Orange Bowl win likely squeezes out Cards' aces

Just how unimpressive, physically, are the Deacons? The three worst teams in the ACC are Duke, North Carolina and North Carolina State. Altogether they went 6-30. Wake Forest beat that trio by 10 points. Combined.

The Deacons throw all kinds of ugliness against the wall, hoping some of it sticks to the scoreboard and some of it sticks to the other team and at the end of the night enough of it has stuck in enough places for Wake Forest to have a few more points than the other team. That happened in the ACC title game, when the Deacons beat Georgia Tech 9-6 in a zero-touchdown game of gook. It looked like something similar was going to happen to Louisville, but Petrino met Wake Forest's sludge by smacking back with a Brohm-to-Douglas sludge hammer.

This was an ugly game, but you could see it coming. For one thing, there was the Wake Forest factor. And then the week got off to an ugly start when Louisville offensive coordinator Paul Petrino used his bowl-sponsored press conference to inanely promote himself as a head coaching candidate for whatever job might come available.

Believe me, believe me, believe me, if Paul Petrino had anything to do with Louisville's record-setting offense, he already would have been offered a head-coaching position somewhere. Or he at least would have been interviewed somewhere. Anywhere. But Bobby Petrino calls the plays and Jeff Brohm coaches the quarterbacks, which means Paul Petrino is Louisville's offensive coordinator in name only. Know your place, Little Brother. Don't call attention to yourself.

Then again, along with vacancies at quarterback, receiver and running back, Louisville might just be in the market soon for a head coach.

Be scared, Louisville fans. As soon as you're done celebrating, of course.