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Know Your Notre Dame Football Enemy: Louisville

By Daniel Morrison

LOUISVILLE, KY - DECEMBER 05: Scott Satterfield the new head coach of football team at the University of Louisville talks to the media before the start od the Louisville Cardinals against the Central Arkansas Bears at KFC YUM! Center on December 5, 2018 in Louisville, Kentucky. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)
LOUISVILLE, KY - DECEMBER 05: Scott Satterfield the new head coach of football team at the University of Louisville talks to the media before the start od the Louisville Cardinals against the Central Arkansas Bears at KFC YUM! Center on December 5, 2018 in Louisville, Kentucky. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images) /
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Notre Dame football is a heavy favorite against Louisville, but the Cardinals will be a well-coached unit.

Last season, Louisville finished the season allowing 44.1 points per game, good for being ranked 127th in the country. That’s out of 130 teams. That’s pretty abysmal. They were a little better in total yards allowed, ranking 122nd. That’s 483.5 yards per game. That’s not good enough to stop Notre Dame football.

On offense, in 2018, Louisville ranked 108th in offensive yards gained, only gaining 352.6 yards per game. In regards to points per game, that was good for 19.8 points per game, 121st in the country. That’s a far cry from the offense in the days of Lamar Jackson. In 2017, Jackson led the Cardinals to 544.9 yards per game. That’s a simply ridiculous drop off. That’s tough for a good defense to make up the difference on, let alone a bad one, like Louisville had.

Louisville is a mess.

Scott Satterfield is the maid. He comes in from Appalachian State to clean up Bobby Petrino’s mess.

Louisville has very few seniors returning. That’s not a good thing, but with a new coach, it can get spun into being a good thing. There’s fewer older players who are looked up to that coach Satterfield needs to convert into his system. It allows for little to no expectations. It will allow Satterfield to play young players and gain valuable experience for years to come. It will make for a better program in the long term.

In the short term, Louisville will probably get beaten up again. That’s good news for Notre Dame football, as they’ll have more experience, and size to beat them down.

OFFENSE

Satterfield has an offensive background. He played quarterback at Appalachian State, where he was coaching before Louisville. Satterfield served as offensive coordinator under Mario Cristobal, at FIU. He served in the same role at Appalachian State under long time coach Jerry Moore. In Moore’s background was the Tom Osborne offense. Cristobal now loves to run the quarterback at Oregon, and that’s not new to him. Satterfield loved to run his quarterbacks at Appalachian State, and that won’t change at Louisville. If there’s one thing the Cardinals have, it’s the ability to run the quarterback with Jawan Pass under center.

Offensive coordinator Dwayne Ledford is an offensive line coach by trade. In fact, that’s all Ledford did in his career, besides a brief stint as offensive coordinator for Satterfield at Appalachian State. Even then, he was also the offensive line coach.

Making Ledford the offensive coordinator is about the tone Louisville will bring. They want to win the trenches. They want to go downhill against their opponents. That being said, they don’t have much talent on the roster at running back, and the offensive line needs work before Louisville can safely run downhill on opponents.

DEFENSE

The new defensive coordinator is Bryan Brown. It would be very difficult to be worse than Brian VonGorder — also a former Notre Dame defensive coordinator — was last season. Satterfield is bringing Brown over from Appalachian State, where he was the defensive coordinator. As defensive coordinator, Brown made Appalachian State a top-10 defense. The Mountaineers were 4th in points allowed per game, only giving up 15.5 points per game. As far as yards given up per game, Brown’s defense was 6th, giving up 288 yards per outing.

Now, detractors might say that it was the Sun Belt, and level of competition will be stiffer. This ignores that Louisville will have better talent, in theory. That’s a theory because Petrino leaves little to no talent for Satterfield on defense. It’s not unlikely that it takes time to get going before the turnaround on defense.

All of this is good news for Notre Dame football. Ian Book will be able to pick apart a weak defense. He should be able to find out which receivers will get open and be reliable. Jafar Armstrong, the presumed starting running back, should be able to run through open gaps in the Louisville front seven.

On defense, the ends will be tested to contain a running quarterback. It wouldn’t be surprising if a linebacker is left to spy on the quarterback and stop scrambling plays. Across the board, the Irish defense should be able t beat the Cardinals straight up.

Prediction: Notre Dame 45, Louisville 17

Louisville has a ton of issues. A lack of Power 5 talent is at the top of the list. They have a good coach now, but he’s in the process of changing culture and developing talent. That takes time, and Week One isn’t exactly giving Satterfield any time. Notre Dame should also be looking to prove doubters wrong early with a blowout win. It shouldn’t be a close game.

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