Scott Satterfield unfazed by national attention on Louisville
When Scott Satterfield was announced as Louisville's next head coach back in December of 2018, the program was not in a good place.
The Cardinals had just completed a disastrous 2-10 campaign that resulted in the ouster of the majority of the coaching staff, and was left with one of the most unbalanced rosters in all of Division I.
Twenty-one months later, the program is nearly unrecognizable from its former self.
Following their season-opening win against Western Kentucky, Louisville received a No. 18 ranking from the Associated Press to jump back into the national polls for the first time since 2017. With the No. 17 Miami Hurricanes (1-0, 0-0 ACC) on the horizon, ESPN made the call to send College GameDay to the Derby City for the upcoming ranked matchup at Cardinal Stadium.
"Yeah, it's pretty cool," Satterfield said Monday in his weekly press conference. "You think about when I got hired here where we were at program-wise and what everybody wrote about us and what everybody thought about us nationally. To come about a year and a half later we're ranked and College GameDay is going to be here. I mean, that's pretty incredible."
Satterfield doesn't deny the importance of having GameDay in town, calling it a "great spotlight on us, our town, on our city and on our school", but he also keeps his priorities in line and knows he still has to prepare for a high-caliber opponent.
"At the end of the day, for us it’s nice, but it doesn’t really mean anything," he said. "You still have to go out and play and you have to perform at a high level and you have to be extremely competitive and focused on the task at hand."
But Satterfield still plans to capitalize on the heightened attention thrown Louisville's way. While he can't invite prospects to Cardinal Stadium due to the ongoing NCAA-mandated recruiting dead period, he and his staff have been using technology to try and replicate the game day (and GameDay) experience.
"I think that’s why kids want to come play for the University of Louisville," he said. "We certainly have to utilize this attention for all the guys that we're reaching out to and recruiting right now that are in high school to know that you can come here and be on the front stage everybody sees you. I think that's what is so positive about this.
"But when they kick the ball off, Miami doesn't care that GameDay’s here. They don’t care about any of that stuff. So you got to go out there and play your game and play at a high level."
Kickoff is scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 19 at 7:30 p.m. on ABC.
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