No. 9 Notre Dame shuts down Louisville in season-opening 35-17 win
No. 9 Notre Dame shuts down Louisville in season-opening 35-17 win
No. 9 Notre Dame (1-0) spoiled the start of the Scott Satterfield era at Louisville (0-1) by shutting down the Cardinals in the second half Monday night in Louisville. Since being knotted up at 14-14 after the first quarter, the Fighting Irish outscored the home team 21-3 the rest of the way for a 35-17 win to start the new year.
Notre Dame quarterback Ian Bookgave the Irish the lead just before…
Louisville names Jawon Pass starting QB for opener vs. Notre Dame
Louisville names Jawon Pass starting QB for opener vs. Notre Dame
Louisville has perhaps one of the most suitably named quarterback ready to lead the offense in the season opener Monday night against Notre Dame. Jawon Pass has been named the starting quarterback for the Cardinals by new head coach Scott Satterfield.
Scott Satterfield says Jawon Pass will be the starting QB for @UofLFootballin the season opener against Notre Dame. Malik Cunningham has returned…
Louisville wraps spring with improved attitude and effort
Louisville wraps spring with improved attitude and effort
The page has been turned at Louisville with the first spring under new head coach Scott Satterfieldnow in the books. After 14 spring practices, Louisville brought a close to their spring practice schedule Thursday night with a practice open to the fans. Satterfield had some typical coach things to say afterward, which was to be expected, but hearing the new head coach of the Cardinals say he…
In Scott Satterfield’s first day on the job, there was a little of everything. The new University of Louisville football coach sat down to take a look at the roster he will inherit. He began the process of assembling a staff. And he took to the Louisville talk-radio airwaves to take his message to the people.
After a quick tour of the KFC Yum! Center before Wednesday night’s men’s basketball game against Central Arkansas, Satterfield sat down – for just a moment – to talk about his first day on the job.
“Another busy day today. I think seven radio shows today … got into the office and started to look at the roster, started looking at the recruiting board, trying to figure out what our needs are and what direction we need to go into, and also had discussions about staffing,” Satterfield said. “The biggest thing we have to do right now is obviously recruiting and filling out a staff. The filling out a staff part can happen probably in the next couple of weeks and recruiting-wise, we really have probably a couple of weeks before the first signing period, but then obviously there’s the second signing period so we don’t have to fill out the class in this first signing period. We will sign some players in this first one. I think we’ll get some staff in here, hopefully maybe in the middle of next week and let them hit the ground running.”
At least two members of his current staff at Appalachian State, and probably more, will move with him to Louisville. The Winston-Salem Journal cited several sources close to the program saying that App State defensive coordinator Bryan Brown and offensive coordinator Frank Ponce will join Satterfield’s staff at Louisville.
Satterfield talked about his hope to run a similar defensive system at Louisville to the one he’s had success with at App State, and retaining Brown certainly would make sense if that’s the case.
“I think the main thing with us defensively is we want to continue what we’ve been doing defensively the last six years,” Satterfield said. “It’s been very effective. Looking at the stats over particularly the last four season, a top-25 defense in the country every year, one that will create turnovers. I think we were maybe one, two or three in interceptions in the last four seasons combined, and we obviously want to continue to do that. We‘re trying to win the turnover battle. I think for us the last three years, we’ve been one, two or three in the turnover margin. I think that gives you a great chance to win. Defensively, we’re probably doing the very same thing and we’ll fill out that staff. Hopefully middle of next week we’ll fill out that staff.”
Another name that continues to surface in connection with the staff is Cort Dennison, a linebackers coach at Oregon who spent four successful years, including the last two as recruiting coordinator, at Louisville, under former coach Bobby Petrino.
Satterfield’s look at the current roster was not an in-depth look. But he watched enough tape to form some first impressions.
“I think we’ve got some good skill players,” he said. “You look at wide receiver, there’s some guys out there that can make some things happen at wide receiver. I think we have a couple of good running backs that could certainly make some things happen. And I think in the secondary there are some good players. I haven’t really jumped into the full roster, watching film and all that as much as I would like and I will do as we move forward, but there’s certainly some guys that will be able to make plays for us. We have to find what’s the best position for them. Where can they really help, where can they excel at their abilities and their talents in order to make plays. So we may end up looking at guys at different positions and we’ll see that more so probably when we get them, working them out and we’re able to see them face-to-face.”
As far as recruiting, Satterfield is still evaluating. He said he hadn’t yet been in contact with Louisville’s committed recruits yet, but planned to do that soon. A scheduled recruiting weekend on campus this weekend will likely be delayed a week until he can get some assistant coaches onto campus. While he does expect to sign some recruits in the current period, he said he isn’t putting any pressure on himself to complete the class by then.
He’ll contact local coaches, make a few contacts. And he’ll continue to evaluate. He said that quarterback, linebacker, offensive line and tight end are positions of immediate need, and didn’t rule out looking at some junior college quarterbacks or graduate transfers if necessary.
He said some players who had committed to him at App State have reached out to him, but he wouldn’t commit to bringing any of those players to Louisville.
“I think for us, we want to compete in the ACC and win championships and so we’re going to try to get the best talent we can get throughout this blueprint of recruiting,” he said. “There’s a lot of guys out there that have reached out that are interested now in Louisville that are maybe committed to other schools that we’re going to have to play. We’re just trying to find the best fit. I’m trying to find a well-rounded student-athlete, not just somebody who can run fast or hit. We want someone who is going to do well in academics, that’s going to be a strong character in that locker room when we do face adversity. So you’ve got to do your research, you’ve got to really dive deep into what makes them tick. I think so much of it is heart. And that’s just finding about that through their coaches and all that and seeing what they’re saying about these players.”
Not that he’ll have time for leisure or community involvement, but Satterfield says he’s looking forward to getting to know the city. His family remained in town with him on Wednesday and attended the basketball game with him.
“Where I’m coming from is a pretty small community,” Satterfield said. “We had probably 30,000 total people there. Really just hanging out. There’s not really a whole lot to do in Boone, actually. Particularly as I look around this town, there’s a lot to do here. Really there, the big thing to do is outdoors – go hiking and looking at nature and that kind of thing. We had some golf courses, we played some golf, but hanging out at church and the people there. Really it’s more just hanging out and eating dinner and talking I guess. There’s really not a whole lot to do there. What this city has to offer is incredible. The amount of things that you can go out and do and see and I think the people that come here … we’re looking forward to doing that and really immersing ourselves in this city and experiencing all that Louisville has to offer.”
For now, however, Satterfield is immersed in football – one handshake, phone call and interview at a time.
Satterfield’s start: ‘We’re going to love on these guys’
Disclaimer: I don’t know whether Scott Satterfield is going to win a ton of games at the University of Louisville, whether he’ll be Louisville’s version of Dabo Swinney or exorcise the memory of whatever it was that happened last season.
One thing he said at his first Louisville news conference, one thing he told the Cardinals’ football players, was good enough for me.
“I told them, we’re going to love on them,” Satterfield said. “We want to love on these guys. We’re going to put our arms around them and we’re just going to pull them up and bring them to win football games and championships.”
Obviously, it’s harder than that. But it has to start with that. Now, look. There’s more than one way to do something. I don’t think Nick Saban’s got his arm around all those players at Alabama. But I also think, in his way, he loves them. They trust that he’ll bring something out of them, that he wants what’s best for them.
There’s been talk about discipline and recruiting and talent and fire and all those things, certainly, are needed in this program. But in this day, with these players, and with kids everywhere, it starts with getting eye-to-eye and communicating, relating, loving. Kids in a classroom know if a teacher doesn’t care about them. They know when leaders aren’t authentic. And when they feel that, they check out.
So while Satterfield's message might not be the traditional language of football, it's a language Louisville's players will nonetheless understand. In this day with young people, and people who are not so young, it’s less about what you say than how you make them feel.
“It’s a new start, and that feels good,” Louisville safety C.J. Avery said. “There’s not a player in our locker room that doesn’t believe we’re better than we played. We’re looking forward to seeing what these coaches are about and learning from them.”
I don’t know how many four- or five-star players Satterfield will be able to recruit. And in the end, that’s what determines a lot at this level of college football. It’s amazing how much better a coach you are when you have a T.Y. Hilton (as Satterfield had as offensive coordinator at Florida International) or a Lamar Jackson (as Petrino had here).
But I did sense that the words and sentiments Satterfield laid out on Tuesday were sincere. He didn’t break out a bunch of motivational language. He didn’t roll out with a prepared presentation. It wasn’t slick. He talked about trust. And if he can build that with players, if he can build it with recruits, then he’ll have the beginnings of something.
“It starts with our culture, so that’s what we’re going to work on,” Satterfield said. “The very first thing I told them was that ‘guys, you have to trust me. And I have to trust you. And that’s the way our program’s going to work.’
“There’s a couple core values that we have,” Satterfield went on. “No. 1 is project positive energy. In this world we’re living in, there is so much negativity out there that it drives you crazy. Everybody’s doubting you, everybody’s downing you. That fuels me, and it’s going to fuel our football team. We’re going to pump each other up. We’re going to hit them on the butt and say ‘let’s go,’ when they’re having a bad day we’re going to put that positive energy in there and it’s just going to spread like wildfires, our culture in the locker room.”
There’s another coach at U of L who is big on that message. Jeff Walz, Louisville’s successful women’s basketball coach, said that he knew his program’s culture had reached a high level when he had a locker room full of players and, “I never knew if one of them was having a bad day.”
Why? They showed up, did their jobs, projected a positive energy and expected maximum effort of themselves. It was contagious.
Satterfield, here, is again speaking a familiar language.
“The other thing that we talked about is the other 10,” Satterfield said. “There’s 11 guys on the football field, but I’m playing for the other 10. I’m not thinking about me, I’m thinking about the other 10. When you do that, we’ll have a tremendous amount of success. We had 19 guys out of our starting offensive and defensive players last year make all-conference and get recognized. . . . It’s incredible, because they’re playing for each other. They love each other, and that’s what we’re going to create here. These guys will get big-time recognition when they start loving each other, caring for each other and playing for each other.”
Now, look, I get it. These guys aren’t going to start holding hands and singing folk songs and everything be fixed.
But these guys also deserve someone who will come in and listen to them, talk with them, be honest with them and, yes, understand them.
“He told us he wants us in his office, his door is always open and he wants us to feel like we can talk to him,” wide receiver Dez Fitzpatrick said. “I don’t know if a lot of guys feel that’s how it has always been.”
So this is where it starts. How a coach handles the media or what schemes he uses doesn’t mean much if his players aren’t with him. And if they’re going to be with a coach, they have to believe he has their best interests at heart.
I don’t know that players this season believed that, particularly by the end of the season. Two team sources told me that while Bobby Petrino acknowledged to the media that he made a bad play call to help lose Louisville’s game against Florida State, the message to players in the locker room was quite different, and he might well have lost a good many of them right there. And he lost others along the way.
The program and players at Louisville need a lot of things. I haven’t heard all the stories. We may never hear them all from the season just ended. But it doesn’t hurt to have a coach who comes in and says first and foremost he wants to put his arms around them.
It may sound corny. In fact, let’s just acknowledge that it does sound corny. But this coach has made it work to the tune of 10 wins a year over the past four years at a place whose entire athletic budget ($35 million) is not too much more than what Louisville spends on football alone ($25 million, not counting facilities spending).
He may be onto something. At Louisville, we’re about to find out.
AP source: Louisville tabs Satterfield to be football coach
AP source: Louisville tabs Satterfield to be football coach
Louisville has tabbed Appalachian State’s Scott Satterfield to be the Cardinals’ next football coach.
A person with knowledge of the situation says the school has reached an agreement with Satterfield. The person spoke to The Associated Press on Monday on condition of anonymity because neither the school nor Satterfield had publicly announced the decision. Louisville has scheduled a Tuesday…
Appalachian State wins inaugural Sun Belt Championship Game
Appalachian State wins inaugural Sun Belt Championship Game
For the first time in conference history, the Sun Belt Conference held a conference championship game. That makes Appalachian State (10-2, 7-1 Sun Belt) the first program in history to win the Sun Belt Conference championship game after topping Louisiana (7-6, 5-3 Sun Belt) on Saturday afternoon. With the win, Appalachian State will head to the R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl as the conference…
