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Few collegiate athletic programs have endured a more exhausting period than Louisville has over the past four years. NCAA and FBI investigations, turnover in the athletic department, Bobby Petrino’s swift decline, Rick Pitino’s combative posture, Tom Jurich’s messy departure, and other surrounding realities swamped an ambitious school and its day-to-day existence.
The past four years have been frustrating, draining, discouraging, tumultuous, and that has nothing to do with national politics.
Louisville politics have fit that description.
In the midst of this turmoil and its massive internal shocks to a school’s administrative realm, the Cardinals and new athletic director Vince Tyra had to make great hires in basketball and football. The pressure and significance attached to these hires were enormous, and everyone in Louisville knew it. The weight and impact were going to either renew UL’s revenue-sport programs or keep the school adrift after all it had done to build its football brand and maintain its basketball identity.
We saw what Chris Mack did last season in basketball, setting up this season of promise and potential in the Bluegrass. Now, we have arrived at a moment of supreme satisfaction on the football side: In one year — not two, not three, only one — Scott Satterfield has taken Louisville from basement to bowl game.
Much as Matt Rhule is doing at Baylor, Satterfield shows signs of being able to take Louisville from the very bottom — 0-8 in the ACC last season — to a lofty place in college football.
Yes, Baylor — once Jalen Hurts leaves Oklahoma — might have a realistic chance at winning the Big 12 outright. Louisville and the other 12 non-Clemson teams in the ACC aren’t about to be good enough to overtake the Tigers. In that one respect, Louisville lacks something Baylor has: a legitimate chance to become the No. 1 team in its conference.
Other than that, however, UL — by making a bowl game this year, clinched by a win Saturday night over North Carolina State — now gets a bunch of December practices, the perfect on-ramp to a 2020 season in which a lot of young talent can blossom into something bigger than it already is. Louisville, like Baylor, is poised for rapid growth and improvement. I wouldn’t guarantee it — nothing other than Clemson being a superpower is guaranteed from year to year in the present-day ACC — but it certainly seems possible.
More than possible, it seems realistic. It seems like something which doesn’t feel remotely outrageous or unthinkable.
This is what a quality coach does: He instantly changes the conversation and one’s sense of what is attainable. No, Satterfield isn’t offering the impression that Dabo Swinney better start sweating bullets… but the idea that Louisville can soon eclipse the 12 other non-Clemson teams in the ACC seems plainly obvious. Of course it could happen — not “WILL,” but COULD.
Florida State’s selection of a new head coach is a big wild card here, but please tell me which ACC coach is likely to outmaneuver Satterfield in the coming years: Bronco Mendenhall? UVA has more talent, and yet Louisville’s inconsistent defense contained Bryce Perkins. Imagine what happens when UL solidifies on that side of the ball in the coming years.
Manny Diaz? Maybe… but Diaz lost at home to Georgia Tech this year. Mack Brown? Possibly, with Sam Howell slinging the ball around the yard, but Satterfield whipped this Louisville passing game into shape in a very short while.
Geoff Collins? Please. David Cutcliffe is struggling with a Duke team which has cratered after a promising September. Steve Addazio? Boston College has not maintained an upward trajectory. Satterfield schooled Dave Doeren on Saturday night. Dino Babers and Syracuse face Louisville next, and I would like UL’s chances in that matchup.
Pat Narduzzi and Justin Fuente could be formidable opponents for Satterfield, but until Pitt avoids a head-scratching loss in a season (Miami was that loss this year), give me Satterfield head-to-head. Fuente has rescued his season, but why did Hendon Hooker not start the season at quarterback? Give me Satterfield there, too.
Basement in 2018 under Petrino, bowl game in 2019 under Satterfield… and the fun is just starting in Louisville.
An athletic department awash in one draining controversy after another is finally beginning to breathe… and realize how great Vince Tyra performed as athletic director.
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