4. Louisville Cardinals
Rewind three weeks, and the Louisville Cardinals were a hot pick to make the College Football Playoff, and they had home games against Cal and Clemson coming up to strengthen their record before a critical game against SMU. The Cardinals were terrible on defense and lost to Cal, and then on a Friday night, they had a handful of unsportsmanlike penalties and personal fouls and were incredibly poor in the kicking game, and fell to the Clemson Tigers to fall to 7-3 and disappear entirely from the top 25 and the College Football Playoff picture. On Saturday, Louisville was waxed by the SMU Mustangs and showed no heart as they lost 38-6. Louisville has a very veteran team, and the Cardinals will rue this missed opportunity. Jeff Brohm flirted with some other jobs before signing an extension to stay in his hometown, so there’s at least a silver lining, but this season now feels like a gigantic waste after threatening to break through and looking like a dangerous team as November began.
Kentucky at Louisville (-3.5)
