What Scott Satterfield, Louisville Players Said After 34-17 Win at Virginia
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. - Despite being short several top playmakers, Louisville was able to bounce back at Virginia and secure a 34-17 victory for their first win in conference play.
Here's what head coach Scott Satterfield, safety M.J. Griffin, quarterback Brock Domann, tight end Marshon Ford and cornerback Jarvis Brownlee Jr. had to say following the loss:
Head Coach Scott Satterfield
(Opening statement)
First of all really proud of our guys. After a tough week, last week coming off a tough loss up at BC, really disappointed in that loss, obviously, last week. Credit to our guys and our staff. They continued to battle, continued to not listen to naysayers. Everybody's gonna put you down when you don't do good, I don't care who you are. I don't care what position you're in, they're always gonna put you down and talk negative about you. You can either listen to it, or you can just keep doing what you're doing, and hope some good stuff will happen. The good stuff didn't start happening until the second quarter for us. The first quarter was not very good at all, offensively and defensively. But our guys settled down in the second quarter, we started making some plays, we battled back in it. They did a great job to get the ball back and kick the field go. I thought that was huge right before half. To go up 13-10, to get that momentum knowing that they're going to get the ball back when we come back out in the second half. Our defense did a great job of stopping and holding them, and then our offense goes down and scores. Next thing you know, we're up 10 with only four and a half minutes off the clock. That's great momentum for us. Then we just kind of battled a little bit, and then in the fourth quarter we kind of took over.
I'm really proud of our guys. We had a great offensive drive there in the second half. Eight and a half minutes that they took off the clock and ended in a touchdown. That's huge for our guys. Really proud of that. I talked about how we had some new starters today. Obviously, everybody knows the quarterback. Brock (Domann) came out, and man, what a great effort he gave us today. He settled down after the first quarter, and really played well. Huge play on the fourth down when he pulls it and goes for touchdown about 50 yards. That was a great play by him. I thought he started settling down and started making some great throws against their defense. We had a lot of respect for their defense. (M.J.) Griffin started at safety, I thought Griffin had a great day. This is really really good things for us. Guys stepped up when they needed to. Our backs were against the wall today, we're o-for-whatever in ACC play, we're going on the road, all the negativity and we got all these backups, and then they played a great game. Defensively, we held them to single digit rushing yards. Offensively, we put up 470 yards against a really good defense. You can't say enough about the resiliency of our guys, and I'm really proud of them and the way they came out and finished this game.
(On if the players rallied to support Domann or Satterfield with all the negativity surrounding the program)
Well, I don't know about me. I do know they stood up and supported Brock. There was a lot of guys on the field that come up to you and say, "Hey, great job coach. Love you." That happens, and I love them too. It's people over the player. No matter what happens to me, anytime this year, five years now, whatever, the relationship that we started with the players as people is what's most important. When you coach that way, I've been coaching that way my whole career, then they can never take that away from you. That what I told them. You face adversity, and we've faced a ton, but be who you are. Your character is going to get revealed whenever you get all this negativity on you. I just want them to know that I still care about them no matter what.
I thought our offensive line played outstanding today, because they're a really good sack team. They have generated a lot of sacks throughout the season, and they stayed clean. (Brock Domann) had a clean pocket today, and was able to sit there and make some of those throws. They rallied behind him, and I thought it was awesome. Brock is a selfless guy. He cares about the teammates, even when he's not playing. He's always pumping them up, so they obviously want to come out and play great for him today. Defensively, I thought we did a really nice job - except for the one pass down the sideline - of really kind of keeping everything in front, and then rallying to tackle. That was our goal this week: not to give up those those big plays that we did in the BC game. I thought those guys did a nice job as well.
(On the 4th and 2 option keeper for a 44-yard score)
We knew on fourth down, particularly short, they're gonna bring everybody in the box and blitz off the edge. If they do blitz, it's off the edge and they tackle the running back and Brock's gotta pull it. He's not known to be a runner, but it doesn't matter, because there shouldn't be anybody else out there. He did a had a great read on the play, he squeezed down, he pulls it, nobody's there and he's off to the races. He showed that speed that he has today on that run. That was a great play by him. It's part of our offense, we've been running it, and he made a great read on that and be able to pull it back.
(On if that play by Domann took some pressure off him)
I think so, I do. I think it probably relaxed him a little bit more, and told him, "man, I can play with these guys." Here's a guy who hadn't really hadn't played much sports. He played in the South Florida game, and the game was already out of hand. I think as a player, you think you really belong, but until you go out there and do it, you don't really know. I think when he made that play - because he was disappointed in the first third down. He thought he had the first down, he slid, and the ball gets put back. It's one yard short. He was so disappointed on that. You notice, from that point forward, he was always running to get yards and he wasn't sliding.
(On if he said anything to Domann after his rough start)
Not necessarily to him, but really for the whole team. We know you're going to face adversity in games, but it's how you respond. You got to put that play aside, and move to the next play. He did a great job of not dwelling on some of those negative plays in the first quarter. ... He ended up settling down, and he started seeing it better. I think that's one thing about it. Things go fast initially as a quarterback, you gotta read everything. The game started slowing down for him, and then he just cut loose and started playing. Which we knew he was capable of. He made some big time throws, and I'm very proud of him.
(On difference in Griffin at safety and Riley at corner)
We've been trying to find a good mix and match, where to put the guys to be able to make plays. I think the one thing that we talked about this week is, if you're the deep safety, get deep. Don't kick it up the post ball in the middle. I don't think we did today. That was our Achilles heel last week. Then when you're in roll down, then you got to get down and hit that alley, and I think they were able to do that. You mentioned Quincy out there playing some corner. We're rotating some guys around. Tre Clark's playing in the slot, we're trying to find the best matchup. Brownlee had a nice pick on the sideline, Griffin had one. It's a good mix of what they were doing in the back end. Then I'm really proud of the of the D-line and linebackers up front. To hold anybody in college football to what we did, rushing, that's big time.
(On how he blocks out all the outside noise)
I don't turn my phone on, that's number one. If you want to feel bad about yourself, turn your phone on if something bad's going on. I don't listen to any of that stuff. I got a job to do. I just do my job to the best of my ability, and that's kind of what we did this week. We went to work. I don't know how to do anything else, I'm not smart enough to know how to do anything else. I think it was just a hyperfocus with our staff: offense, defense and kicking. I really believe everybody just kind of rallied and said, "Listen, let's go do this. Let's get this done. Let's let's play good offense, defense and special teams as a unit," and we did that in the second half today. It doesn't matter who you play, you still gotta go out and make plays. The guys have to go out and make plays. Coaches, we we can't go out and make them for them. I saw a lot of playmakers today making plays.
(On if there were any conversations with the administration following the Boston College loss)
There's conversations after every week. Win or lose, we always have conversations. The conversation after last week was, "Hey, what can we do to get better? How are we gonna get better?" The things that I shared with you all is kind of what I was sharing with Josh Heird and our administration. We go to do whatever we can to get better. Here's things that we're gonna do, and then let's go and try to make it happen. We're still early in the season. We're at the halfway point, and there's a lot of ball left to played. We take it one game at a time. For us, we got to heal up. We got a bunch of guys that are dinged up, so we got to heal up next week. We got to go out and recruit, continue to recruit and then we'll have Pittsburgh the following week.
(On who was the play caller today)
I still called the plays today, like we always do. It was a great collaboration on our offensive staff. I got into this business calling plays, I'm calling plays. But I'm not hard-headed enough to (not) listen to my guys. I'm gonna listen to our coaches. I'm collaborating with the defense, and they're talking about the next series. So when I come back over, "Alright, guys, what are you seeing out there?" We talk about it, here's some things we need to run, then I'm calling the play. But I'm taking all the information in. We have great coaches, offense and defense. I'm gonna take that information, run with it, but I'm calling the plays. I was calling plays in the first quarter, too, when they were not good. But I was calling them the last three, when they were. The guys went out and made plays.
(On if there was more of an effort this week to get Marshon Ford involved in the passing game)
Yeah, it was a big effort this week. After the BC game, we asked ourselves, "where can we put our guys best to make plays?" We really looked at it this week. Get T-Huddy (Tyler Hudson) on the inside, he had a couple of catches on the inside, not just on the outside. We had Marshon Ford on the inside working on safeties. We utilized Ahmari (Huggins-Bruce)'s speed getting outside. We just tried to utilize these guys' talents to the best of our ability to be able to make plays. Ford did some great things today, inside on safeties and linebackers. He's a really good player. We tried to get him a couple more balls today, and just couldn't quite connect on it. I thought he would have had a touchdown. But anyway, great game by him, and we'll have to go dial up some more plays next week.
Quarterback Brock Domann
Tight End Marshon Ford, Cornerback Jarvis Brownlee Jr.
(Photo of Scott Satterfield: Jamie Rhodes - USA TODAY Sports)
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