Spring practice has officially kicked off for Scott Satterfield and Louisville football, and there are several names that are worth watching leading up to the 2019 season.
Typically February is about basketball in the city of Louisville, especially this season as the Cards are out to a incredible start in the ACC and look to be headed toward a solid seed in the NCAA tournament. But under new head coach Scott Satterfield, Louisville football is kicking off spring football earlier than ever before.
After a 2-10 season, which quite possibly was one of the biggest disasters in recent program history, resulted in the firing of Bobby Petrino (and subsequent payout of $14 million) Vince Tyra brought in one of the brightest, up-and-coming coaches in the country in Scott Satterfield to turn the program around and get back on the collision course to a National Championship.
Spring practice beginning this early is a new deal for the Louisville football program, as Bobby Petrino began his practices in the last week or two of March with the Spring Game taking place in the middle of April. Satterfield likes to run his spring practices early in February for several reasons. When speaking with 790 KRD earlier this year he said:
"“We want to try and get finished before Spring Break. There are several reasons for doing that and one of the biggest reasons is if you do get some guys hurt they are able to heal up before the summer time and the fall. Also, for us, it’s big for us to finish before spring break. When they get back from spring break we have seven straight weeks in the weight room to put on size and gain speed.”"
Now with practices finally here, Louisville players and fans can begin to put last season in the past and focus on the new era of Louisville football. Dez Fitzpatrick and several players spoke to the media after the first practice on Monday of this week, and the words you heard over and over again were “new vibes” when referring to the program.
There are still several more weeks of practice to go and with that being the case, we decided to take a look at each position and highlight one player to watch during spring practice. Louisville has a lot of talent returning in 2019 on both sides of the ball, many of whom the fans may not remember or be familar with due to the odd playing and practice habits of Coach Petrino.
Let’s take a look.