Projecting Louisville's 2024 Season Using Updated SP+ Rankings

Kickoff is roughly 100 days away, but 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. - It may still seem like an eternity away, but college football is closer to kickoff than you think. With Memorial Day just around the corner, we are roughly 100 days from football's triumphant return.

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, 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 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.

Surprisingly, Louisville's SP+ rating decreased a little, falling to 10.8 from their February offseason mark of 11.4. As a result, their overall ranking amongst the 134 FBS teams fell from No. 24 to No. 28.

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 18.9, which ranks 23rd in the FBS. While it's an improvement from their 19.1 rating in February, their ranking actually fell two spots from 21st.

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 29.6, which is down from their 30.5 rating in February. In this part of the metric, the Cardinals fell from 44th to 57th.

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	-8.9 (93rd)	22.6 (89th)	31.5 (93rd)
Georgia Tech	-0.6 (63rd)	32.5 (35th)	33.2 (99th)
Notre Dame	24.0 (10th)	39.1 (10th)	15.1 (9th)
SMU	12.9 (23rd)	36.3 (22nd)	23.4 (39th)
Virginia	-4.5 (77th)	25.5 (75th)	29.9 (81st)
Miami	14.4 (19th)	36.9 (18th)	22.5 (36th)
Boston College	-3.8 (75th)	25.2 (77th)	29.1 (72nd)
Clemson	19.8 (14th)	37.0 (15th)	17.1 (13th)
Stanford	-5.6 (84th)	26.0 (71st)	31.6 (94th)
Pitt	-4.8 (81st)	21.5 (97th)	26.4 (53rd)
Kentucky	12.4 (25th)	33.5 (31st)	21.1 (31st)

Louisville's Updated 2024 SP+ Chart /

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 7.67, and they have a 27.59 percent chance to finish the season with eight wins, the highest out of any other win mark. For all intents and purposes, as of right now, SP+ is projecting the Cardinals to go 8-4 in 2024.

A lot can happen between now and Aug. 31 when Louisville hosts Austin Peay to kick off the season. But for the time being, it seems that Louisville is shaping up to have a successful year two under Brohm.

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

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