Louisville Motivated by Redemption & Spotlight
Louisville isn't short on the amount of reasons to perform well when Miami comes to town this weekend.
Many of them start with the Cardinals' performance against the Hurricanes last season. Down at Hard Rock Stadium, Miami dealt Louisville a 52-27 loss - the Cards' second-worst in-conference loss by point differential behind only their 45-10 loss to eventual national runner-up Clemson.
"They know that we all didn't put our best foot forward in that game," defensive coordinator Bryan Brown said. "We had a lot of mistakes in that game. Some things that went wrong in that game we had to get corrected and got corrected."
Like Satterfield, Brown also attributes a lot of last season's miscues to pregame emotions. The Cardinals' roster features several players from the South Florida area, and he believes that they may have gotten sucked into the moment.
Fortunately, Brown believes the team is much more level-headed this time around, and they'll need to be. Both team are ranked within the top 20, with ESPN's College GameDay subjecting the contest to a national audience. Because where the team's mental headspace is for the rematch, Brown welcomes the increased attention.
"Anytime a national spotlight is on you, the world is looking at you to see what type of team you have," he said. "We're excited about the challenge, but we're also excited about the opportunity for the world to be able to see us play on a national stage."
As far as the players are concerned, it's just them and Miami. They want to put the memories of last year's game squarely behind them and use the rematch as a springboard to have a better 2020 campaign.
"It's like a revenge game for us," defensive lineman Tabarius Peterson said. "If we stick together and play together, we can dominate and this year should be a great year for us - a great season.
Kickoff is scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 19 at 7:30 p.m. on ABC.
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