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Louisville football should expect to be a top-25 team when the preseason rankings are released over the next few months.
Jeff Brohm’s debut performance as his alma mater’s head football coach put the program back on the national stage for the first time in nearly a decade.
“They weren’t a team that really forced the attention of or the national spotlight onto them,” ESPN college football reporter David Hale said. “Last year, particularly with the Notre Dame win, that changed a good bit.”
Louisville had only defeated Notre Dame once before the 33-20 home victory over the Fighting Irish.
The bar was raised inside the Cardinals’ building, but outside expectations have risen, too. According to ESPN’s FPI rankings, Louisville has the third-best chance of winning the ACC (12%). The Seminoles have the best chance of repeating as conference champs at 26.2%, followed by Clemson (19.3%), which finished sixth in the league standings.
U of L prepared for the challenge by hitting the transfer portal hard again, bringing in the 13th-ranked class in the country, per 247Sports. The Cardinals’ high school recruiting class ranks 38th nationally, with five of the players arriving in January.
Louisville opens the season at home for the first time since 2020 and will look for a strong start against Austin Peay.
Here are three numbers to know ahead of the season:
81
Louisville’s Ashton Gillotte again will be a cornerstone on defense.
According to ESPN’s SP+ rankings, Louisville is eighth nationally in returning defensive production at 81%. Not only does that include the Cardinals’ six players who played 500 or more snaps but also the five defenders they added from the transfer portal.
Defensive linemen Ashton Gillotte and Mason Reiger are ranked third and eighth, respectively, in the highest-graded returning edge rushers…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/does-louisville-football-stack-acc-090640528.html
Author : The Courier Journal
Publish date : 2024-06-18 09:06:40
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