essentially yes, except that on modern CPUs the fetch/decode stages (where the branch predictors live) are so far away (in space and time) from where the loop c

essentially yes, except that on modern CPUs the fetch/decode stages (where the branch predictors live) are so far away (in space and time) from where the loop counters live that it's not practical to connect them directly - instead the front end maintains history bitmaps of recent branch activity (whether branches are taken or not) which in effect contain the history of how many times you've been around a loop