Louisville football: 3 bold predictions for the Cards vs. Mississippi State

Louisville football and Mississippi State will go head-to-head in a bowl game for the second time in three years. We take our best stab at a few bold predictions for the Cards.

The end of 2019 has quickly arrived and Louisville football will look to put the finishing touches on what has been an incredible turnaround in year one under Scott Satterfield when they take the field for the Music City Bowl against Mississippi State.

Despite boasting a pretty solid record overall in bowl games against SEC opponents, the Cards have struggled over the last five years or so, winning just one of their four total matchups with schools from the conference that “just means more.”

One of those losses came at the hands of Mississippi State back in 2017, while the lone win came on the same field the Cards will take on Monday afternoon back in 2015 against Texas A&M.

Louisville will look to get things turned around after a shellacking from rival Kentucky during their last game of the season and will do so against a team that offers a variety of advantages and disadvantages.

After a disappointing end to the season, Satterfield will look to prove that his “reward” style approach to bowl games can lead to the Cards winning eight games in just his first season. To do that, they’ll have to slow down a running offense ranked in the top 20 nationally, behind star running back and SEC-leading rusher, Kylin Hill.

Satterfield and his staff from Appalachian State proved during their time in Boone, NC that they were more than capable of winning big bowl games. After jumping from FCS to the FBS level, Satterfield and company went 3-0 in bowl games, while the program now sits at 5-0 after this year and last year’s win without their former coach.

Things haven’t gone great since the end of the season for head coach Joe Moorhead since the completion of the 2019 campaign. First, it was star cornerback Cameron Dantzler who announced his intentions to skip the bowl game and declare for the NFL draft. He was followed by Brian Cole III, who was third in tackles this season. Then just a few days before the team was set to depart to Nashville from Starkville, it was announced that starting quarterback Garrett Shrader would be out after suffering an odd injury during a fight with a teammate.

Louisville has had a little less than a month to rest and prepare for their final game of the season, one that could help them leap into contention to be a top 25 team in the first preseason rankings in 2020. A lot will need to happen for the Cards to win and put the demons of Mississippi State to rest once and for all. We take our best stab at three bold predictions for the Music City Bowl on Monday.

Let’s get to it.