Louisville football: The rebuild and life after Lamar Jackson

Schedule and Prediction

I sure hope Louisville doesn’t get down on themselves after an early loss because that Alabama game in week one will not do them any favors for confidence. After getting smacked week one, the schedule clears up a bit, but the ACC Atlantic is just as brutal as usual.

There are three conference games I’m pretty confident Louisville can take, and then there’s a lot of really tough games. They don’t have a Heisman quarterback to bail them out this year. That’s a huge issue with this defense because they might be on the field quite a bit.

Prediction: 6-6

This year is going to be a pretty big step back for Louisville. They only managed eight wins with the best quarterback in America last year, their defense gets worse, and the schedule is roughly the same level of difficulty. That’s a recipe for disaster, and while 6-6 feels conservative for this program, they’re just a slip-up or two from 4-8.

Alabama is a loss, Indiana State is a win, as is Western Kentucky. Virginia is probably their easiest conference game, so I think they take that one, as well as wins over Wake Forest and Syracuse. That’s five wins, meaning that they need one win over the group of FSU, Georgia Tech, Boston College, Clemson, NC State and Kentucky.

I can’t imagine this defense stopping Benny Snell or A.J. Dillon, so those two are probably out. They’ll struggle against Georgia Tech’s option as well, so that’ll probably be a coin toss. FSU and Clemson are likely losses, leaving NC State, Georgia Tech, Boston College and Kentucky as the only real winnable games.

Boston College is on the road, so I’ll chalk that up as a loss. Luckily, the other three are at home, and while I think Georgia Tech will be better than they were last year, I think Louisville gets that sixth win against them.