The Clemson football team will take on a confident Louisville bunch on Saturday. Cardinals Coach Scott Satterfield has the program trending upwards.
It wasn’t that long ago that the Louisville Cardinals were competing with Clemson football.
The Cardinals and Tigers played some classic games just a few years ago when Lamar Jackson and Deshaun Watson matched up on the field against each other. For a couple of years, the Cardinals weren’t just explosive offensively, they were also physical defensively.
They played with confidence and made life very difficult for Clemson football.
Those days have long since passed, though.
Louisville had to make a coaching change and are now in the process of rebuilding a program that was on life support and destined to fail under Bobby Petrino. In steps Scott Satterfield.
Satterfield, the former Appalachian State Head Coach, has breathed new life into the Louisville football program since stepping on campus earlier this year. Satterfield helped build Appalachian State, which is currently ranked inside the top-25, and his offensive acumen has already paid dividends for Louisville.
Louisville finished the 2018 season with an abysmal 2-10 record. Through the first six games of the season, Satterfield has already doubled that win total.
The Cardinals are sitting pretty with a 4-2 record, coming off the program’s biggest win in quite a while when they defeated a top-20 ranked Wake Forest team 62-59.
Unfortunately for Satterfield, he doesn’t have the talent or depth to compete with Clemson football. But, it certainly won’t stop him from trying.
Over the years, Satterfield has grown accustomed to making more happen with less. That’s why he was such a great hire for Louisville. Though the Cardinals are never going to get a ton of 5-star prospects like Clemson football and some of the other programs around the country, Satterfield can build a solid program and have success there in Louisville.
Clemson football fans should keep their eyes on Scott Satterfield and Louisville over the next few years. He has the Cardinals trending in the right direction and they certainly could become a solid team in the ACC Atlantic within a few years of the rebuild, perhaps even sooner.