Projecting Louisville's 2023 Season Using Updated SP+ Rankings
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.
The 2022 campaign for Louisville was full of ups and downs, but they still finished on a high note and with a winning record. The Cardinals went 8-5 overall, including a 4-4 mark in Atlantic Coast Conference play and a 24-7 win over the Cincinnati in the Fenway Bowl.
But with a new head coach in charge, how well will Louisville perform in year one 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 Thursday.
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.
Louisville's SP+ rating did increase, going to 11.0 from their February offseason mark of 10.3. However, their overall ranking amongst the 133 FBS teams remained the same at No. 36.
Unsurprisingly given their success on that side of the ball last season plus their offseason additions, the metric is very high on the defensive side of the ball for the Cardinals, giving it a rating of 18.9, or 20th in FBS. Conversely, SP+ is not as big of a fan of the offensive side of things even with the influx of transfer talent, giving it a rating of 29.9, or 50th in FBS.
Using SP+, we can plug in the rating from each team on Louisville's schedule and take a deep dive into how the 2023 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+ | Offensive SP+ | Defensive SP+ |
|---|---|---|---|
Georgia Tech | -2.7 (67th) | 22.3 (89th) | 25.0 (53rd) |
Murray State | -20 (N/A) | N/A | N/A |
Indiana | -3.4 (71st) | 27.8 (61st) | 31.2 (92nd) |
Boston College | -4.2 (74th) | 22.0 (91st) | 26.2 (63rd) |
NC State | 7.5 (43rd) | 26.8 (67th) | 19.3 (21st) |
Notre Dame | 19.3 (15th) | 36.3 (26th) | 17.0 (15th) |
Pitt | 8.7 (41st) | 32.7 (40th) | 24.0 (49th) |
Duke | 4.0 (55th) | 29.7 (51st) | 25.8 (61st) |
Virginia Tech | -1.4 (65th) | 22.1 (90th) | 23.5 (46th) |
Virginia | -5.3 (79th) | 14.7 (124th) | 19.9 (24th) |
Miami | 10.9 (37th) | 30.3 (47th) | 19.3 (22nd) |
Kentucky | 14.5 (22nd) | 28.1 (59th) | 13.7 (5) |
Louisville's 2023 SP+ Chart
SP+ is already pretty high on Louisville. Add the relatively easy schedule on top of it, and the metric becomes even more in their favor.
In fact, the Cardinals will play just two teams that boast a higher SP+ rating - Notre Dame and Kentucky - and have a win probably of over 50.0 percent in eight games of their 12 games. Louisville is a slight underdog at Pitt, at Miami and vs. Kentucky, and are decisive 'dogs vs. Notre Dame.
Louisville has an expected wins mark of 8.11, which is up from their mark of 7.96 back in February. They have a 26.35 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 2022.
A lot can happen between now and Sept. 1 when Louisville travels up down to Atlanta to kick off the season. But for the time being, it seems that Louisville is potentially shaping up to have a successful inaugural campaign under Brohm.
(Photo of L&N Stadium via University of Louisville Athletics)
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