Louisville's Offensive Line Continues to Build Depth & Chemistry
When the coaching staff for the Louisville Football program was completely overhauled following the conclusion of the 2018 season, the new staff faced massive undertakings. Not only were they tasked with completely changing the ravaged culture left behind by Bobby Petrino & Co., but they were also left with a completely unbalanced roster.
One of the biggest examples of this was on the offensive line. When Scott Satterfield took over as the head coach in December 2018 and began to piece his coaching staff together, the Cardinals had just eight scholarship offensive linemen on the roster.
Fast forward past the staff's first year and deep into their second offseason, Louisville now has nearly doubled that with fourteen offensive linemen on scholarship. Even with all the new additions, offensive coordinator Dwayne Ledford says the Cards aren't done yet as he wants to continue to instill a competitive nature in the O-line room.
"We've added a lot of pieces to this group since we got here, and we'll continue to try to do that," Ledford told reporters in a teleconference Tuesday. "One of the best things you can have is competition at a position. To bring out the best in both people when they're trying to fight for that spot. To be one of those five out there."
In Ledford's time as both the offensive coordinator & offensive line coach for Louisville, he has seen his guys up front develop "a better understanding schematically what we're trying to get done." But what he perhaps most proud of is how his guys continue to build chemistry with one another.
"There's a comfort level of the guys playing around each other, being around each other, knowing each other," Ledford said. "That's something with offensive line that kinda goes unspoken, but when you got guys with experience playing beside each other, you can tell when they're out on the field together. There's just that comfort level there."
He also notes that while they are comfortable playing around each other, they are anything but complacent. They continuously push each other to become better at their craft, and Ledford believes that his guys are "really wanting to try and prove something."
"They got a lot of motivation this year. They're hungry."
Louisville is currently set to begin fall camp on Tuesday, August 4. While there is less than a week before the Cards conduct their first practice, the irregular offseason still leaves some questions to be answered in terms of the depth chart up front.
"When you typically go through a full spring football, you have a good idea of what your depth chart's gonna look like going into fall camp," Ledford said. "With that being shortened, there's still some things in your mind you're thinking."
However Ledford thinks that once camp gets underway, the two-deep depth chart will begin to sort itself out. When everything is said and done, he believes that they will have approximately 7-8 guys that that they "feel good about up front that will be able to play". By comparison, Louisville rotated six offensive linemen throughout most of last season.
The Cardinals are tentatively set to kickoff the 2020 season at Cardinal Stadium on Wednesday, Sept. 2 against the NC State Wolfpack. Kickoff time and television designation has yet to be determined.
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