Louisville's Playbook 'Much More Advanced' in Year Two
Scott Satterfield isn't holding anything back heading into year two at the helm of the Louisville football program.
When he and his coaching staff first arrived on campus prior to last season, they could not open up the playbook as much as they wanted to and had to ease into it as time went on. But thanks to continuity with the coaching staff and the roster, the Cardinals might have a few surprises up their sleeve in 2020.
"I think we're much more advanced at the start of this season compared to the start of last season because we do have so many guys that are back," Satterfield said Monday in his first weekly pregame teleconference of the regular season.
After going 2-10 the year before, Louisville went 8-5 in 2019 including a Music City Bowl win vs. Mississippi State in Satterfield's first year as the head coach. The 2019 ACC Coach of the Year said it's hard to quantify how far the Cardinals have come along since the end of the last season, but just being able to pick up where they left off is enough to have meaningful improvements.
"We're not starting from square zero," he said. "We're already advanced in what we're doing and we have a good idea of what we're doing."
An example that Satterfield provides is that his team can go back and reference games and situations from the season before and use that to improve upon going forward. His players are also more comfortable in their roles and confidence across the team has skyrocketed.
"Just look at (quarterback Micale) Cunningham and how he grew throughout the whole season last year," he said. "By the end of the year, he had a much better confidence level about what we're trying to do."
The coaching staff has also been cross training players at multiple positions as a precaution to potentially losing players for any amount of time due to COVID-19. While that does add some schematic versatility, it also could limit what the staff can call.
"If that does happen, now we're going to have to watch what we call on offense and defense," he said. "At that point, we probably wouldn't do as much that maybe we've worked on if you've got guys out there that don't have the same experience, that maybe don't understand exactly what we're doing."
All things considered with the irregular offseason caused by the virus, Satterfield is extremely happy about where his team is heading into the new season
"We're really pleased where we are as far as the amount of things that we have in, particularly going into the first week," he said.
Louisville is set to kickoff the season against the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers at home on Saturday, Sept. 12 at 8:00pm on the ACC Network.
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