Louisville football: Three locks and three bold predictions vs Notre Dame

Bold Prediction: The game will be a sell-out

Any other year, an opening game against Notre Dame at home would be the hottest ticket in town. And while the hype surrounding the game is high, so are ticket prices. And it’s a late kick-off on a Monday night. And, Louisville’s play on the field last year warrants some concern.

Still, I remain convinced that this will be the first sell-out in Louisville’s second year of an expanded Cardinal Stadium.

The weather is supposed to be perfect, and over the course of six home games, it’s rare to get more than one or two games that aren’t scorching hot or beanie and gloves cold. Fans will show up in droves just to enjoy the weather and atmosphere.

Ticket prices are down to an affordable rate where fans who may have been on the fence about purchasing tickets to the first game of the season where their team could get blown out, and while that still may happen, this only adds to the overall experience of the game early. Like Jacob said on the Big Red Louie podcast (which you should subscribe to) the early atmosphere of the new game experience could be electric enough to impact things early.

The other reason I think this game is still a sell-out is that Notre Dame fans are extremely passionate and far-reaching. They have a fan base who not only travels well but is rooted in Louisville, where there is a strong Catholic community presence. Don’t be surprised if 15-20,000 of the fans on Monday night are in gold, navy, or green.

Regardless of the outcome, Cards fans should expect a rowdy, football hungry crowd from both fanbases.

Lock: Louisville doesn’t commit a penalty on the first drive of the game (on offense or defense)

Can you imagine a scenario where either the offense or defense for the Louisville football program starts their first drive of the game without a penalty?

We’ve talked about this plenty of times recently, including in Will Reddington’s preview for Notre Dame, but Louisville has been notorious first-drive penalty makers for the course of the last five seasons. Whether it’s an entire summer or just a week, in the past Louisville has shot them themselves in the foot quickly in games and it’s snowballed into more mistakes or just easy yards given to an offense/defense.

On Monday night, that won’t happen – at least if Scott Satterfield as anything to say about it.

“I can’t stand sloppy play. I can’t stand it,” Satterfield said during Monday’s press conference with the media. I can think of numerous games in recent years, even with Lamar Jackson at the helm, where Louisville would jump offsides, have too many men on the field, have a false start – whatever it was it set the game back. Some years they were able to not be beaten by themselves, while other years they weren’t.

I expect to see a significant improvement on silly penalties this season under Scott Satterfield, which means that a team that is going to have to fight for scoring opportunities won’t have to give up yards due to penalties. That starts with Notre Dame.