What a Dream, Realistic and Disappointing Season Looks Like for Louisville in 2023

The Scott Satterfield era of the Louisville football program is well in the rear view mirror at this point, and the Jeff Brohm era is roughly a month away from officially kicking off. Brohm both inherited and crafted a talented team, with the Cardinals going 8-5 in 2022, and a plethora of transfer portal and high school talent being brought in since Brohm's arrival.

As we head into year one under Brohm, Louisville has been generating some serious hype both at the local and national level. So what does a dream season, realistic season and disappointing season look like for the Cardinals in 2023? We break it down here:

Dream Season

While the ultimate dream would be to go a perfect 12-0 this upcoming season, we're going to stay grounded in reality here. Looking at their schedule, combined with the talent that they have coming back and brought in, going 10-2 or better is what a dream season would look like for Louisville in 2023. Maybe 9-3 if that includes wins against Notre Dame and Kentucky, which are both at home.

In order to do this, Louisville will have to play complimentary football on both sides of the line of scrimmage. On offense, this means that both the passing game and the running game will have to operating an above average or higher level. Quarterback Jack Plummer will likely have to crack into the upper echelon of ACC quarterbacks, the retooled/reloaded wide receiver room and offensive line will need to look much better than they did last season, and the running backs - namely Jawhar Jordan - will have to take advantage of the limited opportunities in this pass-happy offense.

Defensively, this largely means that the defensive line and the secondary both have to make up for the perceived deficiency at inside linebacker. Sure, the scheme change will likely mean that the Cardinals won't be producing as many sacks and TFL's. But if the defensive line can regularly win their one-on-one battles and force pressure in the backfield, while the defensive backs capitalize on rushed plays/decisions, Louisville has the chance to have a top-25 defense. Especially considering the quality depth both units have.

If Louisville is to achieve this dream season, they'll have to deliver against some of the more high-profile teams. Yes, they need to take care of business against teams like Virginia, Indiana and Murray State, and overall have a pretty easy schedule. But, they'll have to take down at least three of the following teams: Notre Dame, Kentucky, Miami, NC State and Pitt. The latter three of those games will be away from L&N Stadium, so it might be tough to pull off.

Realistic Season

Now let's come back down to Earth a little bit. If we're talking about realistic expectations for the Louisville football program heading into the 2023 season, that likely sits at the 8-4 mark.

Plummer is an above-average quarterback who showed what he can do last season when starting all 12 games, and is the epitome of a field general type of signal caller. Meaning that while he might not lose you games, he probably isn't going to be the reason you win them, either. That will come down to the skill position players. It will be interesting to see how the production from Jordan, an All-ACC caliber running back, will be impacted from seeing his overall number of carries cut back.

Plus, while the wide receiver room is leaps and bounds better on paper than last year's, and Jamari Thrash is the clear-cut WR1, there were times in spring ball where the QB/WR chemistry was still very much a work in progress. Not to mention that, while the offensive line got a massive boost from the portal after spring, they didn't look that great during spring ball at times.

Over on defense, as previously mentioned, the defensive line and secondary have quality depth a-plenty. But, the linebacking corps, especially in the middle at ILB, does not have the depth that the other two areas do. This could be something that opposing offenses scheme around and exploit.

Plus, this 4-2-5 scheme didn't produce a ton of havoc plays in the front seven at Purdue. Although, this could be chalked up to the fact that the talent level at Purdue wasn't/isn't what it is at Louisville. Even with the players that the Boilermakers did have, their secondary was still better than they get credit for.

While Louisville did lose a fair amount of talent and production from last season, they didn't see a mass exodus, and Brohm and Co. did a masterful job in the portal, so this is still a very talented team. What could be the difference between a dream season and a realistic one, is how this team can handle the scheme changes to both sides of the ball, especially with so many newcomers as well.

As previously mentioned, 8-4 seems like the most realistic path here for Louisville. This team does have the talent to go up against some of the tougher teams on their schedule, but it will be very difficult to pull off a clean sweep of the upper tier teams, especially with a few on the road. Plus, something that has gotten overlooked in the last few months is that Brohm teams at Purdue were subject to inexplicable stinkers from time-to-time. That Duke game has trap game written all over it.

Disappointing Season

Considering Louisville does have the pieces to win on both sides of the ball for year one of the Jeff Brohm era, not to mention that both the coaching staff and players have been preaching a win-now message the entire summer, a 7-5 record or worse seems like the benchmark for a disappointing season.

In this case, we would probably see both sides of the ball struggle to completely process the new schemes, or one side of the ball does an abhorrent job of doing so. That, or the talent that is on paper fails to deliver upon their potential.

Offensively, Plummer would probably be capped at "above average," the wide receiver room fails to create much production outside of Thrash, the offensive line looks similar to how they did in the spring, and the running backs get knee-capped with such an emphasis on passing the ball.

On defense, this likely means that not only is linebacker a complete and total liability in the middle of the field, but either the defensive line or secondary (or both in a doomsday scenario) don't hold up their end of their complementary football bargain. Maybe the line can't get home, maybe the defensive backs give up way too many big plays.

Given the talent level of the team and favorable schedule, 7-5 seems like the absolute floor for Louisville. Anything less than that, and something probably went horribly wrong, whether that be rampant injuries or coaching malpractice.