Louisville football: Awarding game balls to the Cards biggest performers

Scott Satterfield:

Stats: First win against a top-25 win as head coach. First win against a ranked ACC opponent. First win against a ranked team on the road. First win against a ranked ACC team on the road since joining the conference. 

Something has to be said in regards to Scott Satterfield as the Lousiville football head coach. Where do I even begin? To pick up the program’s first win against a ranked opponent in the ACC, and their first in almost three years is a big enough feat in itself to warrant a game ball for the first time this season.

But to do that in six games as head coach after taking over for a team that was towards the bottom of nearly every major statistical category in 2018, headed towards years of losing everything that brought the program to national notoriety, is coach of the year-esque.

After competing against Notre Dame, shutting out Eastern Kentucky, and beating Boston College and no. 19 ranked Wake Forest in back-to-back games, Scott Satterfield and his new staff have proven all we need to know. That they say is what they do, and the message that has been preached to the team all summer into fall, and now into the near halfway point of the season has been reciprocated in action by the players,

Louisville can play with anyone in the ACC (likely excluding Clemson) and they’ve shown that with a roster that many doubted could play at a high level in the conference. That to me is a testament to the coaching fortitude of Satterfield, a coach who established a powerhouse at Appalachian State.

Day-by-day Satterfield has preached to his team the power of working hard and being the best version of yourself that day, and the byproduct through the first six weeks has been winning. Sitting at 4-2 Louisville has already doubled their win total from a year ago, and now looks like a team with the expectations to make a bowl game.

Much like I said in our preseason roundtable here on BigRedLouie.com, if Louisville exceeded even the basement of expectations it was going to be because of one thing above all; coaching.

"” Nothing about this Louisville team would ever lead believe you to think that they could go from 2-10 to a potential bowl team less than a year after what we saw at the end of the Petrino era. If Louisville wins any more than three games they’ll do so because they were coached up to the level they should’ve been and reached at least a portion of their potential. We’ve seen Satterfield take his teams into games against power five programs and give them everything they have, regardless of what the game says should happen on paper.”"

Saturday’s performance showed me that under the leadership of Scott Satterfield, the Louisville football program is just beginning to reach the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how good they can be in the future.