Friday afternoon Cardinal news and notes

—Spread check: Louisville by 14.

—BC Interruption’s official prediction for Saturday is a touchdown victory for Louisville, but their poll responders are calling for the Eagle upset.

—Here’s the official U of L preview of tomorrow afternoon’s game against Boston College.

—Saturday Blitz makes three bold predictions for Louisville-BC.

—What a layup for Tom Drexler.

—Tyler Fitzgerald’s first Major League hit was a double.

—State of Louisville says that the small details matter if this Cardinal football team wants to stay perfect.

—Boston College’s 247 site has a good look at the keys to the game for the Eagles.

Keep Finding Explosives on Offense

Since Thomas Castellanos took over at quarterback, Boston College has consistently created explosive plays on offense, specifically in the passing game. Castellanos has hit big deep passes, and his receivers have created plenty of yards after the catch. He’s also been able to create chunk runs as a scrambler and on designed runs. The problem is that explosive plays are rarely consistent over the course of a season. Furthermore, BC’s offense might be too reliant on explosive plays. Think about how many times Castellanos converted 3rd & very long situations against Florida State; it’s unlikely he’ll be able to keep doing that.

With that in mind, Louisville’s defense has struggled to prevent explosive plays, as evidenced by the disparity between their defensive passing success rate (34.1%, 39th) and their EPA allowed per pass (0.002, 107th). The Cardinals’ defense can get stops, but when they break, they break big. Georgia Tech was able to build an early lead thanks to explosive passing plays, and Indiana nearly came back thanks to their passing game. Louisville has a lot of talent on the back end of their defense, but they are almost all transfers, so they’re clearly still getting used to playing together. If BC can take advantage of those miscommunications for big plays, they have a good chance of winning this game.

—Saturday will be Boston College’s first road game of the season.

—ESPN Louisville is giving you the chance to win a round trip flight and tickets to next Friday’s game at NC State.

—Lou Holtz still has it.

—The U of L women’s soccer team scored a big 3-2 win over Pitt Thursday night. The Panthers came into the evening with an 8-1 record.

—Former Louisville hoops recruit Kon Knueppel has committed to Duke.

—USA Today’s college football staff makes their predictions for the biggest weekend of the season so far.

—Red lights ... stop signs ...

—The 10th-ranked Louisville men’s soccer team will host NC State Sunday night. Here’s a preview.

—Great story here (Athletic link) on my old colleague Rodger Sherman, who recently quit all his jobs to go on a four-month road trip to see as many college football games as he could in person. He was at Louisville-Murray State two Thursdays ago.

—The latest episode of the From the Pink Seats podcast is here.

—Very excited to watch Bobby in October.

—The Courier Journal’s game day guide for Saturday is here.

—Matt McGavic goes behind enemy lines with Boston College’s A.J. Black.

—On3 ranks Jamari Thrash as the fourth-best transfer in college football so far this season.

—A Louisville-Kentucky hoops game tipping off at 9:30 is wild.

Don’t get T’d up, Cliff.

—Jody Demling and Michael McCammon are both picking the Cards over BC.

—And finally, beat BC.