Every person who is a fan of the Louisville Baseball program knows that we have something special down at Jim Patterson Stadium. Since Dan McDonnell took over as the head coach, the program has experienced unprecedented success and continues to raise the bar every season. This is especially true since Louisville has joined the prestigious Atlantic Coast Conference. In fact, the Cardinals have quickly established themselves as one of, if not the most, dominant teams in conference play. How successful has Louisville’s run in the ACC been? Let’s take an in-depth look.
In just three years of being an ACC member, Louisville has won the Atlantic Division title all three times. Not only that, but they have won the outright ACC regular season title in two of those three years, with Miami taking the regular season title in 2016 (despite Louisville having one more conference win). Louisville has been the most dominating team in the ACC, and the numbers back it up.
Since Louisville joined the ACC in 2015, it is 70-17 in conference games. Miami is 56-27. No other team has won 50 ACC games in that time.
— Teddy Cahill (@tedcahill) May 14, 2017
It’s a pretty eye-popping stat. Louisville has been better than any other ACC team and it’s not even close. They’ve been better than 2015 National Champion and 2014 National Runner-Up Virginia. Better than 1955 champion Wake Forest and 4-time champion Miami. While the Cards are the new kids on the block, these kids aren’t getting pushed around. Not only that, but Louisville actually tied their school record of 46 regular season wins with 4 regular season games left in the season.
In fact, while Louisville has been busy collecting regular season titles, most of their ACC counterparts have been celebrating anniversaries since the last time they won an ACC regular season title.
For many ACC teams, it has been a while since they last won, and the world landscape was a bit different:
Duke: JFK was sworn in as President (1961)
NC State: The Dream Team captures the attention of the world at the Summer Olympics (1992)
Wake Forest: The 9/11 terrorist attacks occurred (2001)
Georgia Tech: Pope John Paul II dies (2005)
Clemson: Saddam Hussein was tried and sentenced to death (2006)
Only Virginia, Florida State, North Carolina, Louisville and Miami have won a regular season title in the last decade. Virginia Tech, Boston College, Notre Dame, and Pittsburgh have never won an ACC regular season title, and have been members since 2005, 2006, 2014 and 2014 respectively. Those 4 teams have combined for 33 years without a regular season title, while Louisville has done it twice in three seasons.
Give Dan McDonnell and the Louisville Baseball program a ton of credit for what they have accomplished. They handled their transition into an extremely tough baseball conference with ease, and became the most dominant program in the ACC almost overnight. All that’s left for them to do is translate that regular season success into postseason success, and bring home the national championship.
