Louisville is in uncharted territory. I’m drawing a blank of the last time an ACC school looked to have made 2 universally praised hires with their men’s basketball and football team, and saw them so questioned several years later.
In 2018 the men’s basketball team hired Xavier’s Chris Mack, and the football program hired Scott Satterfield.
We’ll admit we felt these were hires that would change the face of Louisville athletics.
This is what we thought at the blog about Chris Mack’s hiring.
Louisville got their man. Chris Mack, by way of Xavier, is going to be the head coach of the Louisville basketball team. This is a great hire for Louisville… period.
We properly predicted that NCAA rulings could slow things at Louisville, but the problems are deeper than that.
Xavier is a top-notch basketball school, but Louisville is among the top 10 basketball programs in the country. He’ll have every resource he needs to make Louisville great again. Future NCAA rulings could slow Mack’s work, but it’s just a matter of time before Louisville under Chris Mack is again a national power.
Progress has been far slower than expected, and during this season in a down ACC, Louisville has slid off the bubble.
The loss Saturday to Pittsburgh is the Cardinal’s third loss in a row and sent Louisville to 10-7 (4-3). Couple that with home losses to the likes of Furman and DePaul, and things are not good.
In this year’s ACC, that’s not close to the bubble.
Last year the Cardinals missed the NCAA after a late-season collapse. Even the 24 win 20202 team that would have made the NCAA Tournament fell apart down the stretch, losing 4 of their last 7 games.
Then throw allegations on top of that from SI.com
And the NOA now names head coach Chris Mack as having committed a Level II violation for a lack of head-coach responsibility. Mack’s contract with Louisville contains language stating that he can be fired for cause if found to have committed a “serious violation” (which would be Level I or II).
It’s all adding up to an ugly situation at Louisville for the basketball program. I suspect Mack makes it this year, but a can’t miss hire will be on the hot seat next year barring an unlikely run to the NCAA Tournament in the next several weeks.
Our assessment of Scott Satterfield is well documented in recent weeks.
Now three years into his tenure the Cardinal program is worse in year 3 than year 1.
Satterfield did a wonderful job in 2019 getting Louisville to 8 wins after inheriting the trainwreck left by Bobby Petrino.
It’s been all downhill since.
Aside from pedestrian results, the commonality between Mack and Satterfield is negative off-the-field news that has marred both their tenures. Mack’s NOA report, and Satterfield’s other coaching job dalliances.
If you’re winning, off-the-field issues tend to get ignored. Neither is winning at a high rate, both programs are in the middle of the pack or worse of the ACC, and both have fallen way behind Kentucky in both sports.
This is all while searching for a new AD which has been a fiasco itself.
Louisville is capable of being one of the best Athletic Departments in the ACC, but right now in their two revenue sports it’s simply not going the way the Cardinal fanbase hoped for.
Louisville fans have a right to expect more, much more.
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