Projecting Louisville's Second Half of 2022 Using SP+ and FPI

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The bye week is finally here for the Louisville football program.

Up to this point, the Cardinals have a disappointing 2022 season, going 3-3 overall and just 1-3 in ACC play. That being said, they are heading into the break with a little bit of momentum on their side, coming off of a 34-17 win at Virginia.

When Louisville hosts Pitt on Saturday, Oct. 22 at Cardinal Stadium, it will officially kick off the second half of their 2022 campaign. It won't be an easy endeavor the rest of the way, as the Panthers are the reigning ACC Champions, and the other five teams after them are all ranked in the AP Top 25.

The next six games will be crucial in determining not only the direction of the program, but perhaps even the employment status of head coach Scott Satterfield. So how well will the Cardinals perform down the stretch? Well, we already have some idea thanks to ESPN's predictive college football metrics, SP+ and FPI.

SP+, according to its creator Bill Connelly, is a "tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency." It takes into account three primary factors: returning production, recent recruiting and recent history. As for FPI, it is a "predictive rating system designed to measure team strength and project performance going forward," vaguely similar to that of SP+.

First, we'll start with SP+. Louisville's SP+ rating currently sits at 3.2 through the first six weeks of the 2022 season, which is good for 60th 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 2022 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.

Louisville's 2022 SP+ Chart

As you can see, SP+ isn't very high on Louisville the rest of the way. It has them as underdogs in every one of their final six games, with their best chance to win coming against Pitt at 45.78 percent.

Despite this, Louisville does an have an expected wins mark of 5.03. They have a 33.93 percent chance to finish the season with exactly five wins, the highest out of any other win mark. As it pertains to reaching at least six wins to clinch bowl eligibility, SP+ gives Louisville only a 32.61 percent chance at doing so.

But what about FPI? As it turns out, it's a lot more bullish on the Cardinals. With an FPI rating of 6.4, Louisville comes in at No. 40 in all of FBS through the first six weeks of the season.

FPI is what ESPN uses to power their matchup predictor, which as you can probably guess, projects the win probabilities of every college football game involving teams at the FBS level.

Louisville's Remaining 2022 Schedule with FPI Ratings and Projected Results

Date	Team	FPI Rating	UofL Win Prob.
Oct. 22	vs. Pitt	6.3 (42nd)	58.9%
Oct. 29	vs. Wake Forest	9.5 (24th)	49.1%
Nov. 5	vs. J. Madison	3.6 (55th)	63.2%
Nov. 12	at Clemson	20.1 (6th)	11.9%
Nov. 19	vs. NC State	9.5 (26th	49.6%
Nov. 26	at Kentucky	7.5 (35th)	39.2%

FPI paints a much more positive outlook for Louisville, projecting them as clear underdogs to only Clemson and Kentucky. It projects the Cardinals being clear favorites against Pitt and James Madison, with the games against Wake Forest and NC State essentially being projected as pick 'em's.

In fact, according to the metric, Louisville still has a 57.1 percent chance to reach six games and clinch bowl eligibility

In layman's terms, one metric paints a bleak second half of the season, while the other gives Louisville a fighting chance to make at least some noise down the stretch. Regardless of which metric you chose to believe, the Cardinals will have their hands full when play resumes, and the future of the head coach could very well depend on how they finish the season.

(Photo of Cardinal Stadium: Matt McGavic - Louisville Report)

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