First, please pause for a brief moment of silence before reading the rest of this entry in honor of Oral Roberts, who died yesterday at the age of 91. 

MOMENT OF SILENCE

Thank you.  Now, on to a preview of a must-win mid-December game against Oral Roberts, who just lost to Indiana State.  

Basketball Prospectus has a must-read-and-weep piece about how this year's team may not be able to turn this around like the last couple of years:

If you’re Pitino the biggest red-flag to arise even in murky December might be this: Louisville’s opponents so far this season (Arkansas, East Tennessee State, Morgan State, Appalachian State, UNLV, Stetson, Charlotte, Western Carolina) are shooting better from the floor than did the historically scary monster known as the Big East last year. That doesn’t bode well for the ‘Ville this year.

Ya, that's a pretty big red flag.  The whole article is worth reading. 

Oral Roberts limps into Freedom Hall with a couple of wounded big men, according to the Tulsa World.

ORU will be trying to regroup from Sunday's 60-54 loss at Indiana State and another sobering round of bumps and bruises. The Eagles started the game with six scholarship athletes and were down to five after sophomore swingman Kyron Stokes sprained his ankle in the first half and played only 10 minutes.

Apparently Stokes will play, though. 

Finally, patience, not panic and other words words words from the Courier-Journal:

"Our backs are up against the wall," UofL guard Edgar Sosa said. "Right now everybody is considering us to be an NIT team, and we know we're better than that. These two losses really hurt us, and now we really have to play with all we got and leave it all out on the floor because we can't afford to lose anymore."

Hopefully Good Edgar shows up tonight. 

Speaking of which, does this mean Chris Smith can play tonight? 

A loss tonight would not end the season, of course, but like Mike said, it would certainly lead to some national "what is wrong with Louisville?" stories after losing 4 of our last 5, including three at home.  Especially with Western coming Saturday, we could limp into the Big East with a (gulp) losing record.  So, you know, play good tonight guys.  Please.

It's that time of year again.  The closest we'll get to a playoff happens today, with conference championship games being played across the country.  UK v. UNC basketball at 12:30. And to top it all off, a UofL Saturday night basketball game at Freedom Hall.

Fun day for sports.  Everyone feel free to stop by and weigh in.  Tebow could care less about your opinion.

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What started as very early morning message board rumors, picked up steam at approximately 10:33 AM when Pat Forde joined the crew on Gameday for an announcement, and became basically official with multiple reports (ESPN.com, LSR, ITV), is the biggest news of the season, a sentence many of us have been waiting to write, read, say aloud, text or even Tweet: Steve Kragthorpe is no longer the coach of the University of Louisville football team.  A noon news conference will make it official.

So now the waiting starts.  Will Jurich name a successor today or go through a long search process?  With many of the top targets tied up through conference championship and possible BCS games, it may be awhile. 

But that is a worry for another day.  For today?  Go find some oranges and hold them up to the sky, baby.  And know that somewhere, a guy that looks like Will Stein but is actually a blogger will be running through the streets of his hometown without his pants on.  If you want to combine those two methods of celebration, no matter where you are, the staff here at CardChronicle won't judge. You've earned it. 

Every two years, the University of Louisville football teams heads to Tampa to take on the South Florida Bulls with increasingly bad results:

2003: Overtime Loss After Lefors INT

2005:  Total WTF game, USF destroys Brohm, Bush, Mario, etc. 45-14.  CardsFan922's streak of bad luck watching UofL games at BW3s on Bardstown Road continues (2004 @Marquette, 2004 Renardo Foster tears ACL)

2007:  Treat Guy fumbled the opening kick-off for a USF TD and it went down hill from there.  This is the only video evidence I could find of the 55-17 beat down:

So bad things seem to happen in South Florida, for some reason.

But the past doesn't matter, and this will be one of the weaker USF teams to welcome us to Tampa.  And the Cards defense has quietly put together defensive scores of 13 (Ark. State), 17 (WVU) and 9 (Syracuse) in the last three weeks.  Do we have a shot?  Will Froman do a Groethe impression?  Also, please note that in the simulated season, BJ Daniels was the starting QB.  And we win tomorrow 30-3.  We here at CardChron headquarters don't know if the fact the season was right about the first means it will be right about the second.

So what do we know about tomorrow?

According to the Courier-Journal, Adam Froman was mentally there even if he wasn't physically 100%, and they almost put Will Stein into the game against Syracuse.  The decision not to proved prescient (your move, Heiser) as Froman led them on the winning TD drive:

"You could tell he was a little rusty," Kragthorpe said. "But he made some nice plays for us off the scrambles. He can make some plays with his feet. He'll be fine."

Coaches considered pulling Froman from the game, but as quarterbacks coach Matt Wells said: "He was so into it mentally."

"If he wouldn't have been there mentally, we would have probably made a change, but he wasn't missing anything mentally," Wells said. "I expect him to come back and play at a high, high level this week."

USF's 9th Year Senior Carlton Mitchell (seriously, how long has that guy been there?) will apparently be healthy enough to play tomorrow, says the Trib: 

University of South Florida WR Carlton Mitchell (ankle) is probable for Saturday's game against Louisville.

Mitchell missed last week's game at Rutgers after suffering a high ankle sprain against West Virginia on Oct. 30.

"He's going to dress for the game," USF coach Jim Leavitt said. "How much he plays depends on how well he feels. He's getting close."

Mitchell, who showed no signs of being limited as he sprinted off the practice field Thursday, leads USF with 29 receptions for 542 yards, four touchdowns and 14 years of eligibility. 

 

Part of that quote is altered from the original.  Can you guess which?

That same link summarizes the pre-game story lines in a nutshell: bowl-eligibility on the line, as long as they don't turn the ball over:

he Bulls (6-3, 2-3 Big East) can become bowl eligible with a win against Louisville (4-6, 1-4). On paper, that shouldn't be a problem as USF is an 11 1/2 -point favorite.

Turnovers, however, are the big equalizer. Through nine games, USF has committed 18 turnovers, but half (nine) have come in its three losses.

"You just can't turn the football over," offensive coordinator Mike Canales said. "That's been the demise of us."

USF has won only once since Oct. 3, but in that game (a 30-19 win against WVU), the Bulls were turnover-free.

USF better be careful, or Jim Leavitt will scare the bulls--t out of them at halftime:

The Bulls not only got trampled on the field, but also ESPN's A-team announcing crew had little good to say about the Bulls once the game got out of reach.

Even before the second half started and USF trailing 13-0, ESPN sideline reporter Erin Andrews provided a glimpse of the atmosphere around the Bulls.

"It was very loud, very intense, and very scary in there," Andrews reported someone told her of Coach Jim Leavitt's halftime speech.

Anyone who would like to volunteer to comfort EA as part of the D.E.N.N.I.S. system please leave your contact information for her in the comments.

So we face a USF team who was just humiliated on national television, who faces Miami in the Game of the Century next week on ABC at 3:30 PM, and we face them in a place we've never beaten them.

Go Cards! 

The match-ups only get tougher from here on out, Best Louisville Games.  You better bring it.

3. LOUISVILLE NOTCHES FIRST BCS BOWL VICTORY OVER WAKE FOREST IN PETRINO'S LAST GAME

I don't think it is hyperbole to say that this was the biggest victory in UofL football history (with all due respect to the WVU/Black Out game) that was also the least exciting.  Whether it was Fox's terrible coverage, the lack of crowd energy translating to TV, the limited possessions (remember, this was the only season of the new clock rules that allowed teams like Wake to waste a bunch of time), Wake Forest's stingy defense, or the lack of signature moments like a Mario stiff-arm, this game just sorta happened.

But in looking back, there were actually some really great plays, especially on the pivotal drive.  A scoreless third quarter by the Cards, plus 10 unanswered points by Wake put us down 13-10 early in the 4th Quarter.  An 8-play, 81-yard drive, highlighted by a swing pass that Kolby Smith willed into a 25 yard gain (I seem to remember making some guys miss in the backfield) led to an Anthony Allen 1-yard TD run. 

The defense held Wake to a 3-and-out and then Jimmy Riley made the play of his career to complete a first down on third and long - remember, he caught the ball a few yards short of the marker with guys on him but somehow was able to get a huge first down.  Bolen added the nail for a 24-13 lead, and the Cards won the Orange Bowl!

The big questions afterward were who would be back: Brohm?  Mario?  Malik Jackson?  Harry?  Less than a week later....I can't even type it.

At any rate, this is a #3 seed because a BCS bowl win is always a big deal, even if it is not the championship game.  And because I'm sure I wasn't the only cards fan who said to himself, I don't want to spend the money to go down to the Orange Bowl, I'll wait until the Sugar Bowl next year.  And even if Wake is not an ACC power, that was a good team with a smart coach and a stingy defense, and we still beat the spread and were not really challenged in the 4th quarter. 

A formidable opponent for any game.  Who will 2007 Orange Bowl match up against?  The role of "scrappy mid-major champion starting 4 seniors and a junior" to the Orange Bowl's Kansas is...

14. LOUISVILLE DEFEATS KENTUCKY 81-63 IN THE 'MARVIN STONE GAME', DECEMBER 28, 2002

Four hours on youtube (okay maybe just 10 minutes) did not produce any video of this game, but this was a classic.  Marvin Stone had been released from UK the year before and wound up at Louisville, taking the 2002-2003 team to another level.  Gaines, freshmen Garcia and Dean, a Larry O'Bannon who was a year away from making a jump, Otis and Myles, Erik Brown - all have a special place in Cards fans hearts, and Stone getting a second chance, especially against his former team, a team that gave up on him, made the already-bitter rivalry that more interesting.

The Cards got down by double digits in the first half before storming back for a 2nd half beatdown that the loud, intense crowd really helped push to another level during the decisive run.

Stone was the leading scorer, notching 16 points and 7 boards and Myles had a double-double (11 points, 14 rebounds). 

Enjoy this video of 2002-2003 highlights:

This was also Pitino's second game against UK, and the players had his back.

Pitino avenged a 20-point loss to the Wildcats in his much-ballyhooed return to Rupp Arena last December. He was making his first appearance in his former home arena, and fans screamed insults at him from the start in Kentucky's 82-62 victory.

The rude reception stuck with the Cardinals. "We really wanted to get this win for Coach, the way they treated him last year,'' Myles said.

Overall, it was a great afternoon and a memorable win for Marvin Stone and Coach Pitino and a worthy inclusion in the top 16 UofL games of the decade.

What say you?

So, like it or not, there's a game tomorrow.  The short-term implications of this game are clear.  The loser will almost certainly finish last in the Big East this season, and the winner will likely celebrate this game as their only conference win.  I'm actually at the point where I don't want anyone to talk about this game on blogs, TV, sports talk radio, Twitter, and especially College Gameday because it would inevitably be in a way that mocks us.  Mercilessly.  The only safe place is printed newspapers, since no one reads those anymore anyway.  

No idea who is starting at QB or whether Vic will play or not.  Anyone who has any good info feel free to post in the comments below.

Sept. 22, 2007...Worst...Birthday...Ever....I also got a sunburn that day. 

Here are some links to the online versions with predictable storylines:

CJ: Louisville football team can pay back Syracuse

Good article about how the players want to win out and go to a bowl, that's what they are playing for, etc.  I think I speak for everyone when I say I would still love to see that happen, coaching rumors aside.  But the article has a good reminder of What It All Means and What It Has All Been About these last few years: 

Syracuse (3-5, 0-4 Big East) has lost 17 consecutive games against league opponents not named Louisville. The Cardinals (3-5, 0-4) will try to avoid being the first Big East team to lose three straight to the Orange since Rutgers did so from 2000 to '02.

Syracuse.com: Cardinals know just how Orange feels

"Syracuse is a team that’s very, very similar to us," Louisville Steve Kragthorpe said. "They’re very beat up right now, playing a lot of young guys."

Apparently Syracuse.com's editors won't even refer to him as "Coach" anymore.  Do they know something we don't?  Maybe I'll direct message @KennyKlein on Twitter and see how many of the 140 characters are spent defending Krag and how many are reserved for calling me an idiot.

Syracuse.com: Anatomy of how 2-2 became 3-6 for Syracuse University football team

A great article, but the short version for those who have to work this afternoon or can't read anything that isn't in list form: Turnovers, allowing big plays, injuries to key guys.   Sounds familiar....

Bozich: Louisville football vs. Syracuse may actually be competitive

For those who care what Rick Bozich thinks.

So if you can read this and are close to the stadium (and posts about Syracuse-Louisville football don't generally make it far enough through the intertubes to get read by computers that far from PJCS), come on out and support the team, keep the dream of a bowl alive for everyone on the team who has never been to or played in a bowl (which would be everyone but the seniors and RS Seniors), and enjoy the weather.

First CardChron reader to confront me or Mike IRL at this game and tell us their CardChron online name gets a 2009 International Bowl Shirt if the Cards end up making it to the International Bowl.