LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Like any college football coach, Louisville co-defensive coordinator Cort Dennison would love to talk about the improvements that he believes the Cardinals will make this season:
The depth that the unit has built. The strength, speed and bulk the players have added. The fresh talent that has arrived. The gap that will be closed during the second season of the Scott Satterfield Era.
Dennison talked about those things, especially the outside linebackers, his specialty.
But in 2020, the novel coronavirus keeps taking the normal July football stories and tossing them out of bounds.
As much as Dennison would love to focus on linebackers Rodjay Burns, Yasir Abdullah, Nick Okeke and the Cardinal defenders, the story in college football remains what it was when spring practice was shut down four months ago because of COVID-19.
Will there be a season? How many games? When will it begin — and end? What’s it like coaching guys without being to interact them outside of a ZOOM video chat? How does a coach continue to motivate players to work with enthusiasm where there is no guarantee their enthusiasm will be repaid with the opportunity to play games?
“There are a lot of question marks on that, but we look at it as a positive,” Dennison said. “During this quarantine, I think we've taken a step forward with our defense in many ways, and one of the main ways is mentally.
“Since we haven't been able to do things on the field we've been able to at least do things off the field -- any time you can get in the meeting room and expand your knowledge with the players, your knowledge of the playbook, you're gaining ground on things you need to.
“Obviously, we couldn't have practices, but in the meantime we were able to knock things out mentally. So I think we've improved our knowledge of the playbook exponentially.
“Our players are getting more comfortable with everything we're doing and we've added new wrinkles, adjustments and it's up to the state and conference officials, but hopefully we can put that to work this season.”
Players read. Players watch. Players talk. Players text. Players have to wonder where this is headed. Have to.
How does a coach motivate his guys during an off season that might not be followed by a regular season?
“All we can tell our players is control what you can control,” Dennison said. “What the state, health or conference officials are going to say, we can't control any of that.
“What we can control is preparing ourselves like we're gonna play on Sept. 2, putting ourselves in the best possible position to be successful, whether that's in the classroom or on the field. Whatever the case may be, whatever we can control it we're going to do so.
“What's most important for us is obviously the health and safety of our players and our staff and let the conference officials make the decision about the season.
“In the meantime, we're gonna do everything we can in the next month-and-a-half to prepare in the best possible way to play a season starting on Sept. 2.”
That season is scheduled to begin with a home game against North Carolina State, followed by a trip to Clemson on Sept. 12.
Then the Cardinals are scheduled to play home games against Murray State and Western Kentucky. Last week, the Big Ten announced that its 14 members would not play games outside the league.
Dennison played linebacker at Washington, a member of the Pac-12. That league has also scratched non-conference games.
ACC commissioner John Swofford announced last week that the league will make its decision by the end of July. There have been reports the ACC will also switch to strictly league games. There was another report that each ACC program will play two games against five league opponents for a 10-game schedule.
That would be unusual. I asked Dennison for his thoughts about playing five ACC opponents twice this season.
“I just like playing football,” he said. “I like winning. I like going out and competing and doing everything we can from a preparation standpoint to put ourselves in the best possible position to succeed.
“I'm competitor, I don't care if we're playing against an ACC team, a Pac-12 team, a Big Ten team, a DIII team. Our defense is gonna go out and play the same.
“It doesn't matter if it's a faceless or nameless opponent. We're gonna go out and do everything we can to win each week.”
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