Louisville football is coming off another nine-win season under Jeff Brohm, but the Cardinals and the fans are hoping to take it to the next level in 2026. Louisville put together some big-time performances this past season, defeating Miami and Kentucky, but the Cards weren’t able to put a full season together, losing to Cal and Clemson in consecutive weeks late in the season.
Now, the group is looking to get back to the ACC Championship Game and, hopefully, claim its first ACC Title in program history. Louisville is emerging as a true ACC Title contender and a College Football Playoff dark horse team, and Josh Pate just confirmed that.
Pate is one of College Football’s well-known analysts, and in a recent show on his YouTube channel, he broke down exactly why he “leans hard” on the Cardinals being better this upcoming season.
Josh Pate predicts Louisville football will top last season's win total
Pate broke down a few teams and whether he believes they will be better than their record from the 2025 season. When Pate talked about Louisville, the college football analyst not only revealed he thinks Jeff Brohm’s Cardinals will be better, but he is quite confident they will be better.
“I think they are going to be favored in like 10 of their games,” stated Pate. “They just brought in the No. 4 portal class, and Jeff Brohm does excellent things at getting the most out of whatever parts he has. So, 8-4 last year, I lean hard for better than 8-4.”
Louisville’s win total is currently set at 8.5, according to FanDuel, and while Louisville does have a couple of hard games to open its season, Pate makes it clear he is confident in Brohm. The Cardinals brought back key players from this past season, including Isaac Brown, who Pate is very high on.
“He had 884 on the ground last year, and really, if you look at the totality of it, it’s in like six games," stated Pate "He had one game with one carry, another game he had half a dozen. But, really, it’s like half a season that he played, and he got close to 1,000 yards.”
Of course, Louisville and its fans have eyes on a better season than 9-3, but Pate seems awfully confident this team can get to 10 wins. The Cardinals have Ole Miss and SMU in the first three weeks, and it's clear that if Brohm can have Louisville 2-1 heading into Week 4, this team is in great shape to make some noise in the ACC.
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