The Louisville football team surprised a lot of folks around college football last year when they made it to the ACC Championship Game. It was Jeff Brohm's first year as the head coach of the program so things were expected to start out a bit slower than they did.
Instead, the Cardinals had a shot to make the College Football Playoff until the last couple of games of the regular season. Had they not lost those, they had a shot to make the CFP as the ACC representative. While they weren't able to beat Florida State in the ACC Championship, it was still a good year.
Now, a bunch of players are gone. New faces dot the offense. They just lost one of their best receivers to an injury for at least a month. What is the ceiling of this Louisville Cardinals team? Can Brohm pull off wonders in his second year leading the program?
Determining the ceiling of this Louisville football team
The schedule isn't terribly tough early on. In fact, they will be favored in five out of their first six games. The lone matchup that should give them issues in that stretch is the Notre Dame game in South Bend. Other than that, they should win every game.
After that stretch things get tougher. They get both Miami and Clemson this year. They do get the Hurricanes at home, so that helps. Splitting those games gives them an excellent shot to win out and play for the ACC Championship at the end of the year.
Winning that game would give them a berth in the CFP. I think that's a reasonable goal for them to have. 10-2 is probably the ceiling for the regular season. Doing that should be good enough to get looked at as an at-large team if they don't end up making the ACC Championship Game.
Tyler Shough is the leader of this team. It will go how he is able to go. Staying healthy is the key to him having a successful season, something that has eluded him in his career.