Scott Satterfield Excited to Begin 2020 Season

Louisville head coach Scott Satterfield couldn't be happier to see the regular season on the horizon, and he praises the offseason efforts from his program to ensure that game week would finally arrive.

Game week is finally here.

After a long and tumultuous offseason where concerns were raised that the 2020 college football season might be dead in the water, the Louisville Cardinals have finally starting preparing for the their season opener against the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers this Saturday.

"I'm excited to get to this week right here," head coach Scott Satterfield said Monday in his first weekly pregame teleconference of the regular season. "I feel like it's been a long time to get here since spring practice."

Louisville was halfway through their spring practice period when the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic escalated to the point where it shut down the majority of the sporting world back in mid-March.

Many college conferences were forced to postpone fall 2020 competition in the coming months, including the Big Ten & Pac-12. The Atlantic Coast Conference elected to stay the course, but did so after instituting a strict set of guidelines for all members schools to follow.

Several schools across the ACC have come across a wide variety of setbacks when dealing with the virus, but Louisville has not been one of them. They are one of a handful of programs to not have to cancel or delay any amount of practice because of the virus, and Satterfield credits both the support staff and his players for helping ensure Louisville gets to have a game day.

"I'm really proud of our guys and how they've handled the virus aspect of things," Satterfield said. He went on to note that the program has gone a "long time" since their last positive COVID-19 test, and that he couldn't remember when the last time they did have a positive case.

But that isn't stopping the program from continuing to plan ahead as it pertains to the virus. Many players have cross trained over the preseason at multiple positions in case COVID-19 renders someone unavailable for a game. They've also had discussions on how to keep the energy up during games with a reduced fan capacity for the season.

"It's certainly going to be different, there's no question about that," Satterfield said.

Kickoff vs. WKU is set for Saturday, Sept. 12 at 8:00pm on the ACC Network.

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