We are several months away from the pig skin flying through the air, tailgating and the Louisville football team taking the field for another season. Websites and sports gurus everywhere are putting out their pre-season polls in preparation. Most of the publications and talking heads have Louisville firmly in the top ten and most have them going undefeated on the season.

Today the king college football Prognosticator Phil Steele who publishes a college football preview magazine put Louisville at number 7 in his countdown. Steele, whose annual college football preview is gobbled up by thousands of fans each summer, has been releasing his preseason top 40 one-by-one over the past few weeks. Out of all of these folks Steele is the guy who’s opinion I value the most. He is fun to read, does his research and plays his hunches. Steele says “UL has 16 returning starters and figure to be in the AP Top10 in August.” and “they figure to be favored in every game.” Steele also goes on to say that 5 out of his 9 sets of predictors calls for the Cardinals to go undefeated.

You’ll likewise be interested to learn that Pregame.com, a Vegas aggregator, has released the opening lines on all Louisville’s games, and according to the Golden Nugget the Cardinals will be favored in every one. Per Pregame Louisville is one of 5 teams that should be favored in every regular-season game. The others are Ohio State, Oregon, Alabama and Georgia.

Back to Mr. Steele. He has been offering up his preseason Top 40 in drips and drabs, revealing one team per day on PhilSteele.com. His unique yearbook hits newsstands Tuesday.