Satterfield Loathes Short Weeks and It's Not Hard to See Why
Louisville football has always had a unique brand. In a few decades, it has grown from an afterthought commuter-basketball-school into a Power 5 program that has been among the elite at times over the last few decades. A huge part of this brand’s rapid growth was the exposure that the program received through seeking out weeknight games.
After joining the C-USA in 1996 and hiring a new Athletic Director in 1997, it didn’t take long before Tom Jurich started looking at ways to grow the football program. One of the biggest weaknesses he found was that the C-USA was not offering Louisville the exposure it needed in order to grow at the rate he wanted the program to grow. So, Jurich adopted the motto of “Louisville will play you anytime, anywhere,” and he meant it. While UofL’s coaches and players would have to put up with shorter game-weeks and odd schedules, it afforded the program the opportunity to be on TV in front of a national audience. I think that we’d all agree that the risks paid off, considering where the program stands today.
Since UofL started regularly playing weeknight games in 1999, the Cardinals have played 30 games on short rest. While it has been great for the program trying to build national recognition, it hasn’t always been great for coaches. Over the 30 games played with quick turnarounds (less than 7 days), Louisville has amassed a modest 18-12 (.600) record. Luckily, from 2001 through 2006 Louisville went undefeated on short weeks, winning seven consecutive games. This hot streak on the national stage allowed Louisville to leverage itself into a Big East invite, and the practice would pay off again from 2010-2012 when Louisville would win 6-straight short-week games while trying to survive conference realignment.
With the many successes have also come many failures as UofL has experienced two droughts of four and five-straight losses. While the timing was everything when the wins came, it’s not hard to see why coaches don’t love the idea of coaching on a short week, and Scott Satterfield is no different.
“I hate the five-day turnaround,” Satterfield said Wednesday night. “We had to do it App State for five years straight…It’s extremely difficult.”
It’s not hard to see why Satterfield loathes the quick turnaround so much as his App State teams faced Georgia Southern every year on five-days’ rest. Satterfield’s teams won three of the five contests against the Eagles, but also dropped a short-week game against Arkansas State in 2015, giving Satterfield a lackluster 3-3 record on short game weeks.
It’s also not hard to see why Satterfield wouldn’t be looking forward to the Georgia Southern games as the Eagles have been a longtime rival of App St. and are infamous for their bruising rushing attack. The last thing teams like to face on short turnarounds, especially ones with depth issues, is a run-heavy offense.
While I don’t expect for EKU to bust out Georgia Southern’s trademark option offense, Louisville fans and Satterfield alike should be expecting EKU to try to run the ball early and often. EKU put up 333 net rushing yards against Valparaiso to their 109 yards passing route to a 53-7 win last week. The Colonels return their backup running back from last year, Deryl McClesky, who ran for 651 yards and 5 touchdowns, and redshirt sophomore Alonzo Booth who led the team with 128 yards on just 7 carries and 3 touchdowns last week.
Though Louisville’s defense should be light-years ahead of Valparaiso’s, with depth being such a premium this season, it will be very important for players to recover as much as possible this week and stay healthy while EKU continuously crashes into the already-thin d-line and linebackers. It’s hard to blame Satterfield for holding so much ill-will against short weeks, especially with the depth chart he’s trying to preserve.
Hopefully, the Cards can end their current four-game losing streak on short weeks, get Satterfield’s first win, get the team’s first win in nearly a year, but most importantly, survive the short week and leave the field injury-free.