RALEIGH, N.C. (WDRB) -- Louisville football coach Scott Satterfield met with the media after his team's 34-20 win over North Carolina State. It was the Cardinals' sixth win of the season, gaining them bowl eligibility.
The following is a transcript of Satterfield's comments, with questions paraphrased:
Q: What does this mean to you, given how low expectations were coming into the season?
SATTERFIELD: First of all, I don’t listen to any of that. If you listen to that stuff and start buying into that stuff, you start believing it. Whether they pick you to win the league or pick you to finish dead last, like we were picked, you don’t listen to any of that. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is guys going out and working every, single day, then showing up on game day and putting it to work. I’ve said it all along: I hope by the end of the season what we’ve done is good enough and we’ll warrant a great bowl, and an opportunity to practice three more weeks and continue to work with these guys. I’m so proud of these seniors, what they’ve been through, and then to come bounce back like this, and having fun, that’s the key. Here we are sitting with two more games left to play and we’ve got six wins. Nobody throughout the country would ever have dreamed of us going bowling this year. So that’s great in itself. We want to play well and finish out strong. And the way these players work, I think they will. We just want to get better every day.
Q: Down 10-7 at half, what enabled you to improve in the second half?Â
SATTERFIELD: Second half we came out and got some momentum, got some big plays in the passing game. I mean, N.C. State did a great job of stopping the run. They were loading up the box and bringing safeties down and blitzing and getting pressure. We gave up some sacks early. Second half we just settled down. We protected a lot better, and were able to throw the ball down the field and made some big plays. The tight ends got involved tonight. Ford had two touchdown catches. Pfeifer had another touchdown catch. You never know when your number is going to get called. They’ve done a fabulous job blocking throughout the season, and tonight they got rewarded. Pfeifer said all he does is catch touchdowns, so we should throw it to him more.
Q: Did you see an opportunity in the passing game with N.C. State's secondary depleted?
SATTERFIELD: Absolutely. And you know, that’s kind of been our game plan all year. We want to run the football, and then if guys are playing us one-on-one on the outside we want to take our shots. We connect on a lot of those. And we also got maybe four pass interference calls against them, and felt like we would’ve completed those. So we want to attack down the field. Their answer was let’s bring pressure and get to the quarterback before he can let the ball go, and they got to us a few times. But I think we were able to settle down in the second half. We have some big-play receivers, we’ve seen it all year with Tutu Atwell and Dez Fitzpatrick and Seth Dawkins. Tonight we got our tight ends involved. When a defense takes away the run, we’ve got to be able to throw, and vice-versa.
Q: The fake field goal, was that in with Blanton Creque, or was that a Ryan (Chalifoux) special?
SATTERFIELD: I think that’s a Ryan special. I told Blanton Creque, he said, ‘I been waiting four years to run that.’ That was incredible. You know, we practice that play, we’ve been doing it every day, all year. Creque’s been running. But now Ryan runs it. We never gave them that look, as far as you got to run to the sideline and hang out for a minute, then throw it for a touchdown. That was incredible. You’ve got to show a lot of poise there. That’s one of those things, you have no idea, it’s just a player making a play. That’s what that is. And, you know, he made a play. We just thought it was a great time to call it. We’d been watching it all night. We felt like it was there, and he made a great throw.
Q: How big a factor was being able to get so many receivers involved in the passing game?
SATTERFIELD: We love to be able to get all of the guys involved. Tutu (Atwell) has been a mainstay all year, I think he’s been one of the best receivers in the conference. We think Dez (Fitzpatrick) is really good, we’ve tried to get him the ball all year. Sometimes it doesn’t work out that way. Seth (Dawkins) has been a big-play guy for us. And we felt like tonight the tight ends could get involved. They were bringing a lot of pressure and the safeties were getting involved, and those are the guys usually covering the tight ends. So if you can slip the tight ends out, that’s how I think we were able to get free tonight for a couple of teams. But we’ve shown that we’re a big-play offense. The negative for us has been too many sacks and tackles for loss, but you take those away and our offense is pretty good.
Q: How much was the wind a factor on the shanked punt?
SATTERFIELD: The wind was obviously a factor. We put our defense in a bad position with that punt, gave them a short field. I thought our defense was really good tonight. We held them three times. Held them to a field goal, a couple of field goals, and then we stopped them the last drive. We put them in a couple of binds. And then what else we did great was the first half, got a couple of turnovers, I think we were plus three, maybe, turnover margin. You look at the wins we had in this league, we were in plus territory on turnover margin.
Q: What happened with Micale Cunningham and the N.C. State player with the injury near the end of the game?
SATTERFIELD: I think what ended up happening was he maybe got knocked out, and he was laying on top of Cunningham, and his leg was up underneath him. Cunningham was fine, he just didn’t want to get up, to protect the other player. He was fine, he just wasn’t moving. After that, they were worried about his neck, but he came to, and we were able to get Cunningham out of there.
Q: On the fake field goal, was there a look you had to give to sell it, or what was the key to the play?
SATTERFIELD: We felt like they were coming to block the kick off the right side, and we felt like we could get outside of that. So then it’s just whether they cover our tight end. That’s what it boils down to. So when he sprinted out they initially covered him. It looked like he was going to run, and then he came off the coverage and he jumped it up to him. It was a great play, a headsy play. I’ve got to ask him if he ever played quarterback, because he looked like a quarterback.
Q: That play, it was a walk-on throwing to a former walk-on. How appropriate, for this team, was those two guys making that play?
SATTERFIELD: No question. I love that. Because to me I don’t care who it is. Fans and media like to get involed in how many four-star, five-star guys can you sign. I just want football players. I want guys who make plays. I don’t care who you are or where you came from. It’s great if you’re a four-star, but I don’t care. I just want guys who make plays. When your number gets called, you’ve got to make the play. And I don’t care what position it is. Adonis Boone tonight, started at left  tackle and played the whole game. Haven’t watched the film but I thought he had a good game. Asked him, ‘Did you have fun?’ Absolutely, coach. That’s what it’s all about. When your number gets called, you have to make the plays. That’s what we want this program to be, and this team to be.
Q: When you look back, how far have these players come?
SATTERFIELD: What’s the largest measuring table we have? They’ve grown tremendously since I got here in December to right now. It’s incredible. When you throw the word love around in the locker room, and these guys were throwing it around, it wasn’t that way when we first got here. We were just trying to gain their trust. That’s all we were trying to do, and be consistent on a daily basis. And I think our staff has been able to do that. We’ve had a lot of ups and downs and a lot of adversity. We had to fight through. But I think these guys know that we care about them and want what’s best for them. And that’s why I so wanted to see the smile on these kids’ faces, for all the hard work they’ve put into it, now they get to see the reward for the labor.
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