Bowl season is a strange season. For most, it’s this weird limbo between the end of the regular season and the college football playoff. Many, often the losers, argue that the games are meaningless. And with the supposedly reduced meaning of bowl games outside of the playoff, including the rest of the NY6 bowls, there’s an ever-growing narrative that these games are simply showcases for what’s to come next season.
However, this is not universally true. Because even if you believe there are too many meaningless bowl games, some of these bowl games mean an awful lot to certain teams. Louisville is one of those teams.
Louisville has been to hell in back in less than a full calendar year, and now they’re getting to celebrate the accomplishments of their bounce-back season with an extra game. I find it very hard to believe that these players are looking at this game as an exhibition/showcase for next season.
And for the coaches, it’s difficult to believe it’s any different. These coaches have been through a whirlwind since last December. They’ve had to pick up the pieces from a mismanaged depth chart, correct years of poor coaching, and reconstruct a dismantled team morale. Their efforts have been fruitful and outstanding, and I don’t see any reason why they’d take their foot off the gas in Nashville.
But even if you desperately want to win your bowl game, it’s easier said than done. Taking a full month off of playing football during the busiest holiday season and coming back at full speed is a difficult thing to manage.
Many Louisville fans considered Charlie Strong a master when it came to managing long breaks and bowl seasons. It always seemed like Charlie’s teams played on another level in their bowl games. Coach Strong was a solid 3-1 in his bowl games at Louisville, and in his final two bowl games against Florida and Miami, his teams easily surpassed the season’s average scoring margin. Louisville beat #4 ranked Florida by 10 points when the average scoring margin over the entire season (excluding FCS opponents) was 7.1. And his final game Louisville beat Miami by 27 points, which bested the season’s average margin of 21.4 points.
So how does Scott Satterfield matchup to Charlie’s bowl prowess? Well for starters, he’s never lost a bowl game (4-0). That’s a good start. But of course, this was against usually inferior competition than what Charlie was dealing with. But considering the relative strengths of the programs, App State having a perfect bowl record with Satterfield is still something to write home about.
In Satterfield’s first two bowl games against MAC foes, Ohio and Toledo, his teams beat them by a combined 5 points. These small margins were well below the season averages of 16.3 and 12.1 points, respectively. But it should be noted that these two games were the first two bowl games App State ever played in, and were in just their second and third seasons at the FBS level.
Like Charlie, Satterfield’s third and fourth bowl teams were on a different level. In the 2017 Dollar General Bowl against Toledo, the Mountaineers shutout the Rockets by a score of 34-0. This 34-point margin of victory easily outperformed the season’s average of 8.3. And in Satterfield’s final season, while he didn’t coach the game, some of his current assistants did and they won the New Orleans Bowl by 32 points. This cleared the 17-point average they posted over the regular season.
Even with this data, it’s very difficult to predict how this Louisville team will perform. This is a group that still has a long ways to go physically, mentally, and roster-wise. Our good friend of the site, Keith Wynne, has an excellent breakdown of how poorly Bobby Petrino mismanaged Louisville’s roster and how it’s something we’ll still be dealing with for seasons to come. A big thing Keith pointed out was how the defense was so incredibly thin to begin with, and it showed in the last few games of the season. While the defense had struggled against high octane offenses in the first half of the season, they showed progress from the previous season and looked like they were ready to handle the weaker offenses on the back half of the schedule. But due to the roster’s lack of depth, and the wear and tear of a full season, the defense’s performances against inferior offenses did not improve drastically compared to the better offenses they’d played. While it was discouraging at the time, this is a big thing to keep eye on after this defense has had a month to rest and prepare for an average, but large, Mississippi State offense.
This is just one of the many things to consider in this game, ranging from the strange amount of time it has been since Louisville last played a game to which players will actually be suiting up on each side of the ball. But one thing that’s certain is that Scott Satterfield has a strong track record when it comes to preparing for and winning bowl games. And with the shocking turnaround season this team has had, it may be naïve of us to not expect one more surprise this year.
