Photo courtesy of the Clarion Ledger

*The Cards move to 5-0 for the first time since 2006

*Louisville has beaten Southern Miss 6 straight times

*Teddy was 9-13 for 85 yards, with a TD and an INT  (went 5-5 on the first drive of the game)

*Senorise “Big Play” Perry had 119 yards on 22 carries with 2 TDs

*Jeremy Wright finished going for 84 yards on 20 carries

*DeVante Parker caught his first TD pass of the year, a 29-yard strike to cap the first drive of the ball game

*DeAngelo Brown and Keith Brown were absolute beasts in the second half; their play and emotion lifted the entire defense

*The Cards finished with 269 total yards, Southern Miss with 249

*USM completed just 2 passes for 25 yards

*The turf at USM’s stadium was of the same cut from the AstroDome, circa 1976, hence the terrible draining

On this episode, the LSL guys bring on Mike Hughes of insidtheville.com and discuss the latest happenings in UofL athletics:

-Address the Strong rumors

-The ‘upside’ in this inconsistent team

-What the Cards need to do to improve on defense; how the front 7 can make a bigger impact

-The BCS game for the Big East – is it a big deal?

-The Cards’ Top 3 basketball recruiting class

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE

*iPod/iPad users, or if you have any trouble accessing the podcast, listen below:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 49:02 — 16.8MB)

Mike Marra, the senior shooting guard from Rhode Island who Louisville coach Rick Pitino once called the greatest high school shooter he had ever seen, re-tore his ACL this past week and his season and basketball playing career is over. According to Pitino, the injury took place literally within the first 10 minutes of practice on a simple pivot move. Marra has been a constant topic of debate amongst Cardinal fans and media members since he has been at Louisville, and while he occasionally showed flashes, he never quite lived up to the billing Pitino created for him. Then again, to ask a kid from a small school in Rhode Island who had never played in front of a major crowd and was not considered a major recruit by most standards to live up to those lofty expectations was a task that never should have been placed on his shoulders. His playing career now over, he will chase another dream of becoming a coach, and will become a graduate assistant for the team in hopes of one day being another member of Pitino’s coaching tree to become a head coach.

The recruiting class of 2009 seems to be cursed with injuries. Marra has torn his ACL twice, Stephan Van Treese strained his patellar tendon last preseason and re-injured it during the season, Rakeem Buckles tore his ACL and missed all of last season, and Peyton Siva has had numerous ankle and concussion-related injuries. There is not a bad kid amongst them, and it is terrible to think of the frustrations they all have went through, especially with the high demands of the Louisville fan base. Just as the other three did, Marra always had a positive attitude, despite the constant criticism thrown his way. He was always seen smiling on the sidelines, seemed to genuinely get along with all of his teammates, and was just a solid-person. Most people, especially fans from opposing teams, would look at him with his several tattoos and think of words like “punk,” “thug,” and “Eric Devendorf clone.” I heard all of them, and not one of them was true. He is a well-spoken young man, never taunted or ran his mouth on the court, and was selfless on the court. Fans especially need to remember that last one. Was he the great shooter Pitino made him out to be? No. In fact, he was far from it. Whether it was the transition of playing for a small team with rational expectiations to a basketball-crazed town and fan-base in a huge spotlight, hyperbole on Pitino’s part, or just nerves in general, he never lived up to that billing. He finished his freshman season shooting 24% from 3-point range, 28% his sophomore year, and 25% in a small sample size for his junior year (stats courtesy of ESPN.com). He had some solid shooting games, too, of course, including his freshman year at #2 Syracuse, when he hit 4 three-pointers to help the Cards upset the Orange at their place. However, his stats were overall subpar and several badly missed shots over the years would make fans collectively groan. What fans did not groan at, nor did many even acknowledge, was Marra’s high basketball IQ and ability to make his teammates better.

He was not the shooter Pitino made him out to be, but he was an above-average passer for his position, a solid defender, a good rebounder from the guard/small forward position, and a superb athlete. He was also not the one-trick pony fans believed he was after hearing Pitino’s statement. He was a solid contributor for his team, and there was never one time where he appeared selfish on the court. If anything, he was TOO good of a teammate. There are fans and media who will chalk this up as no big deal, that Louisville was not going to use him much anyway. It is incredibly insensitive, but also inevitable, to look at how this will affect the team on the court. The people who say it is not a huge deal are right, in a way, as there was little chance Marra was going to beat out players like Wayne Blackshear, Luke Hancock, Kevin Ware and other teammates for playing time. Yet, he was a guy who knew how to find open teammates, played great defense, and would have been a very valuable reserve in minimal minutes. He also would have pushed the other guys hard during practice, particularly Blackshear and Hancock.

As Marra begins a new career path to become a head coach one day, his high basketball IQ, his work ethic and likable nature will be invaluable to his progression. While those traits would be used in only limited minutes on the court, and at times under-appreciated by the fans who look at box score stats only, they will take him farther as a coach than they would have as a player. Pitino told the Courier-Journal Marra handled the news like a professional. He said Marra understood minutes would be hard to come by, but it was more important to him to help the team rather than play big minutes. That selflessness and willing to help is why he has what it takes to become a very successful coach.

vs. 

-Southern Miss leads the series 18-10-1; Louisville has won 5 straight

-TV: Game will be televised on CBS Sports Network (Insight 531 and 968 HD locally)

-James Bates, Aaron Taylor, and Evan Washburn will call the action

-Louisville is favored by 10.5

Odds and Ends

-USM is having a “Blackout” promotion for the game tonight

-USM gives up an average of 473 yards per game, including 369 rushing yards to WKU last week

-Desmond Johnson leads the Golden Eagles in rushing with 165 yards

-Tracy Lampley leads USM in receiving with 5 catches for 82 yards

-Freshman QB Blake Lloyd will get the start for USM after their first and second string signal callers went down

-UofL scores 33.5 points per game; USM 17

Can the Cards play a complete game?  That’s the question the fans and players are asking themselves going into the 8 o’clock match-up tonight.  This game is tailor-made for Louisville to get things going on both sides of the ball early and often.  Expect a steady dose of Perry and Wright all night long as the Cards will try to impose their running will on them like the Hilltoppers did a week ago.  The running the game should open up the field for Teddy to get back on track throwing the ball.  Look for wideouts Andrell Smith and DeVante Parker to have big games tonight.

Can the front four get better pressure on the QB?  The huge elephant in the room was discussed at length by the coaches and players this week and on our show.  It seems like Coach Hurtt is using some of his motivational tools again to get this group playing at the level we thought they would be from day one.  The defense needs to play a complete game as well – as they got to the QB during the FIU game, but didn’t wrap up.  That was after the first three games of facing up-tempo no huddle offenses where the Cards barely got pressure at all.

Focus, focus, focus.  This has been lacking from a continual standpoint all year.  The players won’t face the distractions of playing in front of a lot of family and friends like they did in Miami.  The coaches can preach the “us against the world” mentality  in this “Blackout” game in Hattiesburg.  Can the Cards take them out of the game early, or will they let another inexperienced QB give them fits and keep his team in the game?  UofL will have the chance to knock them – and their fans – out of the game early with huge start.

Teddy gets it going while the running game looks dominant.  The defense comes to play and shuts the Golden Eagles down.  The Cards give up a special teams TD, but roll, 41-17.

The injury news just keeps getting worse for Louisville fans. First, Mike Marra re-injures his knee the first day he comes back to practice, which has appeared to end his basketball career. Marra had been rehabbing a prior ACL injury he suffered last season. Now, Louisville top commit in the 2013 class QB Kyle Bolin has injured his knee and it appears to be pretty serious.

Bolin suffered the injury in the second quarter of Lexington Catholic’s game against Boyle County Friday night. Although, the extent of the injury has yet to be revealed, we know that it was the knee and Bolin was on crutches after returning to the sidelines. If it is an ACL tear, then rehab will take around 7 to 9 months, which means if everything goes as planned, then Bolin could be back around spring practice. Here’s hoping it is a speedy recovery for Kyle.

Great stuff here from WDRB’s Pat Doney and Eric Crawford as they team up to get the background story on Louisville WR Eli Rogers. For those that don’t now, Rogers’s mom is suffering from the AIDS virus and, despite unbelievable odds, he and his best friend Teddy Bridgewater both made it out of the streets of Miami to become budding stars at Louisville. The video can be seen below and here’s an excerpt from Crawford’s column.

For University of Louisville quarterback Teddy Bridgewater and wide receiver Eli Rogers, the connection goes deep. On the field as teammates at Northwestern High School in Miami and off the field as their mothers battled life-threatening health crises, the pair has developed the kind of understanding that comes from looking at the other guy and knowing that there’s something more on his mind than football.

Rogers returned to his mother’s home before his high school graduation. Today his mother, Tranae Jackson, says she’s doing well, keeping up with her medication. When WDRB reporters visited her home while the Cardinals were in Miami for a road game at Florida International, she was in high spirits and spoke of her son with smiles and pride, the walls of the small home in Miami’s Brownsville neighborhood adorned with pictures of Rogers from peewee league through college.

Brownsville was called last year by the Miami New Times “one of the city’s poorest and most-blighted neighborhoods.” Three days before WDRB’s visit last week, the block made news when a drive-by shooter with an AK-47 assault rifle fired more than a dozen shots into a vacant home, killing one person and injuring two others. A peewee football practice was in progress at a park across the street at the time of the shooting.

WDRB 41 Louisville – News, Weather, Sports Community

Yesterday, Notre Dame announced that they would opt out of their rivalry game with Michigan from 2015 to 2017 to make space to accommodate their new deal with the ACC . Associated Press writer Ralph Russo lists some possible candidates who could fill the void Notre Dame left on Michigan’s schedule, and he acknowledges that Louisville could be good choice.

LOUISVILLE (OR CINCINNATI) — The Cardinals have room on the schedule and might even agree to a two-for-one deal, in which they make two trips to the Big House for one visit to Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium by the Wolverines. How about this: Michigan and Louisville at Paul Brown Stadium in Cincinnati? If nothing else, it might tick off Ohio State fans, and doesn’t that alone make it worth it for Michigan? Striking a similar deal with Cincinnati makes sense, too, but the Bearcats are booked up for 2015.

A home and home with Michigan would certainly help Louisville start to attract some much needed national attention and should help Charlie Strong take this program to the next level.

According to Mike Hughes of InsideTheVille.com, five-star center Trey Lyles will be visiting Louisville unofficially this Saturday. Lyles decommitted from Indiana in early August and has attracted the attention of top schools like Louisville, Kentucky, Duke, Georgetown, Florida, UCLA, and Ohio State.

Lyles visiting Louisville this early after decommitting from Indiana certainly means that he has serious interest in Pitino’s program. During an interview with Steve Jones of the Courier-Journal, the father of Lyles had nothing but good things to say about his son’s feelings on Rick Pitino and Louisville.

The C-J: You had Coach Pitino here (Wednesday). What are your thoughts on having him come and meet with Trey?

Tom Lyles: That’s exciting. (Smiling broadly) Anytime you have coach Rick Pitino stepping in and looking at one of your players, and if that player happens to be my son, it’s humbling. It’s very humbling. We’re talking about a legendary coach who’s going to be a Hall of Famer. It kind of speaks for itself. But it kind of shows the work the young man has put in over the years has kind of been noticed outside of the state. Hey, what can I say? It’s a great experience.

The C-J: What would maybe be appealing about Louisville to Trey?

Tom Lyles: I think a few things. The style of play, the way they play. The history of the program. Obviously playing for such a legendary coach who is very successful, a coach who knows how to get the most out of his players. And ultimately for (Trey’s) parents, it’s a two-hour drive. It’s right down the street, for the most part. The fact that he’s been a fan of the Cardinals for a long time, it’s one of those things that could possibly become a dream come true for him.

The C-J: He’s been a fan of the team for a while?

Tom Lyles: Yeah, oh, yeah, for a long time. There’s been a few schools he’s always been fond of, and Louisville is definitely one of them.

The C-J: Are you all going to try to go down there sometime (for a visit)?

Tom Lyles: Yes, actually the coach and I were just talking about it. We just have to pinpoint a date where we can get on campus and get him a chance to get down there and meet all the other coaches … and to actually see the campus. We’ve seen it from afar, but we’ve not actually been on that campus today. But, yes, we’re looking forward to it.

Join your only all-UofL sports talk show tonight at 6:00 on ESPN 680 and ESPNLouisville.com as LSL will get an update from all things UofL athletics from insidetheville.com’s Mike Hughes.  We will discuss how the Cards can use the Southern Miss game as a spring board for the upcoming Big East season, UofL’s Top 3 basketball recruiting class and future targets, and the proposed BCS deal involving the Big East.   As always, we welcome your phone calls and tweets at 267-9680 and @LvilleSprtsLive.

ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit was the guest speaker at the St. Xavier/Trinity luncheon on Wednesday. Afterwards, WDRB caught up with him to discuss Louisville conference situation.

Here’s what Herbstreit had to say.

“They got to be thinking about being proactive. What that move is? I do not know. I know that the ACC is going to have to expand; add another team. There is going to be other expansion opportunities, but the Big East is a sinking ship in my opinion when it comes to college athletics and especially college football, and I think Louisville has too much to offer, not just in football but all their sports, and I hope we will see them land somewhere and be able to kind of continue to take that next step”

Many of the talking heads in college football believe ESPN has had some say in the decisions the ACC has made when expanding the conference  If this is true, the comments made by Kirk Herbstreit, an ESPN analyst, may hold some weight. It is obviously nothing but speculation right now, but perhaps Herbstreit has some idea of what the ACC’s next step will be in terms of expansion.

What Herbstreit knows and does not know aside, he is 100% right that Louisville has way too much to offer to be stuck in the sinking ship that is the Big East. Unfortunately, a school’s athletic prowess is not always the main factor when it comes to expansion. In many cases, conferences are looking for teams with a large TV market, and while Louisville’s football program is well on the rise, it is hard to say that the school has the TV market to compete with the likes of recent conference movers West Virginia, Pittsburgh, and Notre Dame. Despite the lack of a solid TV market, Louisville, undoubtedly, would be a solid addition for any conference, but unfortunately all Tom Jurich and company can do now is wait for that invitation.