Scott Satterfield has accomplished a feat few of his peers will ever match. He was named the Sun Belt's coach of the year in 2018 for leading Appalachian State to a conference title, then left for Louisville and won coach of the year again, this time in the ACC.
And make no mistake about it: Satterfield deserved every bit of that 2019 ACC Coach of the Year award for the work he and his staff did. The new staff inherited a program that was as bottomed-out as bottomed-out gets: 0-8 in ACC play, nine blowouts in 10 games versus Power 5 competition, last in the ACC in scoring offense, last in the ACC in scoring defense, and morale within the building as low as the Marianas Trench.
The 2019 Cardinals went 8-5, knocking off a ranked Wake Forest team, upsetting eventual Coastal Division champion Virginia, and defeating Mississippi State in the Music City Bowl. Satterfield's staff added two touchdowns per game to their scoring offense average -- rocking from 14th to a tie for second in the ACC -- chopped 33 percent off their scoring defense average... and still finished last in the conference.
So, yeah, there's a long way yet to go, but Louisville has come a long way already, too. I talked about that, about identifying character traits in the recruiting process and about LASIK surgery.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
FootballScoop: What's your day-to-day look like right now?
Satterfield: I'm sitting at my desk in my office in my house way more than I ever have, I can tell you that. We're on the computer, iPad or phones, just doing a bunch of calls, whether it be staff calls, unit meetings, team meetings, ACC calls. That's what we're doing all day long. You try to squeeze in some food every now and then and a workout. Other than that, you're at the desk.
FootballScoop: Have you received any direction on when you might be able to return to the office?
Satterfield: Not right now, that's obviously very fluid. The advice that we're getting from the different states throughout the country, obviously in our case Kentucky, and then what our administrations are telling us as well. We're putting out a plan for everything whenever we do come back. When that will be, we don't know, but obviously you have to have protocols in place for your athletes and your staff when you're getting back in. We're putting all that together so when they do give us a green light we're able to do that. I think it's probably going to happen incrementally as we bring people back, just like the government has told us we need to do as far as bringing businesses back. It's going to be similar to that, I believe.
FootballScoop: How have you adjusted to recruiting exclusively over the phone?
Satterfield: It's been good. As good as you can make it, I think. We're fortunate to have this technology -- the Zoom calls, the FaceTimes and all that. If you didn't have that then obviously it would be way different. Having that technology has been great. I think these recruits and these families have a great opportunity to get to know us a little bit and we get to cut up with them. I think one of the strengths that our staff has always had is the way we are around people. That's one thing that sells our program, whether it was at App State or at Louisville, was when they get around us in the office or wherever it was, they just get a great feel for things. That's one thing I think is hard to do on a computer but we're trying to do that the best we can. Obviously when we're able to get people to come on campus. we can start to solidify the relationship we've been establishing.
FootballScoop: There's been some talk that the NCAA could extend the dead period through the end of June. How would that affect your summer plans?
Satterfield: That would be certainly different. We've talked about that as a staff as well, so if the summer is dead and we do start back playing, you're not going to be able to bring anybody on campus until we start playing games. That's going to be different in itself because you're not going to be able to spend much time around the families and the guys on game days. That would not benefit us, I don't think, but the things that we've been able to establish on the computer, that's what we've got right now. NCAA-wise, they just want to make it fair for everybody, whereas one state can bring guys in and June and another state can't, that's a little bit of a disadvantage for the ones that can't. I understand where they're coming from with that, so whatever the rules are we're obviously going to adhere to those rules and do the best we can with that.
FootballScoop: Switching gears now, how do you put the wheels in motion for a culture change when you take over a program that's in a place that Louisville was at the time?
Satterfield: There's many, many things, I think. Obviously not just one thing. From what we did when I came in that December 15 months ago to where we are now, obviously it's night and day. The first thing we wanted to establish was trust and the only way to establish trust is to be consistent on a daily basis. Our staff, it's the same message we're putting out to the kids every single day, it's built off trust. The other thing we wanted our guys to do was have a great attitude and work their tails off. Attitude and effort are the two pillars of our program.
When you come in with that and do that every single day, there was a lot of guys that did not want to be a part of that, so we lost some guys. Their leaving probably made our team stronger because the ones that did stay did all the things that we're trying to do as a team on a consistent basis. We're just getting better incrementally every day. We were not perfect last year, obviously we were much more competitive once we got on the field. Then our guys got a little bit of confidence, they started to believe, and next thing you know you win eight games and you win a big bowl game against Mississippi State. It just doesn't happen overnight, it's consistent effort every single day and being who you are. We were a program that, when we got here, was kind of closed off to everybody. We don't have anything to hide, we opened it up to our fans, our alumni and our players. We were honest about where they stood and here's where we need to get to. Doing all those things every single day helped us change the whole culture.
FootballScoop: When I wrote about Bryan Brown last summer he said that your staff was surprised at just how bad the morale was when y'all got there. "I can tell with my little ones, fathering them, you can tell when to kick them in the butt and when they need a pat on the back. These guys need a lots of pats on the back," he said. How do you go about changing guys' views of themselves?
Satterfield: Our No. 1 core value is project positive energy. We're trying to be positive in everything you do. Now, that's hard to be positive when you come in a situation where it's so dire. You didn't win any ACC games, zero confidence in the building. They didn't feel they could do anything. It was really hard for us as a staff to be positive on a daily basis, but we had to force ourselves to find things to be positive about. Even when guys initially were not working hard, we had to point out when they did. It was not very frequent. When it did happen we were pointing out to them, 'This is where we need to be.' Not really pointing out anything they were doing negatively. We were just trying to be very positive with them and love on them. We tried to make them know that we care about them. At times had staff meetings and you just shake your head, but we had to find a way to get positive with them, man.
Once they felt that we cared about them, they really started putting that effort into it and really caring for each other. If you care about your teammates more than you care about yourself and you get them to believe in that, you're going to be so much better as a team, obviously, but what we have found is you're going to be so much better as a team as well.
FootballScoop: This is a simple question, but I've gotten some pretty interesting answers when I asked other head coaches so I'm curious to hear what you'll say. What do you view as your role as the head coach of your program?
Satterfield: Obviously I'm overseeing everything that we're doing. Every decision that is made in that building, I always ask myself, "Is this going to help us be a better football team?" That's with every decision. Every day as a head coach there's a million questions getting asked of you, that's part of my role. My other role is being an encourager to our staff and our team, and then my other role is I'm heavily involved in the offense. I call the plays offensively and I love doing that. I've been calling plays since '03. That's part of football that I really love, as a head coach that I had a position group. You don't get that now (as a head coach), you've got to have more broad relationships with everybody you have as a team.
FootballScoop: Do you have to build up a patience tolerance being a head coach and an OC. Do you ever find yourself getting annoyed at people coming in your office when you're just trying to finish game planning?
Satterfield: I don't think so. Our guys understand their roles within the whole organization. I've got a bunch of guys I've been with for a while. They know how I want to run the program and I'm not a micromanager. When I hire people I want them to do their jobs, I want them to feel free to do their jobs and to think outside the box. That's how it works for us. My director of football ops, he knows his role and what he needs to do so, so there's things he knows he doesn't need to come ask me. Same thing with our strength coach and then all our assistant coaches, they know what I'm doing and know when to ask questions and when not to. We have a great working relationship with everybody in the organization and that's why it works. If you were a micromanager, you could not physically do all the things that you have to do, you could not do it that way.
FootballScoop: At App State you primarily recruited guys that could run like Power 5 players who may not have had Power 5 size. Has that changed now that you're at a Power 5 school?
Satterfield: We still want guys that can run, I think that's obvious. Now, if you can get a little bit more length, we certainly would welcome that. I still think, for us, it's all about fit and what we're trying to do in all three phases of the game. We try to find characteristics that we really like. Can you run? Yeah, then we're going to look at you. More importantly for us is the other stuff. What kind of character do you have? Are you a hard worker? A team player? All of those things. The reason why we've kind of been known as great developers is because we get guys that are self-motivated, that want to be better, that continue to work hard every single day. That part has not changed. The big difference being in the Power 5 is you can get bigger guys, a little bit more length, a little bit more strength, where at App they may be a little bit shorter, maybe an inch or two, but we still think they're great football players and they were for us.
FootballScoop: You mention wanting to find guys that are self-motivated. How do you identify the guys that really are self-motivated from the guys who just say they are? That's one of those things where, if ask someone if they're self-motivated and a hard worker, no one's going to say no.
Satterfield: That's a great point. If we all had the formula for that you could bottle it up, sell it and make a lot of money. I think every sports program and every business CEO, they want the same thing and it's so difficult to find. You just have to do your homework, you have to talk to a lot of people. Their coaches, their families. We just try to really, really vet the guys and do a good job with that and see how hard they are working by talking to everybody that's surrounding them. There's obviously not one thing, one variable, but there's a lot of different things, and sometimes you get it right and sometimes you don't. There's just no way around that. You hope you get it right more often than you're getting it wrong.
I think a big part of it is the environment you're creating. Some guys, if they don't feel like it's an environment they can excel in, they don't continue to grow and develop. We feel like we've got a great environment for our guys to come into. They want to come in the building every single day, and when you're in that kind of environment you're going to continue to get better. If you're dreading coming to work every day, you're probably not going to be a very good employee, and I think it's the same with a football player. You want them to want to come to your building every day and to live in that building. That's one of the major things we did when we changed the culture here at Louisville.
FootballScoop: What's your strategy for glasses or contact lenses? Some pictures I found of you have glasses and others don't.
I've tried to the contact lenses and I don't really like them, so if I don't have my glasses on I'm just kind of walking around blind.
I'll tell you where it all happened. I had LASIK done about 20 years ago and it was awesome, but then it's kind of worn off. My wife, when I was at App, was like, "You're squinting a lot. You probably need to do get your eyes checked." I did and I was like, "Wow, I need some glasses." I went ahead and got those classes and now I can see again. I just don't like contacts. They don't feel comfortable on my eyes, and the older you get you can't see close up. They don't make contacts that can help you see far away and close up.
FootballScoop: It's interesting to hear your say that because I had LASIK 10 years ago and I was told at the time it would start wearing off around this time, but my vision is still just as good as it was on Day One. But it sounds like it's coming for me.
Satterfield: The cornea is always moving, right? And so over time that's why you're going to end up losing it. I would just tell you to enjoy it while you've got it because when it does leave you, it's bad again.