Louisville football: 5 burning questions for Cards vs. Mississippi State

How will 15 extra practice help Louisville take the next step as a program?

During his press conference with local media following the announcement of Louisville playing  ̶T̶e̶n̶n̶e̶s̶s̶e̶e̶  Mississippi State in the Music City Bowl, Scott Satterfield talked about the importance of the extended time he’ll get with his team following their 7-5 performance and a second-place finish in the ACC Atlantic.

He said:

"“The first handful to seven practices are more like spring-type practices where you’re working on fundamentals; blocking, tackling, working a lot with the young guys. You’re keeping the older guys in tune, getting a lot of reps as well, a lot of it goes back to your base football work. A lot of fundamental work, throwing, catching, tackling, blocking, working on those things fundamentally in the kicking game as well. You want to utilize all those practices for that and the young guys.”"

We all know that Louisville’s fundamentals need work. We also know that depth, which has been a concern all season long, will continue to be unless younger players can get the necessary reps they need to become contributing members to the program. That’s why all of the practices that have taken place and will continue to take place, will be extremely important.

Fatigue was hands down the biggest issue with Louisville football down the final stretch of the season, as they struggled to make plays late (especially on defense) due to their starters having to be on the field the majority of the time. While some players emerged into solid role players like Monty Montgomery, Adonis Boone, Cole Bentley, Marlon Character, Jack Fagot, and plenty of others, Louisville’s 13 freshmen rarely saw the field (that was a calculated decision based on the redshirt rule) while members of the ’17 and ’18 classes just weren’t quite ready to play extended snaps.

Making sure that the younger guys get snaps won’t only be crucial to this season but also for the next several years to come. Nearly every freshman who came in as part of the 2019 class will be redshirted, giving them an extra year of eligibility, and when you pair that with the 15-plus players enrolling in January with Spring Practice following in late February/early March you could be talking about some serious momentum and depth cultivation.

For players like Robbie Bell, Caleb Chandler, Tyler Haycraft on the offensive line and G.G. Robinson, C.J. Avery, Dorian Etheridge, Amonte Caban, Khane Pass, and others, they have had plenty of time to rest, recuperate, and get back to working on fundamentals in practice which should help them play more snaps and play at a higher level than we saw down the stretch.

If Satterfield can get his starters playing at their best level with a mix of younger players like Zach Edwards, Thurman Geathers, Trenell Troutman, Robert Hicks, Zach Williamson, Renato Brown, and others receiving snaps the Cards could easily look more like the team we saw earlier in the season rather than down the stretch.