Projecting Louisville's 2024 Season Using Final Preseason SP+ Rankings

Kickoff is only 18 days away, and we have some idea of how the 2024 college football season will pan out for the Cardinals thanks to the SP+ metric.

L&N Stadium / University of Louisville Athletics

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - College football in on the verge of making its triumphant return. Week zero's slate of games are only 11 days away, while the Louisville football program's season opener vs. Austin Peay on Aug. 31 is in just 18 days.

Despite ending with a three-game losing streak, the 2023 campaign for the Cardinals was still a highly successful one. Louisville went 10-4 overall in year one under head coach Jeff Brohm, including a 7-1 mark in Atlantic Coast Conference play to clinch their first ever berth in the ACC Championship Game.

Add that momentum on top of the fact that Louisville once again brought in the No. 1 portal class in college football, how well will they perform in year two of the Jeff Brohm era? Well, we already have some idea thanks to the predictive college football metric SP+, which had their rankings updated for the second time this offseason on Tuesday.

SP+, according to its creator Bill Connelly of ESPN, is a "tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency". He has made several tweaks to it over the years since creating it in 2008 while at Football Outsiders, but the current iteration takes into account three primary factors: returning production, recent recruiting and recent history.

In this most recent update, Louisville's SP+ rating increased, rising from their May offseason mark of 10.8 to 11.3 after starting with a mark of 11.4 back in the initial number in February. Even with this rise, the Cardinals' overall ranking amongst the 134 FBS teams fell from No. 28 in May to No. 31. Louisville was No. 24 in the first SP+ numbers.

Given their success on that side of the line of scrimmage last season, the metric is very high on the defensive side of the ball for the Cardinals. Louisville sports a defensive SP+ rating of 19.4, which ranks 27rd in the FBS.

Conversely, SP+ is not as big of a fan of the offensive side of things even with the influx of transfer talent. Louisville has an offensive SP+ rating of 30.7, which is good for 49th in the FBS.

Using SP+, we can plug in the rating from each team on Louisville's schedule and take a deep dive into how the 2024 season might transpire. We can figure out the win percentage in each game (accounting for home vs. away), the expected wins mark at the end of the season, as well as the statistical likelihood of every outcome during and concluding the season.

Opponent	Proj. SP+	Off. SP+	Def. SP+
Austin Peay	-20 (N/A)	N/A	N/A
Jacksonville State	-9.9 (96th)	21.8 (94th)	31.7 (92nd)
Georgia Tech	0.6 (58th)	33.0 (33rd)	32.4 (94th)
Notre Dame	23.4 (9th)	39.0 (10th)	15.6 (9th)
SMU	12.7 (27th)	35.9 (22nd)	23.3 (39th)
Virginia	-3.5 (78th)	26.1 (71st)	29.7 (79th)
Miami	15.5 (19th)	37.3 (16th)	21.9 (34th)
Boston College	-2.4 (73rd)	26.0 (72nd)	28.4 (69th)
Clemson	18.8 (16th)	36.5 (19th)	17.7 (14th)
Stanford	-3.5 (77th)	27.1 (66th)	30.6 (84th)
Pitt	-0.8 (66th)	23.6 (86th)	24.4 (43rd)
Kentucky	13.8 (22nd)	34.4 (28th)	20.6 (31st)

Louisville Football's Updated 2024 SP+ Chart (August Preseason) / Matt McGavic - Louisville Report

SP+ is pretty high on Louisville, and the metric still paints an optimistic picture. That being said, the Cardinals having a slightly tougher schedule than they had last season, and several of their 2024 opponent took steps forward in the SP+.

The Cardinals will play five teams that boast a higher SP+ rating - Notre Dame, SMU, Miami, Clemson and Kentucky - and have a win probability of over 50.0 percent in eight of their 12 regular season games. Louisville is a decisive underdog in their road games at Notre Dame and Clemson, are slight underdogs against Miami and at Kentucky, slight favorites vs. SMU, and are clear favorites in every other game.

Louisville has an expected wins mark of 7.60, and they have a 26.78 percent chance to finish the season with eight wins - the highest out of any other win mark. For all intents and purposes, SP+ is projecting the Cardinals to go 8-4 in 2024.

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

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