Soccer at Clemson - 7 p.m. ET
Swim & Dive at SMU - 7:30 p.m. ET

Saturday, October 7

Men’s Tennis at ITA All-American Championships
Swim & Dive vs. Auburn - 10 a.m. ET (Ralph Wright Natatorium)
Swim & Dive at SMU - 12 p.m. ET
#25 Football vs. #10 Notre Dame - 7:30 p.m. ET (L&N Federal Credit Union Stadium)

Sunday, October 8

Women’s Tennis at Martha Thorn Pink Invitational
#5 Field Hockey vs. Central Michigan - 12 p.m. ET (Trager Stadium)
#5 Volleyball at Duke - 1 p.m. ET
Women’s Soccer vs. Syracuse - 1 p.m. ET (Dr. Mark & Cindy Lynn Stadium)

—The fifth-ranked Louisville field hockey team shut out No. 7 Virginia on Friday.

—Sports Illustrated hands out college football superlatives for the month of September, and Jeff Brohm gets some “also considered” love for coach of the month.

—Louisville checks in at No. 4 and No. 1 in this video of the ACC’s five best plays of the weekend.

—The fifth-ranked Louisville volleyball team needs to rediscover its focus following a four-set loss at NC State on Sunday. The win marked the Wolfpack’s first ever over a top five opponent.

—Dimers simulated Louisville-Notre Dame 10,000 times and came away with an average score of the Fighting Irish winning by five.

—Louisville Report’s Matt McGavic shares some final thoughts on the win over NC State.

—Let’s go ahead and get that spread back up to 7 before Saturday.

—Louisville and Kentucky are both 200/1 shots to win the College Football Playoff, according to the latest odds from BetOnline.

—The U of L women’s soccer team dropped a 3-0 decision against Notre Dame on Saturday.

—The men’s soccer team also had a tough weekend, losing 3-0 at Virginia.

—Through a month, the Louisville defense is one of the 10 best tackling units in the country.

—Louisville is No. 4 in Andrea Adelson’s latest ACC power rankings.

—The U of L swim and dive squad had no issues with Xavier in its season-opener.

—The 502 Circle will be having a “flash giving” promotion during the Notre Dame game on Saturday.

—Presto Brown shares some thoughts on Scott Satterfield on the latest Cardinal Sports Zone podcast.

—Following the loss to Louisville, NC State is going with MJ Morris at quarterback over Brennan Armstrong.

—Jefftember was a success.

—Backing the Pack recaps NC State’s Friday loss to Louisville, which was doomed by a “putrid offense.”

—ESPN’s Bill Connelly recaps the big stories in college football after the season’s first month.

—Connelly’s S&P ratings like Notre Dame over Louisville by a touchdown on Saturday.

—Louisville’s postgame win expectancy against N.C. State was 91.1 percent. Translation: the numbers say the Cards should have won by a lot more than three.

—Is 48-17 as an NFL starter good?

—Duke QB Riley Leonard, who was hurt on the final play of his team’s loss to Notre Dame, is not out for the season as originally feared. He could be back for the Louisville game on Oct. 28.

—Friday night was one of redemption for Cam’Ron Kelly, who was burned late by NC State during his last trip to Carter-Finley Stadium.

—Cards supportin’ Cards.

—Rick Bozich shares his thoughts on Louisville’s 5-0 start.

—The U of L men’s soccer team is back home tonight to take on Kansas City. Here’s a preview.

—As always, these are great.

—The CJ takes an early look at the keys for the Notre Dame game.

—Notre Dame’s depth chart for the week is out.

— Joe Tessitore, Jordan Rodgers and Louisville’s own Katie George will be the ABC crew for Saturday night’s game.

—This could be one hell of an exciting second half of the season.

—With Notre Dame’s win over Duke, the Fighting Irish have now won 30 consecutive regular season games over ACC opponents.

—The Fighting Irish expect to have two important weapons back for this weekend’s game.

—One Foot Down, SB Nation’s Notre Dame site, recaps the win over Duke and looks ahead to Louisville ... and even farther ahead to USC.

3. Run the goddamn ball and use all the backs to do so. The ND offensive line has GOT to be better and they need to make a statement that they can physically dominate this Louisville defensive front. Run it early and often and for the love of God, find a way to get not only Estime enough carries but also plenty of touches for Love and Price. It’s a dynamic running back group and an offensive line that should be playing better — get it fixed and use it to crush these guys.

4. Feed the tight ends and get the ball to Chris Tyree more. Clearly the WR depth — which was already precarious — is in dire straits, and so it’s time for Parker to lean way more heavily on featuring Evans and Staes as much as possible, and then also using Chris Tyree’s speed and route running way more. Get him the ball in space, whether that means short passes underneath/on the outside, or sending him deep more than a couple times to stretch the defense and see if you can catch them sleeping. The passing attack needs to be better with Sam Hartman running the show, and that starts with Parker and who he’s looking for in his play-calling.

5. Finish drives, especially with touchdowns. It sucks I need to emphasize this, but the last two games have been full of offense drives that often get going early and then sputter. Parker needs to build some confidence in this offense before heading into a potential shootout next weekend, so they need to be way more efficient and productive from a scoring perspective each time they have the ball.

6. Stay as healthy as possible. USC is next week, and although you can’t get caught looking ahead or saving your best stuff for next week with a road night game against a dangerous Louisville team right now, the Trojans are the big one and the Irish will need to be as close to 100% as possible to beat them. Rest who you can, get out of this game in as easy and vanilla a way as possible, and move onward to the primetime matchup on October 14th.

—You can find a full replay of Friday night’s win over NC State here.

—Brock Travelstead came through for the Cards in a major way on Friday night.

—Manifesting this into a repeat performance on Saturday.

—Louisville Report looks at how former Cards in the NFL fared this weekend.

—I’m back on the ACC Network tonight at 6:30 to talk a little Louisville-Notre Dame.

—And finally, the Mike Rutherford Show is starting the week from 3-6 this afternoon on 1450/96.1 The Big X. You can streak the show here.