Louisville coach Scott Satterfield will really be happy if the Cardinals beat UK Saturday. (Louisville Athletics Photo)
Coach Scott Satterfield has surprised almost everyone, including Louisville fans, by guiding the Cardinals to a 7-4 mark going into Saturday’s game at Kentucky.
Satterfield is 0-2 against Kentucky and neither game has been close. He lost 45-19 to UK in his first season in 2019 and then 52-21 last year (there was no game in 2020 because UK played a SEC only schedule).
Satterfield knows what playing Kentucky means to Louisville fans.
“They’re fans and they’re going to be fanatics about particularly this game – it’s a rivalry game,” Satterfield said at his weekly press conference Tuesday. “It doesn’t matter about records, whether we’re both undefeated or we haven’t won a game, your fan base wants to win this one for bragging rights.”
“We hear about it throughout the whole year. No matter where we go, if there’s some fan from either side, they will a lot of the times make a comment about it. It’s obviously a huge game and one you want to try to go get so we don’t have to hear some of that stuff again all season.”
Kentucky fans have talked a lot because the Cats have owned this series and most thought this would be a gimme win for UK when the season opened. Instead, the Cats have struggled to a 6-5 mark and have lost five of their last seven games while the Cards seem to get better each week and have won five of their last six games.
Satterfield knows his team cannot let emotions lead to mistakes in Lexington.
“I think anytime you get overly emotional in a situation like this, it takes away from the play. We have to worry about us, we have to worry about our guys and play for the ones beside you. That’s who we’re playing for. Focus on your job and not anything else,” Satterfield said.
“Let’s let the fans and everybody else do all that stuff. Let’s focus on what we have to do, which is our job each and every play, and play focused. So, we’re talking about that this week, but I know guys are going to be emotional.
“We have to channel it in the right direction. I thought we got sideways on that one last year and kind of got us out of our game.”
Kind of got Louisville out of the game? Kentucky demolished the Cards and UK quarterback Will Levis was throwing the L’s Down at the home fans almost the entire game.
Satterfield said Louisville’s defense did little to slow down the Cats.
“Loose coverages, the quarterback runs really hurt, nothing went right,” Satterfield said. “It was just one of those days nothing went right. Even early in the game, it’s 14-7, we’re driving, and we get in a little bit of a scuffle on the sideline. We kind of lost our composure, and from that point forward it was straight downhill.
“We certainly got to play really good football. We have to, we have to play good in all three aspects. We’re not good enough just to go show up, we got to go play. We got to play great football, complimentary football in all three phases to have an opportunity to win this game. We recognize that.”
One hug plus for Louisville is that it leads the nation in sacks and ranks second in turnovers. Kentucky’s offense has been prone to giving up sacks and Levis has six red zone turnovers himself.
“I think defensively, we’ve been really good,” Satterfield said. “The negatives from some of those early losses was just the big plays. We were still playing good defense, what we call havoc defense: tackles for loss, sacks, turnovers. It’s been really, really good this year.
“We’re number one in the country in sacks. We’re number two in takeaways. It’s hard to get any better than that. We’ve played a lot of people; we’ve rotated some guys in and out of there. We’ve played really, really good team defense.”
One Response
I think Satterfield gets that this is a huge rivalry game and is expressing that here, and rightly so. Not sure Coach Stoops puts that front and center publicly enough, but maybe with his team, I don’t know. I know this, UK had better be ready to kick some A$$. This will not be an easy game for the Cats.
Satterfield is right about the records, and past games. It don’t matter, game day is the time to go to war despite the record book. UK has them at home, playing for 7-5. Lose this one and it will hurt the progress Stoops has made big time because of who UK loses off this 2022 squad. It will hurt recruiting. If UK wins, it is a 7-5 season for both schools. The Cards though have a shot at 8 wins in 2022. Who would have thought that earlier this year? Satterfield has played the transfer portal well, and resurrected Louisville football, saving his job. Louisville’s 2023 class is ranked 17th last I saw. UK’s 48th. HUMM. Coach Stoops needs to earn that $8.6 mil by beating the snot out of Louisville at home.