The Sporting News Tabs Louisville as 2023 College Football Playoff Sleeper

The Cardinals are one of five teams that TSN believes are a sleeper to make this year's College Football Playoff.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Ever since Jeff Brohm was brought in to be the next head coach of the Louisville football program, the Cardinals have been generating an insane amount of hype for their upcoming 2023 season. Not only are fans excited for the first year of the Brohm era, but UofL has been slowly building up a fair amount of buzz on a national level, and has even been viewed as a potential sleeper pick to win the ACC.

Well, the folks over at The Sporting News are taking that hype for Louisville next season and pushing it to the next level.

In an effort to try and determine who could be "this year's TCU" after the Horned Frogs went from 5-7 in 2021 to national runner-up in 2022, TSN compiled a list of five sleeper picks for the 2023 College Football Playoff, which will be the final CFP under the current four-team format. Picking one school from each Power Five conference whle also not choosing repeats from their selections last offseason, their pick from the ACC was none other than the Cardinals.

"This would be the out-of-nowhere TCU template," TSN's Bill Bender wrote. "That starts with first-year coach Jeff Brohm – who returned to his alma mater after leading Purdue to the Big Ten championship game last season. Brohm worked the transfer portal with as many as seven new offensive starters, including quarterback Jack Plummer. Conference favorites Clemson, Florida State and North Carolina aren't on the schedule, and Notre Dame visits on Oct. 7. The Cardinals could be in the ACC championship game picture heading into November, where they close with a road trip to Miami and the finale against Kentucky. The Wildcats have won the last four in that series. The CFP is asking for too much, but a quick-fix New Year's Day Six Bowl run – like Michigan State in 2021 – isn't out of the question."

TSN's picks from the other Power Five conferences were Penn State, Texas, Oregon State and Tennessee.

Louisville finished their 2022 season strong, eventually posting an overall record of 8-5 with a 24-7 win over Cincinnati in the Fenway Bowl. Many college football pundits also believe that Brohm is a perceived upgrade over Scott Satterfield - who ironically left for the Cincinnati job - at head coach. As noted by TSN, the Cardinals also avoid having to play the perceived top three teams in the ACC - Clemson, Florida State and North Carolina - this upcoming season.

While Louisville is losing playmakers on both sides of the ball, such as Malik Cunningham and Yasir Abdullah, Brohm has done a phenomenal job retaining and bringing in talent in a short amount of time. The Cardinals sport the No. 27 traditional high school recruiting class according to 247Sports, and are No. 1 in On3's transfer portal rankings for this offseason.

The Cardinals will kick off their 2023 season against Georgia Tech in the Chick-Fil-A Kickoff Game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Ga. on Friday, Sept. 1.

(Photo of Jeff Brohm via University of Louisville Athletics)

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