Coach Scott Satterfield held his weekly press conference today at noon. He recapped the Cardinals loss to Virginia Tech, looked ahead to the this week’s road game at Virginia, the voting process the team has taken with the 2020 election taking place tomorrow, and discussed the Covid issue the team is current dealing with that forced many defensive players to miss the Virginia Tech game.
As you can imagine, the press conference was dominated for a good portion by talk of the Covid issue. The bad news appears to be that UofL will likely be missing the same players for their game against Virginia Tech, according to Coach Satterfield. While Coach Satterfield acknowledged that having a full week to prepare to play without many key defensive players helps, it’s still tough because depth takes a hit and they will be forced to give young, inexperienced players more practice reps and likely playing time.
Coach Satterfield discussed what they did to make sure the team had a chance to cast their ballots in the upcoming election. This included helping out of state players get their absentee ballots. Coach Satterfield didn’t have the numbers for how many members of the team voted, but he advised some local players will cast their vote tomorrow on Election Day. The team was given the day off to allow them to do so.
Discussion turned to what the biggest reason is for the teams struggle to bounce back from losses this season compared to last season is. Coach Satterfield mentioned closing out games is a big difference and sited examples from last season where the team was able to finish off opponents and juxtaposed it with some similar games this season where they haven’t. He also mentioned losing the turnover battle as being a key issue.
Here are some of the other topics discussed:
- Monty Montgomery status because he was on depth chart released this morning.
- Virginia defense against the run and what Coach Satterfield is working on to counteract it.
- Cross training of players at different positions to help deal with any Covid-related depth issues.
- Dez Fitzpatrick’s big game and the importance of getting him more involved with the offense.
- Ramon Puryear, Derek Dorsey, and Zach Edwards playing well Saturday and how it could help Louisville’s defensive line depth once the starters return.
- Whether there was discussion of postponing the Virginia Tech game when the Covid issue popped up.
- How the team has dealt and is dealing with the mental health aspects of isolation when dealing with the virus.
- How mental health and helping players get counseling, if needed, has become more of a priority.
- Freshmen Henry Bryant and Jared Dawson maybe getting looks at possible playing time. Coach Satterfield mentions possibly Dawson, but that Bryant is currently unavailable.
For all the details and direct quotes of what Coach Satterfield had to say, check out the press conference video below.
