Louisville football: Predicting the remainder of the 2019 schedule

Five games into the Louisville football season, things are not at all as we expected. We reassess, break down, and predict the Cardinals’ final seven games.

We are already almost halfway through Louisville football season. Though it is sad to see the year nearly half over, Cards fans should be nothing but thrilled about the product that first-year head coach Scott Satterfield and staff have put on the field.

Playing nine current or former walk-ons, being subject to multiple tough injuries, depleted depth, and a pretty tough schedule, Louisville has already surpassed its win total from last season and shown a lot of promise in its two losses.

With seven games remaining, it seems like now is better than ever to reassess the Cardinals’ schedule and what expectations should be.

Entering the season, putting a number or win/ loss total on a team rebuilding under a completely new coaching staff and coming off of one of the worst seasons in program history can be guessing game. We broke down the season from every angle, predicted strengths and weaknesses, stand-out players and more, yet most of the expectations prior to the season have already proven to be completely misconstrued.

Then there’s the matter of Louisville’s opponents. Prior to the season, figuring out how was going to be a contender in the ACC was a tough task, as illustrated by the ACC media voting that, outside of Clemson, saw most teams receive relatively even votes. In the Coastal division, every single team received at least one first-place vote.

Now that the dust has cleared, it has been a bit easier to separate the pretenders from the contenders, and Louisville’s schedule that was once thought to be backloaded has some games that could now be winnable.

In an attempt to reevaluate Louisville’s final seven games, let’s break them down into games that are expected losses vs winnable match-ups.

Note: For the purposes of this article, we will use the ESPN Football Predictive Index to help gauge what kind of chance, statistically speaking, Louisville has of pulling off a win.

The FPI is subject to change on a week-to-week basis.