Louisville Cracks Top-25 in Phil Steele's 2024 Power Poll

The Cardinals were also tabbed to finish fourth in the ACC, according to long time college football expert Phil Steele.

The Louisville defense takes to the field during practice on April 12, 2024 before the Red-White scrimmage game. / Matt Stone/The Courier Journal / USA

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Not only is preseason watch list season in full swing with the 2024 college football season just under three months away, preseason polls are starting to get released.

One of the first major preseason college football polls to drop comes from long time college football expert Phil Steele, who included his preseason rankings as part of his recently released his 2024 College Football Preview magazine.

The Louisville football program is coming off of a very successful year one under Jeff Brohm, and once again loaded up in the transfer portal this offseason. As such, Steele's 2024 Power Poll - essentially his preseason poll calculated based on the talents and strengths of each team - is high on the Cardinals entering year two under Brohm, placing them at No. 23.

Going by the Power Poll, the Cardinals will be taking on a tougher schedule for the 2024 season than they did last year. Louisville will face four teams in the Power Poll's top 25, including Notre Dame at No. 8, Miami at No. 10, Clemson at No. 13 and SMU at No. 21. Georgia, Ohio State, Oregon, Texas and Penn State round out the top five overall.

Due to this tougher schedule, Louisville falls a few spots in Steele's preseason top 40, which is a ranking where Steele projects how teams will finish the season rather than where they will start. Here, he predicts the Cards will finish the 2024 season ranked 32nd.

As it pertains to the ACC race, Steele has them missing out on making a return trip to Charlotte and amongst the second tier of teams in the conference. In fact, he placed Louisville in a four-way tie for fourth in his 2024 ACC Forecast, tied with SMU, Virginia Tech and NC State. Clemson, Florida State and Miami tied for the top spot.

That being said, he doesn't completely rule out Louisville getting back to the ACC Championship Game.

"In ‘22 with Purdue, Jeff Brohm might not have had the best team in the Big Ten West but avoided Ohio State and Michigan and made the Big 10 Title game," Steele wrote. "Last year here they avoided Clemson, Florida State and (UNC) and made the ACC Title game. They did have 4 Net Close wins and this year have a SMI of -3.0. They have 15 returning starters and face Clemson on the road, but get Miami and SMU at home, and 5 of my sets of PR’s call for a 7 ACC win year which puts them in contention."

Additionally, Steele named a pair of Louisville players to his 2024 Preseason All-American teams, as well as six Cardinals to the Preseason All-ACC Teams.

The Cardinals finished their 2023 season with an overall mark of 10-4 (7-1 in ACC) including a berth in the program's first ever ACC Championship Game. Year two under head coach Jeff Brohm is scheduled to kick off against Austin Peay on Saturday, Aug. 31 at L&N Stadium.

(Photo via Matt Stone - The Courier Journal / USA)

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