Louisville will head into Saturday’s matchup with SMU as the team expected to win, a notable shift from the way its season began.
Fanduel Sportsbook listed No. 23 Louisville as a 2.5-point home favorite over No.
16 SMU, giving the Cardinals a favored spot in a ranked-on-ranked game for the second time in three weeks. In the opener, Louisville went to No.
9 Ole Miss as roughly a touchdown underdog and came away with a 41-38 loss.
The matchup has been drawing attention because Louisville and SMU look like the ACC’s top threats outside of Miami, and neither program is set to face the Hurricanes this season. That has pushed Saturday’s game into the conversation as one of the conference’s most important of the year.
For Louisville, the stakes go beyond beating a ranked opponent. SMU has been a problem the last two times the teams met since the Mustangs entered the ACC, and the Cardinals still haven’t gotten over the hump.
In 2024, SMU escaped L&N Stadium with a 34-27 upset after a controversial overturned replay review, a win that helped send the Mustangs to the College Football Playoff. A year later in Dallas, SMU delivered the most lopsided loss of the Jeff Brohm era, rolling past Louisville 38-6 in November.
SMU arrives at 2-0 once again under Heisman hopeful quarterback Kevin Jennings. The Mustangs opened with a messy 27-24 win at Florida State, then followed it up by pounding UC Davis 56-10 at home on Saturday.
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Louisville Heads Into SMU With Two Huge Concerns Already Looming
Preparing for a road trip to SMU already comes with enough stress, and Jeff Brohm spent part of the week trying to sort through the Cardinals own moving parts before they even get to kickoff. Louisville is dealing with the usual late-season grind in the backfield, where depth has become more important than one featured runner, and Brohm pointed to the work being done by Marquise Davis and Braxton Jennings as examples of how the group has stayed productive.
The more immediate concern is the health of the roster, with hopes for Keyjuan Brown and uncertainty surrounding Demeco Kennedy shaping the weeks practice plan. On the other side, SMU brings a conference test that will force Louisville to stay sharp in space and on schedule, which makes the Cardinals injury situation feel even more significant as Saturday approaches. [Read more 🡒]
Pat Kelsey Has Louisville In A Recruiting Race Fans Can't Ignore
Pat Kelseys staff is already deep into the 2027 recruiting cycle, and Louisville is making its case early with a pair of five-star targets at the center of it. The Cardinals are working on prospects CJ Rosser and DeMarcus Henry, part of a broader push to land multiple elite high school players and keep building momentum on the trail under Kelsey.
Recruiting services have put Louisville firmly in the mix, which is enough to keep attention on what happens next as the staff continues its rounds. Assistant coach Ronnie Hamilton has been active in those efforts, and with the Cardinals chasing high-end talent across the class, the next few visits and evaluations could matter a great deal even before any commitment talk gets real. [Read more 🡒]
Louisville Faces A Familiar SMU Problem It Still Has To Solve
Louisvilles next ACC test brings back an old headache, with SMU and quarterback Kevin Jennings back on the schedule after the Cardinals were beaten badly by the Mustangs a year ago. The matchup points straight at Louisvilles defense, which has to deal with one of the leagues most aggressive passing attacks and the pace SMU prefers to play at, a combination that can quickly turn a game into a chase.
Jennings has already shown he can make Louisville pay in recent meetings, and the Cardinals know this is less about a single coverage tweak than about surviving series after series against an offense that does not slow down. Coaches and players have talked openly about the difficulty of corralling him and getting the defense aligned in time, which is why this game feels less like a fresh start and more like another chance to solve a problem Louisville has not quite answered yet. [Read more 🡒]