Louisville football: RB coach De’Rail Sims bringing juice

Louisville football has been promoting their own version of “mic’d up” via their social media channels over the course of spring practices that allows folks to listen and watch some of the team’s position coaches operate over the course of any given practice.

The latest entry to their “on the mic” series was newly hired running backs coach De’Rail Sims who showed a ton of energy and a bit of who he is as a personality..

https://twitter.com/UofLFootball/status/1367109478563332100?s=20

What did we gather here?

Well, it appears that Hassan Hall’s nickname courtesy of Sims might be “Sonny.” He’s also bringing a plethora of energy to his position. The 35-year old is coaching up his players with confidence and even running to chase down his guys to congratulate them after a great play.

He was sprinting just as much as the backs were in these clips. Late in the video, Sims makes a cut and hops over the pile of bodies at the line of scrimmage just to chase down Hassan Hall on what appeared to be a long, successful running play.

When it comes to coaching, head coach Scott Satterfield has taken the route of hiring some young position coaches with energy to the quarterback and running back rooms. This follows a trend that pairs along with a very young defensive coaching staff under the third-year Louisville head coach.

Sims’s energy should be a huge boost to Trevion Cooley

One of Louisville’s most prominent true freshman is running back Trevion Cooley. Cooley is a well-rounded back that was highly touted as a top-150 player in the country out of high school.

You can see Cooley getting coached up by Sims who is referring to him as “Tre” in this video. Sims is pushing him for more in these clips, but there is evidence of him getting amped up for his guys making the plays he wants his backs to make in team drills.

A lot of what is baked in to being a successful true freshman in college is confidence and understanding of the playbook at a fair level.  Sims looks like he can be a great help in this area.

Overall

A team that finished 4-7 in 2020 is going to need the juice from these newly hired coaches. The fresh faces in the building could be huge helps to the player-base instilling confidence and belief in what Satterfield’s vision is for the program.

Getting players to have fun once again and buy in to culture and coaches like Sims should be a huge boost to this program in 2021.