Game day is here, and Louisville football fans are ready to tune in for what may be the Cardinals' biggest game of the season. With Louisville sitting at 1-1 through the first two games, the Cardinals will look to avoid their first 1-2 start since 2022.
Louisville football vs. SMU final odds and predictions
Jeff Brohm has a huge Week 3 showdown against No. 16 SMU, where the winner of this game certainly feels like the favorite to face Miami in the ACC Championship game. Obviously, anything can happen in a season, but looking at the schedules and FanDuel’s odds, Miami is the clear favorite to make it to Charlotte, and depending on this afternoon’s matchup, Louisville or SMU appears to be the favorite to face Miami in the big game.
So, a lot is riding on this game, and with major conference implications, College Football Gameday recently made its picks.
Louisville continues to trend as favorite ahead of SMU showdown
College Football Gameday is, of course, the beloved show where Rece Davis, Kirk Herbstreit, Pat McAfee, Nick Saban, and Desmond Howard travel to the game of the week and highlight the whole weekend of college football. Today, the crew went to Oxford, Mississippi, for the top-10 showdown as No. 8 Ole Miss hosts No. 7 LSU.
At the end of the show, all analysts except Davis announced their picks for the weekend's biggest games, and when the crew discussed Louisville and SMU, the Cardinals got some extra love and praise.
The College GameDay crew (mostly) picks Louisville over SMU. pic.twitter.com/atpGWRSS03
— Alexis Cubit (@Alexis_Cubit) September 19, 2026
Howard, Herbstreit, Saban, and guest picker Morgan Freeman all favored the Cardinals by picking Louisville to upset SMU, except McAfee. Louisville is getting a lot of picks for this game, as not only did these four pick Louisville, but all four analysts on CBS College Football picked Louisville, and Josh Pate picked Louisville.
The Cardinals are 1.5-point favorites entering this game and will be looking to earn their first win over SMU in program history. For the Cardinals to win, they have to find a way to get Isaac Brown going and slow SMU QB Kevin Jennings down.
This should be another thrilling Louisville football game in 2026, and the national media appears to be heavily favoring the Cardinals right now. Louisville and SMU are set to kick off at 3:30 p.m. local time on ESPN 2.
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