U of L a fit in debut ACC season
Every precinct has reported and the results are in for the University of Louisville's first football season in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
The Cardinals (7-3 overall) finished with five wins and three losses and should be in line for a reputable bowl's invitation in December. They beat two league opponents with winning records — BC and Miami — and suffered narrow, but confidence-building, defeats to ACC powers Clemson and FSU.
Ultimately that's not so bad for the first year in a so-called Power Five conference, especially considering the oddly front-loaded scheduling. The Cardinals are the only ACC team already done with league play.
"It's been a little different conference schedule for us," U of L coach Bobby Petrino said. "I think it's been a good grind for our players."
Petrino highlighted some of the oddities on Louisville's schedule in his reflection on the season. The Cardinals played games over each of the first eight weeks, and the first of two idle weekends was cut short by a Thursday game against FSU the following week.
At one point, from Sept. 13 to Oct. 11, Louisville played four of five games away from Papa John's Cardinal Stadium.
Through those quirks, Louisville's 5-3 ACC record rates third among the program's five debut seasons in new conferences.
The Cards were 7-1 in their only year in the American Athletic Conference. They were 5-2 in their first year in the Big East. The first years in Conference USA (2-3) and the Missouri Valley (1-3) were losing campaigns.
"The ACC is a good fit (for Louisville)," said Mark Schlabach, a national college football writer for ESPN.com. "When they stepped into the ACC, they were one of the top three or four teams right away."
Petrino's history indicates that Louisville is in line for an uptick in wins in its second year in the ACC.
In his first stint at U of L, Petrino's first-year team finished 9-4 before his second-year squad improved to 11-1 and won the Big East title.
In the SEC, Petrino's Arkansas team improved by three games between the first and second years. In Year 3, the Razorbacks won 10 games and tied for second in the SEC West. They won 11 games the next season and finished third.
"He was able to make a lot of upward movement in the SEC West, and that's a much tougher division," Schlabach said.
Louisville won four of its six league games in the ACC's Atlantic Division, cruising past Boston College, NC State and Syracuse and grinding out a sluggish win against Wake Forest.
The 23-17 loss at Clemson has felt like a missed opportunity since the final seconds of that game slipped away, and the 42-31 loss to FSU on Halloween Eve didn't feel much better, especially after U of L took a 21-0 lead.
But the close defeats showed Louisville that it could keep up with the ACC's Joneses.
Clemson and FSU have won the past three league titles, and FSU appears to be on course for a third consecutive ACC crown this winter. Both of those programs are considered among the top 10 or 15 in the nation.
"They've got a quality program, quality coaches, quality history, and I think it's only going to enhance the ACC," FSU coach Jimbo Fisher said of Louisville earlier this season.
"It's only going to add to our conference and our conference strength."
Louisville learned about the conference's strength the hard way on several occasions, including a frustrating 23-21 loss at Virginia, which is now 4-6 after starting hot.
That 20-10 win against Wake Forest was one of Louisville's sloppiest games this season, and it came against a 2-7 team that ranks among the worst in the country in the main offensive categories.
There's no other way to put it than how Petrino did, and those games illustrate it perfectly: Louisville's debut season in the ACC has been a grind.
"They've done a good job of handling it," Petrino said.
Now they just have to maintain it. That's the hard part.
Reach U of L beat writer Jeff Greer at (502) 582-4044 and follow him on Twitter (@jeffgreer_cj).
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LOUISVILLE at Notre Dame
3:30 p.m. Nov. 22, at South Bend, Ind., NBC