Louisville Ranked Outside Top-40 in ESPN's 2025 Preseason FPI

Originally posted on Louisville Cardinals on SI
By Matthew McGavic | Last updated Jun 4, 2025 6:00 AM ET

The first two years under head coach Jeff Brohm for the Louisville football program have been immensely successful. 2023 saw the program secure their first ten-win season in a decade plus first ever berth in the ACC Championship, while 2024 saw them snap losing streaks to both Clemson and Kentucky.

Having gone 19-8 over his first two years back with his alma mater, Brohm's third year at the helm is generating a large amount of local and national hype. The Cardinals have been a regular staple of preseason top 25 polls, and are a dark horse to win thew ACC in 2025.

That all being said, how well will Louisville perform in year three of the Jeff Brohm era? There might be roughly three months until kickoff, but we already have some idea thanks to the folks at ESPN.

On Tuesday, they released the preseason iteration of their Football Power Index rankings. For those unfamiliar, FPI is a "predictive rating system designed to measure team strength and project performance going forward," vaguely similar to that of the SP+ college football metric.

But unlike SP+ plus most college football pundits and analysts, FPI is not super high on the Cardinals. With a rating of 6.0, they come in at No. 41 in all of FBS.

As it pertains to the ACC, they rank No. 6 in the league, behind Miami, Clemson, SMU, Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech. Texas, Georgia, Alabama, Ohio State and Penn State round out the top five overall.

FPI projects Louisville's win/loss record at 6.7-5.3, and gives the Cardinals just a 1.7 percent chance to win the ACC, and an 4.4 percent chance to make the College Football Playoff.

Despite losing players like Ashton Gillotte, Quincy Riley and Tyler Shough, Louisville is bringing back multiple impact playmakers, such as WR Caullin Lacy, RB Isaac Brown, LB Stanquan Clark, and several others. The Cardinals also bolstered their roster via the portal this offseason, bringing over pieces like USC QB Miller Moss and Coastal Carolina DE Clev Lubin.

Louisville's 2025 Schedule with FPI Ratings and Rankings