Scott Satterfield Not Paying Attention to Outside Noise Surrounding Louisville

It might taken until the halfway point of the 2022 season, but the Louisville football program finally captured their first conference win of the season on Saturday. Thanks to tremendous bounce-back efforts from both the defense and backup quarterback Brock Domann, the Cardinals were able to take down Virginia 34-17 in Charlottesville, Va. to move to 3-3 on the year and 1-3 in ACC play.

The Cardinals were able to end the week on a high note, but leading up to the matchup against the Cavaliers, there were not many positive headlines surrounding the program.

Some of Louisville's biggest issues over the past couple years were on full display during the first five games of the year. The offense had struggled to consistently move the ball, the defense had not been able to stop many big plays at all, penalties were a massive issue, and the team as a whole still struggled to finish games in the fourth quarter.

Coming off of their 34-33 loss at Boston College last weekend, where Louisville had been a two-touchdown favorite, the outside noise only got louder. Many in the fanbase and local media - including myself - started to wonder if the BC game had marked a point of no return for the Satterfield era.

On Friday, the outside noise had reached a fever pitch. ESPN's Adam Rittenberg reported that morning that if Louisville were to lose at Virginia, "a change is expected" at the head coaching position with the Cardinals. WDRB's Eric Crawford refuted this, reporting himself that "Satterfield's immediate future is not contingent on the result of Saturday's game at Virginia."

Regardless of which report was more grounded in truth, Satterfield and Louisville were not letting the negativity surrounding the program impact them.

"Credit to our guys and our staff. They continued to battle, continued to not listen to naysayers," Satterfield said. "Everybody's gonna put you down when you don't do good, I don't care who you are. I don't care what position you're in, they're always gonna put you down and talk negative about you. You can either listen to it, or you can just keep doing what you're doing, and hope some good stuff will happen."

It's not that he's unaware of the fact that he is perceived to be on the hot seat. Even with the myriad of perceived upgrades, such as additions both through the transfer portal and on the coaching staff, he's been in this position ever since the end of last year's regular season when Louisville was blown out by Kentucky at home.

But for Satterfield, tuning out the negativity is as simple as turning off his phone. He just stayed focused on game planning for Virginia, and Louisville was able to produce a winning effort. 

"I don't turn my phone on, that's number one. If you want to feel bad about yourself, turn your phone on if something bad's going on," Satterfield said. "I don't listen to any of that stuff. I got a job to do. I just do my job to the best of my ability, and that's kind of what we did this week. We went to work. I don't know how to do anything else, I'm not smart enough to know how to do anything else.

"I think it was just a hyper-focus with our staff: offense, defense and kicking. I really believe everybody just kind of rallied and said, 'Listen, let's go do this. Let's get this done. Let's let's play good offense, defense and special teams as a unit,' and we did that in the second half today."

Satterfield did admit that he met with athletic director Josh Heird during the week, although added that conversations with athletic administrators happen on a regular basis during the season, whether Louisville is coming off of a win or loss. 

"The conversation after last week was, 'Hey, what can we do to get better? How are we gonna get better?'" Satterfield said. "The things that I shared with you all is kind of what I was sharing with Josh Heird and our administration. We go to do whatever we can to get better. Here's things that we're gonna do, and then let's go and try to make it happen."

While Louisville was able to generate some momentum heading into their bye week, it won't get easier when play resumes on the other side. Of their six remaining games on the scheduled, four will be against teams currently ranked in the top-25. Their second-half gauntlet gets underway on Saturday, Oct. 22 when they host Pitt.

That being said, Satterfield is still going to take the same approach that he did this past week when it comes to the outside noise: tune it all out and take it one game at a time.

"We're still early in the season," he said "We're at the halfway point, and there's a lot of ball left to played. We take it one game at a time. For us, we got to heal up. We got a bunch of guys that are dinged up, so we got to heal up next week. We got to go out and recruit, continue to recruit and then we'll have Pittsburgh the following week."

(Photo of Scott Satterfield: Jamie Rhodes - USA TODAY Sports)