Louisville Ranked No. 21 in ESPN's 2024 Preseason FPI

ESPN's Football Power Index is high on the Cardinals heading into year two under Jeff Brohm.

L&N Stadium / University of Louisville Athletics

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The 2023 season was an immensely successful campaign for the Louisville football program. In Jeff Brohm's first year as the head coach of his alma mater, he guided the Cardinals to a 10-4 record for their first ten-win season in a decade, as well as the program's first ever berth in the ACC Championship.

As you can imagine, Brohm's second year at the helm is generating a large amount of local and national hype. On top of the success generated in year one, Louisville is bringing in the No. 2 transfer portal class in football.

That all being said, how well will Louisville perform in year two of the Jeff Brohm era? There might be roughly three months until kickoff, but we already have some idea thanks to the folks at ESPN.

ESPN recently released the preseason iteration of their Football Power Index rankings, and like the SP+ college football metric, FPI is high on Louisville. For those unfamiliar, FPI is a "predictive rating system designed to measure team strength and project performance going forward," vaguely similar to that of SP+.

So where does FPI place the Cards? With a rating of 10.0, they come in at No. 21 in all of FBS. As it pertains to the ACC, they rank No. 3 in the league, behind only league-favorite Florida State and Clemson. Georgia, Oregon, Texas, Ohio State and Alabama round out the top five overall.

FPI is a little higher on Louisville ahead of the 2023 season than SP+ is, which placed the Cardinals just inside the top-30. FPI projects Louisville's win/loss record at 7.9-4.3, gives the Cardinals a 12.0 percent chance to win the ACC, and an 18.3 percent chance to make the College Football Playoff.

Louisville's 2024 Schedule with FPI Ratings, Rankings and Predictions

Date	Team	FPI Rating	FPI Ranking
Aug. 31	Austin Peay	N/A	N/A
Sept. 7	Jax State	-6.3	93rd
Sept. 21	Georgia Tech	2.1	54th
Sept. 28	at Notre Dame	19.0	7th
Oct. 5	SMU	9.0	25th
Oct. 12	at Virginia	-1.4	72nd
Oct. 19	Miami	9.6	23rd
Oct. 25	at Boston College	1.0	58th
Nov. 2	at Clemson	12.2	15th
Nov. 16	at Stanford	0.7	59th
Nov. 23	Pitt	2.2	53rd
Nov. 30	at Kentucky	6.2	34th

(Photo on L&N Stadium via University of Louisville Athletics)

You can follow Louisville Report for future coverage by liking us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram:

Facebook - @LouisvilleReport
Twitter - @UofLReport
Instagram - @louisville_report

You can also follow Deputy Editor Matthew McGavic at @Matt_McGavic on Twitter