Vince Tyra Exploring Louisville Football's 2020 Non-Conference Options

With rumors and speculation running rampant across college football concerning the 2020 season in recent weeks, Louisville gained a little more clarity on Wednesday.

The ACC's Board of Directors voted to move to a scheduling model consisting of 10 conference games & one non-conference game - a move that has a huge impact on the Cardinals' 2020 schedule.

Louisville will now host Florida State, Miami, Syracuse, Virginia Tech and Wake Forest at Cardinal Stadium. Conversely, they will go on the road to face Boston College, Georgia Tech, Notre Dame, Pitt and Virginia. The contests against NC State & Clemson have been dropped, with the league adding Miami, Georgia Tech and Pitt into mix.

While the week-to-week schedule is not yet known, the Cardinals at least know their updated slate of conference games. But what about the "plus one" non-conference contest?

Prior to this move, the Cardinals had three non-conference games on their 2020 schedule: Western Kentucky, Murray State and Kentucky. Obviously the latter is the one that comes to mind first among both fans and UofL administrators, as it would preserve the annual rivalry game between the two schools.

Unfortunately, the Battle for the Governor's Cup will not be taking place this year. The SEC chose not to follow suit of the ACC's "plus one" model, instead opting for a 10 game conference-only schedule, thus eliminating the Cards & Cats from facing in 2020.

Fortunately, Athletic Director Vince Tyra was already in the process of determining Louisville's non-conference game and took into account the prospect of the SEC not cooperating with the ACC's new model.

"Since we're in a plus one situation, we'll reach out to potetnial other opponents," Tyra said in a teleconference with reporters Thursday prior to the SEC's announcement. "For us we had Murray State, Western Kentucky and Kentucky on the schedule. The SEC may dictate whether we get to play Kentucky or not."

With the Wildcats now off the table, the next candidates to full Louisville's non-conference slot would most likely be the Hilltoppers and Racers since they were previously already on the schedule.

"If they can fit us in their schedule and they meet the medical guidelines, then they're candidates to be played," Tyra said. As part of the new scheduling model, the conference set forth a variety of minimum standards that must be met be all 15 league members and the non-conference game that each team will add.

While Western Kentucky and Murray State are the most obvious choices to fill the void left by Kentucky, Tyra also suggested that Louisville could pursue a Power Five opponent.

"That would be ideal," he said. "Coach Satterfield has a similar mentality than coach (Chris) Mack does. They love to play great competition."

With the SEC, Big Ten and Pac-12 making the decision to go conference-only in 2020, by default the only Power Five league left to negotiate with is the Big 12. Tyra notes that while it will be difficult at this point to find an opponent from this conference, he is determined to find a potential solution.

"I think it becomes tricky to figure out how to get done, but we're certainly open to it," he said. Tyra also noted that he expects a minimum of a couple weeks before he find a non-conference suitor.

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