Louisville football: 5 most important players vs. EKU

T.J. McCoy/Cole Bentley

Yes, I know technically those are two players – but when you consider that Scott Satterfield and Dwayne Ledford rotated senior graduate transfer T.J. McCoy and junior Cole Bentley at center, it means both are equally as important on Saturday.

Louisville saw an impressive start from McCoy in the middle, but as the game progressed, he and Bentley both saw quite a few snaps.

"“I think Cole and TJ both have warranted the opportunity of playing time, so they’ll both play,” Satterfield said postgame. “There may be a situation where we’ll put Cole at guard. We played six guys and we feel that there all worthy of playing time. So we’ll probably continue to rotate.”"

As the game wore on, as it so often happens in first games, Louisville’s offensive line wore down. This led to a number of snap infractions and penalties in the fourth quarter that we didn’t see for the entire first half.

"“Couple of them were on the center, one was on the receiver, you work on that stuff every day,” said Satterfield. “The same thing with snapping the ball and catching the snap, we work on it every day, but sometimes things happen but hopefully, that’s first-game jitters.”"

Louisville has opportunities against overmatched defensive fronts of Eastern and Western Kentucky over the next two weeks to really get things tightened up.

The Cards managed to outrush the Irish despite having hardly any opportunities up the middle. If Louisville can maintain consistency on the rest of the offensive front and get improved play from the center, this offense has an opportunity to take off.