Louisville Football: History in the AP Poll

With the AP Poll coming out at noon, we take a look at the history of Louisville football in the AP poll.

Louisville football coach Jeff Brohm embraces Dennis Lampley after Brohm was introduced as the Cardinals' head coach. | Sam Upshaw Jr. - Courier Journal/USA TODAY Sports

With the football season swiftly approaching, the preseason polls are rolling out.  The Cards have been picked 3rd in the ACC media poll.  The preseason Top 25 Coaches poll has been released and finds Louisville at the top of the “other receiving votes” list.  The AP poll will come out today around noon and many expect the Cards to be right on the cusp of making the list.  The first College Football Playoff poll of the 2026 season will be released on Tuesday, November 3rd.  

Up until 1990, Louisville football only found themselves in the top 25 for one season.  Lee Corso’s final year at Louisville in 1972 saw the Cards eclipse the rankings for the first time Halloween weekend and finish the season ranked 18th.  The 9-1 campaign wasn’t enough for the Missouri Valley co-champs to be extended an invite to a bowl.  

It would be almost two decades before a Louisville football team found themselves in the rankings again.  The 1990 campaign saw the Cards once again crack the polls on Halloween weekend and eventually ascend all the way to 14th in the final poll after a Fiesta Bowl victory against Alabama.  The Liberty Bowl season of 1993 saw Schnellenberger’s squad ranked from mid-September all the way to a final ranking of 24th. 

Fast forward the rest of the decade (Schnellenberger leaving, the Ron Cooper Era, Jurich named AD, Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium opening and the turn of the millennium.)  Since the year 2000, Louisville football has been much more of a mainstay in the polls. 

John L Smith saw numbers next to his team’s names in 2000, where they came into the Liberty Bowl ranked 22nd before losing to Mountain West champion, Colorado State. The 2001 Liberty Bowl Champs would find themselves 17th in the final poll after knocking off BYU.   In 2002 the Cardinals would launch a Heisman campaign for Dave Ragone and see the first preseason ranking in program history, as they started the season ranked 17th.  The offensive line could not hold up for Ragone & an upstart Kentucky team would knock off Louisville on Labor Day weekend shunning The Ville from the polls the rest of the year. 

Insert the Bobby Petrino years.  The Bobby Petrino stints of (2003-2007 & 2014-2018) saw the Cards highest rankings and success.  From September of 2004 through September of 2007, the Cards were ranked all but two weeks in 2005.  2004 and 2006, saw Louisville finish the season 6th with wins in the Liberty and Orange Bowls.   Petrino would again have the Cards bouncing around the Top 25 in 2014, 2016 and 2017 in his second stint.  In each of the 2006 and 2016 seasons the Cards would get as high as third before primetime losses to Rutgers and Clemson would respectively crush national championship aspirations.  

Charlie Strong went 23-3 over the 2012 and 2013 seasons.  During the 12-1 2013 campaign, the Cards were preseason ninth and climbed as high as seventh, before finishing the season 15th with a bowl win over Miami.  The 2012 season was topped off with a Sugar Bowl win over third ranked Florida and Louisville ended the season 13th.  

Under the leadership of Scott Satterfield, the Cards cracked the ranking in September of the 2020 “Covid” season for their College Gameday matchup with Miami.  The Cards would only spend two weeks in the AP poll under Scott Satterfield. 

While Louisville has never obtained a preseason ranking under Jeff Brohm, they have made appearances in the poll all three seasons.  In 2023, after a 10-1 start, the Cards ascended into the top-10 in his first season.  They finished the season ranked 19th after a Holiday Bowl appearance.   In 2024 & 2025, they bounced around the polls before losses to Stanford and California in those respective years knocked them out for good in November.  

The ultimate goal of this 2026 season is to achieve the program’s first playoff experience.  Entering the third season of the 12 team playoff and with a favorable schedule in conference play, many fans believe this should be the year.  The playoff poll made its debut in 2014; Louisville has been ranked in the playoff poll in 2014, 2016 and 2022-2025.  It has once been ranked in the Top 5 in 2016 & finished in the top 15 twice, 2016 and 2023.