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After spending 17 years as a player, assistant coach, and head coach, Scott Satterfield is on the move from Boone, North Carolina. The former Appalachian State head coach spent the last five years leading the program and taking App State from an FBS newbie to a legitimate contender, including three consecutive Sun Belt Conference Championships and four consecutive bowl appearances.
On Tuesday, Louisville held a press conference introducing the new coach and a few things seemed to really stand out. Louisville Athletic Director Vince Tyra was asked how Satterfield ended up on his shortlist. He said simply that he was a fan of the coach and had been following the App State program and watching closely as they were taking Power 5 programs to the brink on a consistent basis. Tyra also mentioned the word culture repeatedly. Culture has been a big issue for Louisville in both football and basketball over the last few seasons.
When they brought Bobby Petrino back, he came with a considerable amount of, however, he did have a limited amount of success in his return. However, since Petrino returned in 2014 he had not won more than 9 games, even with the youngest Heisman trophy winner in history – Lamar Jackson.
But throughout the press conference, we kept hearing about culture, finding the right student athlete, culture, student grade point averages, culture, player arrests, and culture. Both Tyra and Satterfield mentioned this over and over. Tyra even brought up his review process of Satterfield, which included looking at the number of player arrests that occurred under Satterfield’s regime at App State – Satterfield passed the test.
Satterfield’s incoming student athlete’s averaged a 3.5 GPA in high school, which is pretty impressive when we’re talking about the shear volume of players that will be recruited to a program on any given year. That may be more of a challenge at Louisville, to compete with the power programs in the conference, but the point is Satterfield isn’t just going to focus on what incoming
recruits are doing on the football field; he wants well-rounded guys on and off the field that are going to represent the university in a positive way.
Satterfield also focused heavily on how he will do things differently in the community, specifically mentioning how he plans to hold open practices for local high school coaches and players to attend, being more active and approachable on the recruiting trail, and making sure that they take care
of business from a recruiting standpoint in the commonwealth of Kentucky and the greater Louisville area.
Louisville has a lot to be excited about with this hire. The Jeff Brohm situation didn’t work out, but they landed a guy that truly wants to be there and has proven that he can coach and succeed on the FBS level, albeit at a smaller program.
Louisville did not land a top 25 recruiting class after Petrino returned in 2014. Class ranks by order of year are as follows (according to ESPN.com):
- 2018 rank – 28th
- 2017 rank – 29th
- 2016 rank – 36th
- 2015 Rank – 30th
- 2014 rank – 53rd
Louisville’s current class has eight 3-star recruits currently committed but is not considered to be a top 40 class at this point. Satterfield mentioned that he lost a few of his initial recruiting targets at App State once they began receiving Power 5 offers, so expect him to target some of those guys at Louisville.
He’s got a challenging road ahead, especially since he’s in the Atlantic Division of the ACC, but Louisville fans must be excited about the direction of the program after hearing Satterfield speak earlier this week.
You can watch the full press conference here:
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