Wednesday afternoon Cardinal news and notes

—Noted college football genius Brett McMurphy has Louisville at No. 16 in his preseason AP poll ballot.

—Single game tickets for the upcoming U of L football season are now on sale.

—Jawhar Jordan has been named to the preseason watch list for the Doak Walker Award.

—Pretty high praise from Rocco here.

—Matt McGavic of Louisville Report is out with his game-by-game predictions for Louisville. He’s calling for an 8-4 season from the Cards where they go 6-2 in ACC play.

—SMU is open to playing in the ACC for five years while getting 0% of the league’s revenue share. Ross Dellenger has more notes on the options on the table for the league.

—Stewart Mandel’s latest mailbag for The Athletic includes this great exchange.

Why hasn’t the Big Ten added Cal and Stanford already? It seems like a no-brainer from both sides. The schools get a very cushy landing spot as their conference collapses around them, and the Big Ten gets to add two very highly regarded academic institutions with pretty good top-to-bottom athletic departments. — Nathan J., Whitefish Bay, Wis.

Since Stanford and Berkeley apparently are two of the four most unattractive athletic programs in the Pac-12, can we put to rest this curious notion that academics matter in the world of sports? — Mike C., Blaine, Mich.

Mike, thanks for answering Nathan’s question. But I’ll add a few thoughts...

—Perhaps the most noteworthy revelation from Netflix’s new Johnny Manziel documentary is that he didn’t watch any film in the NFL.

—Joe Lunardi has a new preseason Bracketology for ESPN. It does not mention Louisville.

—College basketball is coming to The Greenbrier.

—Really makes you think.

—The sports world has paid more attention to having more life-saving medical equipment available on the field lately, but the surge in demand has created a shortage that is keeping the equipment out of the hands of the schools and organizations that need it the most.

—Bryan Hudson is No. 3 on the ACC Digital Network’s list (video) of the five best returning offensive linemen in the conference.

—The ACCDN also has Jawhar Jordan as the league’s No. 3 returning running back.

—The college hoops almanac is back for another year.

—U of L baseball signee Zion Rose is the guest on the latest episode of the 3rd & Central podcast.

—Ohio State AD Gene Smith will retire in July 2024.

—Errors are down in Major League Baseball this year. Like, wayyy down.

—ESPN announced Tuesday an agreement with PENN Entertainment, which was formerly partnered with Barstool Sports, to launch ESPN BET, a branded sportsbook for fans in the United States.

—Tampa loves YaYa.

—Jeff Brohm’s active involvement with his defense has impressed his players on that side of the ball.

—Louisville has made the top 10 for 4-star class of 2025 edge rusher TJ May.

—The Louisville Bats dropped game one of a six-game series against St. Paul.

—Louisville Report has a good post of observations from Tuesday’s open practice.

-Competition has been extremely high throughout fall camp, and today it finally resulted in some on-field brouhahas. There were not one, not two, but three fights during the first hour of practice. The whole team had to run sideline-to-sideline after the second fight, then after the third one, two players had to be tossed for about half an hour, and Jeff Brohm cussed out the entire team. You could have heard a pin drop while Brohm was yelling. After practice, both Josh Minkins and Benjamin Perry both said it was “just football.”

-Okay, now back to the actual notes. During the one-on-ones, a lot of the wide receivers displayed good body control against pressure to make difficult catches. Thrash and Kevin Coleman Jr. made some of the more impressive catches of the period, as did some of the tight ends too.

-The offense didn’t waste anytime getting started during the 11-on-11 period. On the very first rep of the period, running back Maurice Turner exploded through a hole in the offensive line and took it to the house. In the next few minutes, walk-on wide receiver Jatavian Churchill had a really impressive jump ball sideline catch in triple coverage, then Jordan found a good angle on an outside zone run to get to the endzone as well. Later in the period, Jack Plummer connected with Jimmy Calloway on a beautiful deep post route.

-That’s not to say that the defense didn’t make some plays in the first 11-on-11. Linebacker Keith Brown had a tackle for loss on a blitz that looked like he was shot out of a cannon, and safety Devin Neal caught an interception. After a dominating start by the offensive line, the defensive line started gaining momentum and collapsing the pocket with more regularity later in the period.

-Someone who stood out the most during the segment was actually tight end Joey Gatewood. He’s had a mostly quiet fall camp, but had his best showing today. In this period, he had a nice catch in double coverage and scored a touchdown when the focus was shifted to the redzone. He even started building a repertoire with the quarterbacks in the second 11-on-11 period, catching a couple shallow passes over the middle.

—The CJ’s Alexis Cubit also highlighted Joey Gatewood as a standout.

—Wide receiver Chris Bell has also been an early camp standout.

—Barry’s Cheesesteaks will open a restaurant inside L&N Stadium for Louisville’s home football games.

—Dana is the best.

—A new golf simulator is opening up in Louisville.

—Former Trinity standout Stephen Herron is bringing a new mindset with him to Louisville after spending four seasons at Stanford.

—And finally, this afternoon’s Mike Rutherford Show will be severely delayed and potentially bumped entirely by this afternoon’s Louisville Bats game. Try not to riot.