A change in the wind? -- WEDNESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

 POTENTIAL DEFECTIONS OF FSU AND CLEMSON COULD SHAKE UP THE ACC...

As fall sports are set to begin in the ACC in less than two weeks, maybe just as big a story are the rumors flying around about ACC defections.  You'll remember...back in 2014 it was a defection (Maryland) that opened the door for Louisville to join the conference. Now, after a decade in the conference...the Cards and a dozen or so other ACC members are looking at re-alignment possibilities and defection possibilities again. 

Clemson and FSU see the dollar signs beckon and there is a lot of chatter out there that they'll chase them. Football seems to be the driving force here, and there is already speculation that if the Noles and Tigers hit the trail...California and Stanford from the dying PAC 12 might be knocking on the door, dressed in their Sunday best, seeing an invite to the ACC. Somehow, two west coast Pacific Athletic Conference schools in the Atlantic Coast Conference seems a bit odd to me...but I guess a decade ago...ACC purists thought that a city on the Ohio River being in the Atlantic Coast conference was weird, too. 

Why all this jumping around? It is all about revenue. Repeat and rinse. It's about moolah, greenbacks, benjamins, bank, folding stuff and loot. 

Maybe we shouldn't cast too much of a disapproving eye. After all, it was Louisville who went from MVC to Metro to C-USA to Big East to AAC to ACC...and the motivation wasn't centered around neat places to eat and colorful mascots. 

It was all about the dollars. As much as I am still confused to this day why West Virginia left the ACC to go to the Big 12,...I snap myself back  to the real world and remember why. Money. 

Joel Grey had it right in Cabaret when he and Liza Minellli sang about money. Scarface and the BrotherMob nailed it, too, when they rapped about money makes the world go around. Ig... f you listen carefully enough on a calm summer evening, you can hear Tom Cruise and Cuba Gooding shouting "Show me the money" in the distance. 

Athletics bring in a considerable amount of money to colleges and universities. Clemson and FSU, who have no qualms squawking about the "unfair" ACC dollar split, see more money potential elsewhere and...repeat it with me....money makes the world go around.

(Hi, Daddy. Classes are great but the coaches still don't know what conference we are in)

And, yes, football is the conductor of this money train. 

I was at a lunch recently with some UofL fans and friends of mine and we were talking about the travel snafus California and Stanford would run into...if they joined the ACC and had, for example...a three game conference road-trip to...let's say... Boston College, Miami and then Virginia Tech. Then, think about it for the Field Hockey or Lacrosse programs at these schools...instead of football or men's basketball.  

Of course, Hawaii does a bit of flying each athletic season for their 20 SPORTS PROGRAMS. Who knows...maybe they'll come out next week and proudly announce they,are joining the SEC.

Deion Sanders, head football coach at  University of Colorado gets it:

"All this is about money, you know that. It's about a bag. Everybody is chasing a bag. Then, you get mad at players when they chase it. How's that? How do the grown-ups get mad at the players when they're chasing it when the colleges are chasing it?"

Greed, it seems, should be a new elective for incoming freshmen in course-scheduling. Maybe Gordon Gekko can guest lecture.

Money is the most important thing on campus. And that's sad. But, it's real. College athletes, on the main stage, is all about greed, for the major programs within a college's athletic department. 

I  hope to be here, and not breathing dry air, five years from now. I can't even imagine what conference alignments will look like then.

 

I guess it's time to finally get rid of those old Big East Louisville sweatshirts I have. The ones that Sonja is always nagging me about ( "you never wear this anymore...I'm taking it to Goodwill...you need closet space")  and re-gear.  I used to get nice polo shirts from a certain source at a certain university. That cowboy has saddled up and rode off into the sunset, though. 

I just hope we don't change our logo. Last time I checked, we were the only Cardinals in the ACC. But, saay...is that Stanford coming down the road? Great...the old Cardinal vs Cardinals nickname conspiracy just might be ramping up again several notches...At least they have a crazy looking tree on their sidelines at times. All we got is some screaming intern with a microphone trying to get the crowd to clap their hands. 

Stay tuned...this soap opera could get real interesting...

Paulip

Everyone vs Florida State - Sunday Cardinal Couple

vs Florida State

'Tis the weekend to be playing Florida State.  Football got the win over the Seminoles yesterday in Tallahassee, and today it's time for the women to take the field, with both Soccer and Volleyball matching up with the school from the state capital.

Volleyball

FSU arrives in Louisville with an 8-2 record.  They dropped an early match in a sweep to Michigan, and had a mighty battle against UCF before losing in the 5th set (15-13) two weeks ago.  The FSU schedule isn't exactly littered with wins over powerhouse teams, with one exception.  The Seminoles took four sets to beat a then-ranked 14th Florida team that was already licking its wounds from dropping two in a row to Baylor.

Florida State started receiving some votes in the AVCA rankings this week and, along with UNC, will be looking to be the fourth or fifth ACC team in the polls.

Taryn Knuth, FSU's big middle standout has finally graduated, and the team has moved on and seems to be playing quite a spread offense with four players registering more than eight kills per match so far.  Morgan Chacon leads the way with 94 kills so far in the 10 match old season.  Chacon is perhaps ever so slightly undersized as an outside at 5'11" but makes it work.  Audrey Koenig is definitely not an undersized outside at 6'3" with 88 kills on the season so far.  FSU also features a couple of well matched middles, each with 86 kills so far, 6'3" Khori Louis, and 6'2" Emma Clothier.

Freshman Emery Dupes will likely be the libero and Lily Tessier the setter.  Louisville should be wary of Tessier, as she gives up nothing on the blocking from hitters that would be in the front row otherwise, thanks in no small part to her 6'3" stature.

Louisville's vaunted blocking will be tested with FSU having numerous offensive options.  In the reverse direction, FSU's 2.22 blocks per set is respectable, though short of UofL's 3.3.  All of the data, and the eye test, suggests that Louisville is the better team, here, but FSU is one of the better teams in the ACC meaning that UofL will need to play at the level that they have shown they can.

Soccer

Florida State also will be in action farther south on Floyd Street, with the women's soccer team playing at Lynn Stadium.

This game will be a tall order for the Cardinals.  While UofL is in a tie atop the ACC standings currently along with four other teams, including FSU.  That will separate further as we're only two games into conference games so far.

When you zoom out to the larger soccer landscape...yeah, Florida State is still on top with all but one of the first place votes in the most recent United Soccer Coaches poll.  Of course, the ACC is well represented with four of the top 10 teams and Clemson starting to climb into poll, currently at 22nd.

The lead FSU goal scorers are Beata Olsson, a 5'5" Swedish sophomore credited with 5 goals on the season so far; Gianna Mitchell, a 5'10" Redshirt Senior out of Massachusetts who is listed as a defender, but apparently finds her way forward with some regularity scoring 4 times so far this season; and Clara Robbins, another defender, also listed as a midfielder, another redshirt senior out of Virginia and also with four goals on the season.

Goalkeeping duties are about evenly split between Cristina Roque and Mia Justus.  This appears to be quite the position battle with the two alternating in goal each game so far.  If the pattern holds, we'll see Mia Justus on the field today.  Both have three saves to their credit in the season thus far, while Cristina Roque has one more goal against, three, than Justus does at two.  You have to credit the rest of FSU's defense for keeping all of those numbers so low.  Roque is a 5'7" sophomore from Winter Garden, FL, and Justus is 5'9" and from Lakewood, OH.

Scheduling

Both Soccer and Volleyball get started today at 1pm, and both should be available on the ACC Network Extra streaming.

Lacrosse Exhibition Play

Our ever-active Jared was on Floyd Street yesterday to catch some photos at Lacrosse fall exhibition play.

This was a four-team round robin tournament with Louisville inviting Cincinnati, University of Indianapolis, and Youngstown State to the Louisville Lacrosse Stadium.  The event kicked off at 10am, and wrapped up about 4pm.  Each game was four quarters of 12 minutes each with two minutes between quarters and six minutes between games.

Louisville played UIndy at 10am, Youngstown State at noon, and Cinncinati at 2pm.

No word on results of any of the play, though I suspect Louisville, having picked up a very early pre-season 21st ranking from Lacrosse Magazine, should have been victorious against these squads.

Check out more of Jared's photos below.

(PHOTOS TODAY BY JARED ANDERSON) 

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast

Case, Paulie, and I held down most of the CCRHP show yesterday, though Jared did manage to pop in for a bit between games at the Louisville Lacrosse Stadium. Daryl, we're guessing is still wandering the grounds at Louder Than Life...looking for Snoop Dogg handing out Corona's or Kirk Hammett. 

We had a good discussion and recaps of Soccer, Field Hockey, and Volleyball, as would be expected given the fall sports in action.

Check out the Youtube replay below, or you can find the audio in podcast form at any of your favorite podcast feeds.

 

JMcA