Louisville football recruiting will require patience and trust

Louisville football is now down to just three verbal commits in the class of 2019 after a slew of decommits.

There’s a saying that goes something like this “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” It’s one that you often hear in situations where some time and grace is  greatly needed in order for an individual, team, program, etc. to get where they envision they can go. That’s exactly the case right now for Louisville football.

Scott Satterfield was just hired last week to be the new football coach for the Louisville program, and since then he’s made several big hires for his first staff, including Dwayne Ledford (NC State), Bryan Brown, and Frank Ponce (App State).

One of the greatest areas of need for the staff and the program to address is the recruiting for 2019. As expected, leading up to the firing of Bobby Petrino mid-season the Cardinals lost several players in the class including Jamari Williams (3-star OL) and Austin Griffin (#1 JUCO TE). Once again as expected, Louisville lost several other players after the hiring of Scott Satterfield including Jaden Johnson (3-star QB) and Sam Snyder (3-star TE).

The decommits kept rolling in over the weekend as Anthony Adkins, Jack Randolph, Stanley King, and Denzel Daxon all announced their intentions to “reopen their recruitment,” leaving Louisville with just three “official commitments” in the class of 2019 with just nine days to go before the early signing period.

There were signs all over the place that this was likely a planned “breakup” between Louisville and the 2019 commits, which was later confirmed by Jake Lourim of the Courier Journal. Today he wrote:

"At least two of the Louisville football program’s 2019 recruits were “thrown for a loop” Sunday night when the incoming coaching staff informed them they would not honor the players’ scholarship offers.Four players — LaRue County athlete Anthony Adkins, Franklin-Simpson guard Jack Randolph and Camden, New Jersey, wide receiver Stanley King and Miami Carol City  defensive tackle Denzel Daxon — have now reopened their recruitment. Those changes represent the first movement in Louisville’s recruiting class since the introduction of new coach Scott Satterfield on Tuesday."

Whether you agree or disagree with the philosophy of Scott Satterfield and the Louisville recruiting staff to pull scholarships away from kids committed, it must be understood of how common place that is. Whenever coaches take over programs one of the first things they have to do is evaluate the talent on the team, evaluate the recruits, and who fits and who doesn’t. Again, you may not agree with it, but it was an absolute must for Satterfield and his staff to cut bait with players from the previous regime and begin to move forward with a new recruiting plan.

While it sucks to do that to 18 and 19 year old kids, it’s all a part of the recruiting business. Scott Satterfield has a certain system and style of play that he will be installing at Louisville and with limited scholarships available in the class of 2019 and holes all over the  roster, getting the right players is crucial for the future of the program.

Left behind (as of now) for Satterfield in the class of 2019 is Manual star running back Aidan Robbins, offensive lineman Ty Murray, and OL/TE Zach Williamson. The new coaching staff has already began to visit the local high schools to build relationships with the staff throughout the city and surrounding area, and has also began to reach out and make offers to kids who weren’t previously being recruited by the Cards.

Even with the Early Signing Day Period sitting just a few days away, there is no reason for Cardinal fans to freak out about the status of the 2019 class. To say that the previous regime for Louisville underscouted talent would be possibly one of the biggest understatements of 2018. The recruiting rankings don’t always mean everything, but when you look at some of the offer lists from players previously committed to the Cards, you can see that there was no way in hell this clsas would have been able to provide the immediate impact on the field that was going to be needed in 2019-20.

Now Scott Satterfield and his staff will have to go back to square one and begin to get offers out to some of the kids that they were pursuing in their previous jobs who have the ability to play at the level needed for Louisville to win.

So fans, especially those who aren’t 100% on board with Satterfield as the Louisville head coach, I have just one piece of advice. R – E- L – A – X. These things take time and trusting in the process is exactly what is needed right now in Louisville.

The staff will probably have to take an L in the early signing period in order to get some of the talent that is capable of making an impact and helping to rebuild the Louisville program moving forward.