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Ask Me Anything: On U of L, the purge and more

Jeff Greer
@jeffgreer_cj
Louisville's Teddy Bridgewater, who graduated in three years, helped the Cardinals football team to a perfect APR score for the 2012-2013 year.

After a long, busy summer, Ask Me Anything makes its triumphant return to the vastness that is the Interwebs. If you are unfamiliar with AMA, at least with the ones we do here on the University of Louisville beat, why don't I try to explain 'em in 140 characters.

You ask me questions about anything, from Louisville and other sports-related topics to random weird stuff, and I answer them.

See? Not too painless, right? The twist is that a good 50-75 percent of the questions each time we do these seems to be random hypotheticals or doughnut questions or lots of really weird stuff. So, the goal is to have fun and be informative at the same time, all while allowing us to communicate instead of just me pelting articles and blog posts at you.

As I said in the last AMA we did, this is an exercise typically referred to as a "mailbag" or a "Q&A," but I will never be the mailman that Wilford Brimley was, so I named it something else. I actually started doing these when I worked in West Palm Beach, prior to my knowledge of a little website called Reddit, so turns out I'm a copycat, name-wise.

We'll do these every week on Tuesdays. Yes, through the basketball season. You can send me your questions on Twitter (@jeffgreer_cj) or email me at jgreer@courier-journal.com.

Enough with the jibber-jabber. Let's get to your IMPORTANT questions:

@Beisner_cn2: Why did (Ask Me Anything) ever go away?

Jeff Greer: Well, Mr. Beisner, an esteemed comedian on the Twitterverse, asks a heavy hitting question right off the bat. The short answer is that I don't really have an answer. I thought we should take a break when there were no U of L sports going on and I caught a lot of flack for that from no one.

@CardDude25: How much different is the media access/information between Charlie Strong and Bobby Petrino?

JG: I have to hedge my answer here with the caveat that I *just* started this beat at the end of October, so I can really only compare access to what I experienced in November and December. We still got player interviews during the week. We still got the Monday coach's press conference and the American Athletic Conference's coaches teleconference. We'll get those with Petrino, but he'll also address us again at the end of the week, which Strong didn't do.

But apparently the biggest difference came before the season and in spring, when media was allowed to watch some practices and see more than a black screen covering a fence, behind which U of L was practicing. So it sounds like things are better already. I will say from my own experience I have not had any issues with access this offseason, even with some of nitty gritty issues that've come up.

University of Louisville head coach Bobby Petrino talks with Tom Jurich on March 17 at the Cardinals’ pro day.

Dan B.: How many games into the season before Teddy Bridgewater starts?

JG: Aside from the season opener against St. Louis, the Vikings face a murderous start to their schedule, with games against New England (loss), New Orleans (loss), Atlanta (meh) and Green Bay (loss). That puts them, at best, at 2-3 but probably 1-4. I think that's when you just go with Teddy.

Minnesota has a 10-day layoff between losing to Green Bay and hosting Detroit, which starts a four-game stretch of winnable games that also includes Tampa Bay, Washington and Buffalo.

The thing about Minnesota is that it has one of the best running backs ever on its roster, and he's not getting younger. So they face the unenviable position of trying to decide if they'd like to start a rookie QB and potentially struggle as Teddy finds his way, or if they want to try to win right away with Adrian Peterson. The conundrum is that Matt Cassel isn't going to win right away.

Mid-way rapid fire!

@tallen0024: What is the meaning of life?

JG: I believe I was put on this earth to win as many World Series titles as possible on MVP 05 with awful franchises.

@JWA_Two: Favorite beer?

JG: Bourbon.

@Fischwick: Why can't people just leave poor Meg Griffin alone?

JG: I love this Twitter handle. (But does anyone actually still watch Family Guy? Seth MacFarlane lives in the same shark-jumped neighborhood as George Lopez, Kevin Hart, Dane Cook and the Biebs.)

@JBDoes180: What do you dislike the most about your job?

JG: I write for a living. What's there to complain about? (It's hard to find a healthy meal on the road.)

@MichaelGrant_CJ: Who looks better in a sweater vest: Gus Malzahn, Jim Tressel or Rick Santorum?

JG: Mike Jarvis.

@bg_mahoney: If you were a superhero, what power would you want?

JG: The ability to glean the full truth from people every time they talk to me.

@siryoyo81: Who do you pick if you're the Ryder Cup captain?

JG: If it was mini golf, I'd pick myself. Unfortunately it's not.

OK, that was fun.

@schurre1: What would be the first thing you'd do if the Purge was real?

JG: First of all, this entire thing was ridiculous. From a journalistic standpoint, I don't know that I'd brag about not covering it and I don't know that I'd overcover it, either. But I think the police mishandled it worse than anyone else. How do you not just immediately find the source of it and then say it's taken care of but be careful this weekend?

That said, I'd probably end up going all-you-can-eat at Insomnia Cookie, Comfy Cow and Nord's. I love those places and would never *actually* throw a brick through their windows, but if we're purging ...

Sean S.: Fantasy sleeper picks?

JG: I went absolutely ham on picking rookies once I had my starters lined up. Yahoo's little computerized review of my team gave me a B for my drafting, but whatever. I took Andre Williams, Tre Mason, Kelvin Benjamin, Carlos Hyde and Teddy Bridgewater and plan to stash them all on my bench.

I also like New Orleans' Khiry Robinson and Philly tight end Zach Ertz. This is probably a good time to tell you I haven't won fantasy football maybe ever. Definitely not in the past 10 years. This is totally the year, you guys.

Mike G.: When will you triumphantly return to Greensboro, N.C.?

JG: I'll be there for the ACC basketball tournament in March, Mike. Let's get a burger.

Matt S.: What's the best way to get back into soccer shape?

JG: Don't eat so much Graeter's.

And we'll close with this one ...

@Chadinthe502: Score prediction for U of L vs. Miami?

JG: I felt a lot more comfortable picking this game when I knew full health reports. We don't know yet what the deal is with Michael Dyer's quad contusion. (Don't Google "quad contusion" ... OK, sorry you had to see that. They look painful.)

We'll expect to find out if Dyer's healthy at the end of the week. He's a big factor in Louisville's offense. Not having DeVante Parker is a significant blow for the Cards. With him (and a 100-percent Dyer), I picked U of L to win by two touchdowns. Without, I move it back toward a toss-up category, save for two things.

(1) Home-field advantage.

(2) Bobby Petrino is one of the best game-planning and in-game coaches in college football.

That second item is the main reason why Louisville was willing to endure some heavy swings from the media and a portion of the fan base over hiring Petrino. He gets results, and I think he starts right away. I'll take Louisville 31-24.

Got an Ask Me Anything question? Send them to me on Twitter (@jeffgreer_cj) or email me at jgreer@courier-journal.com.