What Scott Satterfield, Louisville Players Said After 31-16 Loss at Clemson

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Despite a good performance from their defense, the Louisville football program's offense failed to hold up their end of the bargain, resulting in a 31-16 loss at Clemson to snap a four-game win streak.

Here's what head coach Scott Satterfield, quarterback Brock Domann, wide receiver Tyler Hudson and linebacker MoMo Sanogo had to say following the loss:

Head Coach Scott Satterfield

(Opening Statement)

First of all, congratulations to Clemson. All week, you're hearing how bad you are, and how you didn't show up against Notre Dame. You hear that enough, you're gonna come out with your best game. We knew we were gonna get their best shot. Their defensive line, I thought played really, really well tonight. They gave us problems up front, offensively. They brought a lot of pressure tonight with their linebackers as well, getting in our backfield, and really couldn't get anything going offensively. We're spluttering here and there, but not a whole lot getting going. I thought our defense played really, really hard tonight, created some turnovers. Even when it didn't look great for us, they're still fighting and getting turnovers. Really proud of them. We didn't tackle great tonight. I thought we missed some tackles on (Will) Shipley and 26 (Phil Mafah). We knew that coming in that was gonna be a big thing. We had to tackle well, and we didn't do as great as we would like to do. But we still had opportunities. I mean, the second half, we still had opportunities, but we didn't make the most of it offensively. We're being banged up a little bit right now. We don't have many receivers, and of course, Malik (Cunningham) got banged up again. But I'm proud of our guys. That's what I told them in the locker room. I'm really proud of how to continued to fight. When things are down and out, they have not given up, and they didn't lay down. They didn't tonight, all the way to the last play when we threw a touchdown pass. We got to regroup, we got to come back tomorrow and get ready for NC State.

(On Malik Cunningham's status)

I don't know. He came out the second half and tried to throw. On the last play before halftime, on the run, he came down on his shoulder. I think it's just an AC sprain on his shoulder. If it was on the left side, he probably could have played, but because it was the right side, he couldn't play. I think he'll probably be listed as day-to-day, but we'll know more when we get back.

(On the lack production in the run game)

They got a lot of good players out there. If you saw them standing there, they're some big dudes, very talented. Here's the thing, I thought they did a really good job with their inside pressures. Their linebackers, they brought down, there's a lot of guys in there. There's not many holes, and we were running sideways. I thought we popped a few here and there, and against a great defense like that, you got to stick with it. You got to hope you hit some holes. Tiyon (Evans) had a nice one, Jawhar Jordan had a couple of nice holes and some good runs. But they're not gonna let us line up and do that consistently. We tried to stick with it when the game was in hand in the second half, but obviously got to get away from it a little bit and go to more trying to spread them out a little bit more. Then, it doesn't help either the fact that we didn't hit many plays on the perimeter early in the game. So now, they can continue to load the box up. We got to hit more on the outside. I think we hit some in the second half, but we didn't do enough early in the game to loosen them up a little bit.

(On lack of wide receiver production outside of Tyler Hudson)

Ahmari (Huggins-Bruce) is still hobbling out there a little bit, Braden is in the slot there, it was tough to get open Marshon (Ford). That's about all we got right now at this point in the season. Those guys, they were tired there in the fourth quarter, and we're trying to get open, they're playing man, and it's just hard. We don't have anyone else to sub, really, and kind of got watered down that way in the second half. We got to regroup, we got to get healed up, we got to get some guys healthy, and be able to come back and play a tough NC State team as well.

(On how confident the guys still are despite the loss)

I still think we did some really good things tonight. We created some turnovers, and almost had a couple more as well. It's a big play right before half, when they fumbled and we almost picked it up. Then they hit Shipley on a PI down the sideline and ended up scoring. That was a huge play right before half. There's a lot of positives to take from this game. We get to play back our stadium next week, senior day, so we got to regroup.

(On having a resilient mentality)

I told our guys, 'the outcome is not what we wanted tonight.' But we came out, and we played as hard as you can possibly play, and we didn't quit. When you can keep doing that, you're gonna give yourself a great opportunity to win football games. That's what I'm proud of the most with our guys. A lot of these teams we're playing, they're good. I mean, it's a good football team right here. 9-1, top 10 team in the country. Everyone wanted to write them off last week, but they're still pretty daggone good. 80,000 people in this environment right here, it's pretty sweet what they got going on. You still gotta go out and you gotta make plays. We didn't make enough tonight. We gotta go make more next week.

(On how being down Cunningham and two runnings backs affected play calling)

I mean, it makes it harder. This time of the season, you're running out of guys. Hopefully we'll get healed up a little bit more this week, and get some guys back. But our guys that are playing, they know they got to be in great shape, they know it's going to be a long game, they know they got to go out there and make plays even when they're tired. Hopefully, you've made enough plays along the way to where in the fourth quarter, you just don't have to go out there and do everything you can to try to go back and win the game. You hope you're staying on course of the game. That's really what we have to do in these next two weeks. Keep it on track, keep it within reach right there, continue to battle, and then try to finish them in the end.

(On their missed opportunities, specifically on forced fumbles not getting recovered)

What that means is, we're swarming, we're going after the football, we're hitting hard. You got to love to see that. We're one of the best teams in the country when it comes to takeaways, and we showed it again today. We had some more opportunities, we didn't get it, but we're going to continue to play that way. We like to play aggressively. It gives us a great chance to win games, and that's the way we want to play. We didn't come up with it tonight. I don't think it was the defense's fault. They gave us opportunities, and we didn't go down and score. We didn't capitalize on it. We just couldn't make enough plays on offense, I think that was probably the biggest thing tonight.

Quarterback Brock Domann

Wide Receiver Tyler Hudson

Linebacker MoMo Sanogo

(Photo of Scott Satterfield: Ken Ruinard - USA TODAY Sports)

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