Louisville’s stumble at NC State did more than hand the Cardinals a second straight loss. It also pushed them backward in the ESPN Football Power Index, which now has them sliding to No. 36 after the 31-28 defeat.
That drop comes just in time for another tight one. Louisville returns to L&N Stadium on Friday night to face Florida State, and the FPI matchup model sees a game that should go down to the wire, giving the Cardinals a 53.2% chance to win. Florida State enters at No. 30 in the updated rankings after beating Virginia, 38-7, at home to move to 3-2.
The bigger picture in the FPI still leans Louisville’s way for most of the remaining schedule, though the final stretch has become less comfortable. The projections now favor the Cardinals in all but the last two games, which tilt to Pittsburgh and Kentucky for a second straight week. Louisville’s remaining strength of schedule is No. 61, and the FPI gives the team a 73.3% chance of winning at least six games.
At the top of the national picture, Ohio State sits No. 1 in the FPI, followed by Georgia, Notre Dame, Texas and Miami. Texas owns the highest national title chance at 14.9%. In the ACC, Miami leads the way, with Pittsburgh, Florida State, Wake Forest and Louisville behind the Hurricanes.
ESPN describes its Football Power Index as "is a measure of team strength that is meant to be the best predictor of a team's performance going forward for the rest of the season. FPI represents how many points above or below average a team is.
Projected results are based on 20,000 simulations of the rest of the season using FPI, results to date, and the remaining schedule. Ratings and projections update daily.
FPI data from seasons prior to 2019 may not be complete."
The season-by-season projection sheet has been mixed for Louisville, with the Cardinals correctly tagged as underdogs in the opener against Ole Miss in Nashville, Tenn. Ole Miss was projected to win that game 69.1% of the time, and the Rebels did just that, pulling out a 41-38 victory on a last-second field goal. Louisville is now 0-2 all-time against Ole Miss.
The model then heavily favored Louisville over Villanova, giving the Cardinals a 98.3% win probability. Louisville handled that one and later followed with a 41-31 win over SMU, a game the FPI gave the Cardinals just a 52.8% edge in.
The Mustangs entered that matchup as the No. 24 team in the FPI and were projected to finish 9-3. SMU had been picked No. 2 in the ACC preseason poll, and Louisville improved to 1-4 all-time against the Mustangs with the victory.
The projections also liked Louisville against Wake Forest and NC State, but both slipped away. Wake Forest was given a 80.1% losing outlook by the FPI when it met Louisville, yet the Demon Deacons left with a 30-27 win.
Louisville is now 7-4 all-time against Wake Forest. A week later, the Cardinals were projected to win at NC State 67.2% of the time, only to fall 31-28 in their first ACC road game of the season.
Louisville is now 9-5 all-time against NC State.
Looking ahead, the FPI gives Louisville favorable numbers against Syracuse, Stanford, Georgia Tech and North Carolina. Syracuse is next at 70.7%, followed by Stanford at 95.9%, Georgia Tech at 73.3% and North Carolina at 53.3%.
Louisville is 13-8 all-time against Syracuse, leads North Carolina 5-3 in the series, and is tied 2-2 with Georgia Tech. Stanford will make its first-ever football visit to Louisville, where the Cardinals are 0-1 all-time against the Cardinal.
The back half of the schedule gets tougher. Pittsburgh is projected as a narrow favorite at 53.4%, and Kentucky is favored at 57.5%.
Pitt is off to a 5-0 start after winning at Virginia Tech, 35-33, and Louisville and Pitt are deadlocked 11-11 in the series. Kentucky, meanwhile, improved to 4-1 with a 35-34 overtime win at South Carolina.
Louisville will try to win a third straight in the rivalry after last season’s 41-0 victory in Louisville. Kentucky still leads the all-time series 19-17, though Louisville holds a 17-13 edge since the rivalry renewed in 1994.
The FPI also notes that Louisville leads Florida State 18-6 all-time, though the teams have not met since the 2023 ACC Championship Game, when the Seminoles won 16-6. Florida State was picked 11th in the ACC preseason poll.
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For the Cardinals, the real question is less about talent than timing. Their roster overhaul gives them a wide range of possibilities, but it also makes chemistry the central issue in a race where the margin for error will be thin, and the challenge is figuring out whether a group like this can come together fast enough to matter when the league season starts sorting itself out. [Read more 🡒]