LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — This is how many games the University of Louisville football team will play against teams that presently have losing records over the final two months of the season:
None.
Not Stanford, which was picked to finish 17th and last at ACC Football Kickoff in July.
Not Virginia, where coach Tony Elliott was supposed to be on the hot seat by now.
Not Kentucky, which lost two of its first three but just punctured Mississippi’s unbeaten season.
And certainly not SMU, the high-octane ACC newcomer that will visit L&N Cardinal Stadium at noon Saturday with a 4-1 record.
Starting with SMU and finishing with Kentucky on Nov. 30, Louisville will line up against eight opponents with a combined record of 28-8.
Miami (5-0) and Pittsburgh (4-0) are unbeaten. After stumbling against Georgia, Clemson (3-1) has outscored its last three opponents by 96 points.
Boston College (4-1) has been one of the surprise teams in the country. Virginia (3-1) and Stanford (2-2) have not been as dreadful as they were supposed to be. Kentucky has the kind of defense that can beat anybody.
Then there is SMU. In its last two games, the Mustangs outscored TCU and Florida State 108-58.
That’s the TCU program that played in the national title game two seasons ago. That is the Florida State program that won the ACC title last season and was predicted to repeat this season.
Sure, there has been slippage at TCU and FSU this season but Louisville cannot show up Saturday thinking about how that victory at Notre Dame got away last Saturday.
“We’ve got a really good opponent coming in,” U of L coach Jeff Brohm said. “SMU is playing about as good as anybody in the country.”
I’m not ready to put the Mustangs in the discussion for the college football playoff. Not after they huffed and puffed before winning their season opener at Nevada and then lost by three to BYU.
But Brohm said that since SMU coach Rhett Lashlee settled on Kevin Jennings, a smallish (6 feet tall, 185 pounds) sophomore as the Mustangs’ quarterback it has been touchdown after touchdown after touchdown.
In the last two games, Jennings has thrown five scoring passes without an interception while SMU ran for 238 yards against TCU and 204 against Florida State.
“(Lashlee) has done a really good job settling on a quarterback who is multi-talented,” Brohm said. “He can run and he can throw the ball accurately. He’s athletic.
“They’ve got speed at the skill positions. You can see that once he settled on this quarterback, the offense has kind of taken off and they’ve put up a lot of points. They get the ball to their playmakers and they play with great tempo.”
Although the Mustangs failed to crack the AP Top 25 or the coaches poll, generating only a few votes, they have earned considerably more respect in the computer rankings.
The ESPN Football Power Index ranks SMU No. 19, only seven spots behind the Cardinals. Jeff Sagarin’s predictor formula ranks U of L No. 17 and SMU 19th.
At Draft Kings on Monday, Louisville was listed as a 7-point favorite. Using Sagarin’s numbers, the Cards should only be favored by 3.76.
In other words, another one-score game. Louisville went 5-1 in one-score games last season. The Cards lost their first one score game 31-24 in South Bend last Saturday.
“From here on out, we’ve got really good teams,” Brohm said. “The teams on our schedule have good records.
“They’ve played well, maybe some that weren’t, according to experts, supposed to have that kind of success. But they have.
“So we’ll have our hands full every week, starting this week against one of the hottest teams in our conference as far as scoring points and playing aggressive defense and getting turnovers.
“They just had two dominant wins the last two weeks against TCU and Florida State that are very impressive when you watch those videos.”
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