Tyler Shough

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- The biggest game for the University of Louisville football team this weekend is not the one the Cardinals will play while making their first trip Stanford Saturday.

Stanford is awful.

Stanford has allowed 23 passing touchdowns, the most of any Atlantic Coast Conference team.

Stanford's quarterbacks have thrown more interceptions (13) than touchdowns (12).

Stanford ranks next-to-last in the ACC in total offense and total defense.

Stanford is certifiably awful, beaten by an average of almost 23 points in five conference losses.

But that game kicks off at 3:30 p.m. EST. There is another game that will begin at noon that is more meaningful for Jeff Brohm's team.

That game is Clemson at Pittsburgh.

The clearest path that Louisville has to sneak back into the ACC Championship game discussion begins with Pittsburgh upsetting the visiting Tigers.

PlayoffStatus.com, a web site that tracks the conference championship and playoff probabilities for all college and professional teams, puts Louisville's likelihood of making the ACC title game at 7%.

Here is what Louisville needs:

  • Pitt to upset visiting Clemson as a 10-point underdog Saturday.
  • Miami to lose at least one of its final two games to Wake Forest (home) or Syracuse (road). (The Hurricanes are off this week.)

ACC leader SMU (5-0) has three league games to play. The Mustangs are 19.5-point favorites against Boston College Saturday. They figure to be about nine-point favorites over Virginia and California in their final two games.

Chances are SMU will finish no worse than 7-1 and claim one spot in the title game.

But Clemson (6-1), Miami (5-1), Louisville (4-2) and Pitt (3-2) are all studying ACC tiebreaker scenarios.

Miami sits in the sweetest spot. If the Hurricanes handle Wake and Syracuse, they can proceed directly to Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte on Dec. 7 because they currently have a tiebreaker advantage over the others.

Louisville needs the Hurricanes to fail once. But first the Cards need Clemson to stumble Saturday at Pitt.

If the Cards defeat Stanford and Pitt, they could finish in a three-way tie with Miami and Clemson. Those two programs did not play. Louisville lost to Miami but defeated Pitt.

The three schools do not share any common opponents. The next tiebreaker?

The combined winning percentage of each team's conference opponents.

Here are those numbers as of today:

  • Louisville .617 (29-18)
  • Miami .429 (21-28)
  • Clemson .396 (19-29)

Advantage Cards. Considering Louisville has played five of the top six teams in the league, there are not enough games remaining for the numbers to tilt in favor of Miami or Clemson.

But that won't matter unless Pitt upsets Clemson AND Miami stumbles one more time. (If somehow Miami lost twice, Louisville would advance ahead of Clemson because of their victory in Death Valley.)

So what are the chances of that happening?

As I said earlier, the Playoff Status website puts it at 7%.

The current breakdown at the site is this:

  • SMU 88%
  • Miami 65%
  • Clemson 33%
  • Louisville and Pitt 7%

Everybody else? Irrelevant.

ESPN's matchup predictor puts Pittsburgh's chances of beating Miami at 30.8%. Until stumbling the last two weeks against SMU and Virginia, the Panthers had won their first seven games.

Pitt lost Eli Holstein in the third quarter of that game after the the Panthers' quarterback was hit high and late. His status for the Clemson game is uncertain.

As for Miami, after weeks of living dangerously the Hurricanes stumbled at Georgia Tech last weekend. But ESPN's matchup predictor puts their win probability at 95.9% against Wake Forest Nov. 23 and at 84% at Syracuse Nov. 30.

Throw all those numbers together and it explains why Louisville has a shot to return to Charlotte. But it all has to begin with Pittsburgh upsetting Clemson Saturday.

Louisville Football Coverage:

Copyright 2024 WDRB Media. All Rights Reserved.