Louisville Football Postgame Quotes vs. Virginia Tech

Virginia Tech 42, Louisville 35
October 31, 2020
Cardinal Stadium | Louisville, Ky.

Louisville head coach Scott Satterfield
"First of all, just give Virginia Tech a lot of credit. We knew they were a good football team coming in. I think their coaching staff does a really, really good job at what they do. They want to run the football and then be solid in everything else. I thought they came out tonight, and that's what they did. They established the run and were able to get some big plays off of that run. We didn't do much offensively at the beginning of the game and then they jumped out to a 21-0 lead. I told our guys I was really proud of them because of what they did. They easily could have just said 'Man, this game's over, we're missing some guys'… Start hanging your head and start making excuses, but they didn't do that. They continued to fight. I thought we got a big spark out of Hawk's [Javian Hawkins] run right before the half – 90-yard touchdown run into halftime, there's a lot of spirit there. You come back out in the second half and you're just battling back and forth. I thought [Malik] Cunningham played a really good game today. One bad throw on the interception. The other two interceptions were a tipped ball by a receiver and then fourth down play where you've got to just throw it in the end zone. Thought he played outstanding there, particularly the last few drives there in the fourth quarter. A lot of fight, just came up a little bit short… didn't get enough plays there at the end and had a hard time stopping them there on some of those drives right there at the end of the game. But again, I'm proud of our guys. Tough, tough way to end it, though."

(When did you find out you were going to be missing so many guys today and with most of those absences COVID related?)
"We found out this morning on most of those guys. You are correct with that. We're in the year of this virus we have to deal with. We've been doing a great job with it, really this whole time. Really got caught with it today, right now. This is the most difficult time really for all us coaches, because you're dealing with all these parameters that we have with this, and the hand that you're dealt, you've got to deal with it and move forward and that's what we did."

(Because of how depleted your defense was, what kind of adjustments did you have to make maybe even today in terms of personnel and alignment and strategy, trying to get some of the guys up front particularly some breathers?)
"Very difficult to do. We were down to five D-linemen today, and we usually like to play seven or eight. And on top of that, you're playing a team that wants to run the football and they're one of the best in the country at that. And that's very difficult. We tried to get a couple of linebackers, if we need to get some spells, let those guys come in there and play D-line, but we really ended up just rotating those five guys, trying to keep them as fresh as you can, which is difficult. Monty Montgomery was out at linebacker. He's arguably one of our best playmakers on the defensive side of the ball. So you missed him Isaiah Hayes was out, starting safety, who is basically the quarterback of the defense back in the back end. What we did, we told the other guys 'now's your opportunity and your chance to come out and make some plays. Maybe you haven't gotten as many reps in a game, so now's your time. You're training just like everybody else.' Those guys went out and I thought played really hard, and gave everything they had tonight and at the end of it, it wasn't good enough. But you've got to make adjustments the best you can and really, when you don't have that many players on one side of the ball, there's not a whole lot you can do. We don't have a bunch of guys to go to anyway. So that's all you have. That's all we had to work with. So we were just rotating those guys in and probably got wore down a little bit there by the fourth quarter."

(On the onside kick within a score late in the game, what was the thought process behind that?)
"It was a hard time stopping them, number one. You want to get the ball back. The one thing they can do when they occupied the ball is run the time out. Time was of the essence and we needed to score and we need to score quickly. The first time that we did onside with five minutes to go we were thinking maybe we can catch them off guard. And I think we did catch them off guard a little bit with that, though. Anytime on an onside kick you got to get the proper bounce. The first one, they ended up getting the ball on the 30-yard line, which was like it would be on a normal kick anyway. And so you're trying to get the ball, maybe it bounces your way. The second one, we did have them outflanked on that one. And the ball's just got to bounce, it bounced right over Hawkins' head. It was just one of those deals, it's bouncing and then all of a sudden goes right over the head and then last one there, it was a perfect kick, [Javian] Hawkins got it, they got us for the delay of game, so we're one second past the delay of game. We're trying to win the game. That's why we onside kicked it. If you kick it deep and they melt out five minutes of the clock, you don't even give yourself a chance, so we were just trying to win the game."

(How would you evaluate how the offensive line played over the course of this game?)
"The first play we got sacked. And it was a play where they slanted the defensive end, all the way underneath the offensive line. It was a good move by them. It's hard… we'll have to go back and see how they actually really played. I thought during the second half when they knew we were going to throw in the fourth quarter. I thought they did a really good job with protection. I think it was a couple things early in the game that they were doing some stunts to be able to beat our offensive line and get in the backfield. And a couple others were coverage issues as well. I think I have to go back and look. I thought we played okay. Was it great, probably not great. But it wasn't bad either. I think they were just probably solid. As we go back and look at the film, we'll have more idea about how they played."

(On Javian Hawkins' big run to end the first half)
"That's a set that we like in third-down situations. A three-by-one with four wide and sometimes teams don't load up the weak side and that's where he ended up hitting. We run a play to the weak side and one of his great attributes is to be able to run fast once he breaks past the linebackers. He got a couple of good blocks down the field and was able to turn on the speed. He's a great big play threat back and is one of the best in the country. If you go back and look at his numbers over the last year and a half, he's one of those guys that's probably got as many 20-plus yard runs as anybody. He showed that again that you're never out of it when you give him the football. He's got an opportunity to score, and he's a special player and he competes his tail off. I love the way he plays. So that was a big spark for us right before halftime."

(How do you prepare for Virginia going forward with so many defensive players out today?)
"In this world we're living in this year 2020, you take everything day by day. So, we'll look at it tomorrow and we'll figure out where we are with everybody and see what we need to do personnel-wise. When it gets thrown to you on a Saturday morning before you get to play, you really don't have much time to change anything that you've already worked on that whole week. The only positive is now where you actually know, so you can have a little bit more time to kind of game plan to figure out where we need to put guys with your personnel to see what we need to do. We'll assess it tomorrow, and we'll figure out what we need to do as far as, is there anybody we need to move around. Are there any young guys that haven't played a whole lot and now we need to get some reps. That is what ends up happening, trying to get guys reps throughout practice so they know what the game plan is. We will know more about that tomorrow, probably Monday and kind of give you an update on that."

(A large majority of the players out today were on defense, have you done any contact tracing for a specific issue like a party or a meeting where all these guys were?)
"No, I don't think it was any of that. I think it's really an issue where all it takes is one. One person, and then all of a sudden, maybe it's one other and one other. It's really not anything we can link it back to. It just came on to us this morning. We haven't had a ton of great time to investigate but I don't suspect it's anything like you mentioned there as far as parties or any of that kind of thing. Our guys have been outstanding this whole time since they've been back. They understand the ramifications of when you're out and about and what could happen. We're on a college campus, where there's a lot of people. So you never know. I don't think anybody truly knows where they come in contact. But I think our guys do a really good job with it."

(Clemson announced that Trevor Lawrence will not play next week, do you know if these guys will be out for next week's game?)
"I don't know. We will address it tomorrow and by Monday we'll have a pretty good update. We'll see where everybody's going to be located with that. Obviously, there's protocols and there's certain days everybody has to wait. For some, they will be out next week and for others they may be back, so we'll have to see."

Malik Cunningham, Redshirt Junior, QB
(When you look at the defense with all the guys missing, give me your thoughts on their performance. They had to battle a lot of things this week.)
"Defense, they played good. We were short-handed, so we knew as an offense we had to score a lot of points because [Virginia Tech's] running back is pretty good. Their running game is pretty good. We just fell short we missed a couple opportunities that we would like to have back, but we can't dwell on it. We have to come back to work tomorrow and get ready for Virginia."

(What did you think offensively worked so well later in the game that didn't work earlier in the game?)
"We decided to throw the ball. The running game wasn't really there. It opened up a little bit for us, but we know we have a lot of weapons on the side, and we were able to see that in the second half. Those guys got the ball and got it in their hands, and we let them do what they do. We tried our hardest, but those losses like that kind of hurt."

(When did you find out that so many of your teammates were not going to play? What was your reaction as a team when you heard it?)
"This morning. We knew that this was eventually going to hit us at some point. It has hit a lot of teams, and it was us this morning. We found out at about 9 o'clock that a couple guys on the defensive side were going to be out. It was another challenge for us as an offense. I told those guys before that game that we were going to have to score a lot of points today in order for us to win. Like I said, we fell a little short of that."

(You heard about 9 o'clock. Have you had any communication with any of the guys who were out? What was their reaction?)
"I haven't talked to any of those guys that are in quarantine. I was focused on the game this morning."

(Can you give me a general reaction from you guys when you found out you were going to be missing that many guys today? It's a shocking thing to learn the morning of the game.)
"All of our coaches preached that 'so what, now what'?' mentality. It's just next man up. A lot of those young guys stepped up on the defensive side. A lot of the guys who rotate made some good strides today, and we have to grow from it tomorrow in practice."

(You guys got behind by three scores. Coach Satterfield said it was an opportunity that you guys could've hung your heads, but you didn't. What does that continue to say about this team's will and drive to stay in games like that?)
"That we've just got so much fight in us that I wasn't going to let anyone on the offense give up. There was a lot of ball left. We've seen it done… Last year, there were plenty of games where we were down and came back to come out on top, victorious. Like I said, we just fell short. And those losses like that, those hurt bad."

(What did you see out of [Javian] Hawkins' 90-yard touchdown run? What was your reaction?)
"Actually, they gave us the look. And I was reading him. It was crazy - right before the play, I had told Hawk he was going on that play on the backside end. He stayed with me, and he hit it up on the backside gap. I knew nobody on their defense was fast enough to catch him."

Dez Fitzpatrick, Redshirt Senior, WR
(What was it like today? You had a big day with a big touchdown. What was clicking for you today?)
"Nothing more than just another game. You start throwing the ball a little bit more when you get behind a couple scores. The pass game looked good."

(That big touchdown catch that you had - take us through that moment and the spark that it provided you guys.)
"The play called for me. It was another route, but the DB was so far off that I kind of just put my hands up and Malik [Cunningham], just quarterback/receiver timing, he knew what I was going to do. He saw the DB behind me, so just kind ran our own route right there. Big play in the game. Momentum-changer, but we've got to execute more after that."

(How would you describe the challenge you guys faced today of missing nine guys and just finding out this morning that was going to be the case?)
"Everybody's going through it all over the country at every college. We got our little taste of it on game day. Little surprise to us, but we have that so what, now what mentality. That's what Coach Mike and Coach Satterfield preach to us all the time. You can't look in the past. You've got to just move forward. You've got to step with your best foot forward."

(You guys have been pretty good and safe from COVID for most of the season, and even through fall camp. Now that it has hit you, does that heighten your worries or your awareness of everything that can go on?)
"No. Matt Summers and his staff have done a tremendous job since corona even started. It's probably just a couple of little slip-ups that just happen. I feel like we've done everything that we could do to prevent it. Sometimes it just finds people. That just happened to us, and so we're just moving forward."

Jared Goldwire, Senior, DL
(Obviously you guys were pretty short-handed up front. How do you get prepared when missing so many guys?)
"Next man up. We practice how we practice. The coaches prepared us despite the situation."

(When did you find out about everybody being out? How did that change the game plan for what you guys might be expecting up front?)
"I found out right before pregame. Like I said, it's just next man up. Clearly, it did change a little bit about what we were doing… we figured it out."

(You were out there for a great majority of the snaps. Did you get any rest tonight? How much more trying was that as the game went along? Did you feel yourself wearing down?)
"No. We have a great nutrition staff, so they were keeping me hydrated and eating on the sideline. They helped me out throughout the game, so I felt energized.

(It looked like you were on the field almost the entire fourth quarter, and probably most of the game. Did you get any breaks?)
"Yeah. Dezmond Tell came in and relieved me on some drives."

(Because of the guys out, did you feel a little more weight on your shoulders as one of those guys who was a senior up front trying to help the guys who were less experienced? Did you feel a need to show some leadership out there?)
"I just felt like keeping a positive mindset. As long as I kept that positive mindset, all we needed was the five men who played today. That was the mentality we all had."

(Obviously, you played on short notice, and now you have a week to prepare to probably play on short notice again. "Does it help you to have that week? How do you think you are going to prepare with a small amount of guys?)
"Really that's up to the coaching staff about how we're going to prepare. I just know that we're going to come out each and every day ready to practice and ready to work hard. They're going to set a game plan and we're going to follow it to the best of our abilities."

(Coach mentioned that you guys this season have been safe and haven't really had to deal with this personally yet. But now that you are dealing with and it has hit you, has it changed your view on the situation at all? Does it make you want to be that much safer and that much more careful?)
"Like Dez said, Matt and his staff have done a tremendous job up to this point. Whatever protocols they put in place, we're going to follow."

(Even though you were short-handed, you seemed to have battled pretty well today defensively. Were there any guys up front that maybe didn't play in the past that you thought stood out today?)
"Derek Dorsey and Ramon [Puryear]. I thought they did tremendously on most of the plays. They haven't really played a lot, especially Derek. I thought they did a tremendous job for being short-handed and short notice."

University of Louisville Athletics

Players Mentioned

Malik Cunningham

Derek Dorsey

Dez Fitzpatrick

Jared Goldwire

Isaiah Hayes

Monty Montgomery

Dezmond Tell

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