Breaking Down Louisville's Updated 2020 Schedule Using SP+ and FPI
The status of the 2020 college football season might be in rapid fluctuation due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, but for the time being it looks like the Louisville Cardinals will be pressing onward with fall football.
Conferences like the Big Ten & Pac-12 have already pulled the plug on playing this fall, but the SEC, Big 12 and most importantly the ACC still plan on moving forward with football.
With a situation as fluid as this, it's certainly not a guarantee we will actually get to see the season played to its fullest, or even played at all. But for the purposes of this piece, let's pretend that it will be.
Following an 8-5 campaign in 2019 in his first year at the helm, including a Music City Bowl win over Mississippi State, head coach Scott Satterfield and the rest of the program are undoubtedly facing a whole new set of expectations heading into year two.
But how well are the Cards expected to perform in 2020? Well we actually already have some idea, thanks to a pair of predictive college football metrics: SP+ and FPI.
SP+ is a "tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency", while FPI "measures team strength and projects performance going forward". Both have different definitions, but arguably do close to the same thing.
We'll start with SP+, but full disclosure first though. ESPN's Bill Connelly, the creator of SP+, has not updated his SP+ numbers since originally announcing the first round of 2020 rankings back in February. Transfers, injuries, opt-outs and other factors have undoubtedly impacted the rankings since then, but for now as far as SP+ goes, this is what we have.
With an SP+ rating of 6.7, the Louisville Cardinals were ranked 41st out of 130 FBS teams. While the defense garnered a rating of 30.5 that leaves much to be desired (84th in FBS), the offensive side of the ball is unsurprisingly much better off with a rating of 37.2 (14th in FBS).
With SP+, we can plug in the rating from each team on Louisville's schedule and take a deep dive into how the 2020 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 2020 SP+ Chart
SP+ isn't as high on Louisville as one might think, as least according to the most recent numbers. The Cardinals have a win probably of over 50.0% in just 5 of their games (WKU, Georgia Tech, Syracuse, Boston College, Wake Forest), and by regular season's end have an expected wins mark of just 5.95.
Now let's move on to FPI. The numbers with this metric are a lot more recent as they were updated in June, and are a lot more-Louisville friendly.
Louisville sports an FPI rating of 12.9, good for 20th in the country and fourth in the Atlantic Coast Conference behind Clemson, Notre Dame and Virginia Tech. Like with SP+, the offense carries the bulk of the load as the Cardinals feature the fourth-best offense in the nation.
We can't get as in-depth with season predictions here as we can with SP+, but FPI is still fairly straight-forward with what to expect from Louisville in 2020.
| Opponent | Rating (Ranking) | Statistical Projection |
|---|---|---|
Western Kentucky | -2.2 (81st) | 89.5% |
Miami | 2.9 (51st) | 83.0% |
Pitt | 2.2 (56th) | 72.2% |
Georgia Tech | 3.3 (50th) | 69.5% |
Notre Dame | 15.4 (16th) | 35.1% |
Florida State | 10.8 (26th) | 65.1% |
Virginia Tech | 13.0 (18th) | 58.1% |
Virignia | -0.6 (71st) | 78.4% |
Syracuse | -4.2 (88th) | 92.1% |
Boston College | 2.5 (54th) | 67.7% |
Wake Forest | 0.5 (65th) | 86.7% |
Like I said, FPI likes Louisville a lot more than SP+ currently does. The Cards are favorites in 10 of their 11 games, and are only underdogs when they travel up to South Bend to take on Notre Dame. In fact, five of Louisville's matchups tab them as the favorite by over 75%. According to Louisville's FPI page, they are projected to have a win-loss record of 8-3 with a 2.8% of winning the conference - the third highest behind Clemson and Notre Dame.
A lot can happen between now and Sept. 12 when the Cards are set to welcome the Hilltoppers to Cardinal Stadium for the season opener. But for the time being it seems that Louisville could be in good shape to have a noteworthy 2020.
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