The Louisville Cardinals are set up for a challenging 2025 schedule. They will have to face the ACC powerhouses: Clemson, Miami, and SMU. Louisville football currently has the third-best odds to win the ACC Title, but a lot will depend on its games against those three programs.
Their out-of-conference schedule shouldn't challenge Jeff Brohm and his Cards too much, as Louisville will face Eastern Kentucky, James Madison, Bowling Green, and Kentucky. However, Louisville is looking to change its out-of-conference schedule reputation for the future, as the Cardinals apparently were trying to improve their future schedule by adding two SEC giants.
The keyword in that last sentence was tried. On May 16, Brett McMurphy reported that Louisville tried to add two thrilling games against Tennessee and Ole Miss, but the SEC giants were not interested and passed on the opportunity.
SEC giants duck Louisville football as the Cardinals push for elite matchups
Tennessee and Ole Miss appear to be ducking the Louisville Cardinals. The two SEC giants passed up on the golden opportunity to play Louisville in a home-and-home series. Recently, Tennessee's series with Nebraska and Ole Miss's series with Wake Forest were cancelled, opening up a prime opportunity for both SEC schools to play an elite team.
McMurphy reported that the Cardinals reached out and tried to play both schools in the future, but neither school was interested. The Volunteers scheduled their game with a different ACC program, as Tennessee will now play Georgia Tech, and Ole Miss will play Washington State.
The Cardinals fans are incredibly disappointed, as both games would have created a thrilling atmosphere for both fan bases and a game to remember. Instead, Tennessee and Ole Miss went a different route, which made it appear that they were scared or were ducking the Cardinals.
Louisville football already has exciting games on its future schedule as the Cardinals are set to play Georgia in a home-and-home series starting next season at L&N Stadium. Louisville also has a home-to-home series with Texas A&M in 2028 and 2029, and will play Notre Dame in 2030,2032,2033, and 2035.
Related: Louisville football 2025 game-by-game predictions
For all the latest on Louisville football's offseason, stay tuned.