Everything Louisville football coach Scott Satterfield said at ACC Media Days 2022

Louisville football coach Scott Satterfield took to the podium Wednesday during ACC Football Kickoff and touched on conference realignment, the conference's new divisionless schedule and the state of the program.

U of L went 6-7 last year under Satterfield, who enters a pivotal year and has one of the top recruiting classes in the country for 2023 so far.

Here's what Satterfield said on the main stage:

Live updates:ACC football Media Days with Louisville coach Scott Satterfield, players

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Q. Coach, we know that divisions are alive for this year, and then we move to the 3-5-5 model. Just what can you say what that model does for the ACC, and what's your thoughts about having those permanent competitors as well as being able to play everybody twice?

Scott Satterfield: I think we got a little taste of that in 2020 when we went to basically one league. I think it's a good thing. I'm excited about that opportunity to be able to play all the teams. In a period of time when you sign a student-athlete, they're going to be able to see all the teams within the league. I think that's a good thing.

I think, obviously, the tricky part is to figure out which three teams you play on a yearly basis. I think however that came out, I think everybody is satisfied with that. I think, obviously, there's pros and cons with that. I think that's a good thing as well.

We're looking forward to it, excited. I like the fact that we're going to have be able to have a champion of the two best teams that can play at the end of the season. That's a good thing as opposed to having two different sides and maybe one side is stronger than the other. That's going to be a positive out of it. I think just to be able to play everybody is probably the biggest benefit.

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Moderator: From the podium, looking at the cumulative per quarter scoring total from last year, U of L was only outscored in the fourth quarter winning the other three. These numbers seem contradictory to a 6-7 season.

Scott Satterfield: We were a very competitive football team within our league last year. Everybody we played and a lot of these games came down to the very end. We were on the short side of that maybe three or four times within the league. That leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

We had a lot of success throughout the year. I think offensively put up some good numbers. Defensively we were good at times. The games that we did not play well in defensive were the ones we let slip away right there at the end.

I think the big emphasis this offseason, defensively adding some players on that side of the ball as well as getting some of these guys back that we had injured last year. Monty Montgomery was a big loss for us. We lost him the third game of the season with an ACL. We lost Tre Clark there towards the middle of the season. Getting those guys back will help on that side of the ball as well. We were so close, and now the whole focus of the offseason has been how are we going to finish and finishing the drill, finishing the weight session that you have because, obviously, in football the fourth quarter is the most important quarter, and that's the one that you have to finish.

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Moderator: A change of personnel brings up a good question. You hired Stanford Samuels as your recruiting coordinator. What is it about his personality that makes him a fit for the program right now?

Scott Satterfield: I think just with his background, particularly in the state of Florida, we recruit the state of Florida hard. He has a lot of ties in that part of the country. He has been around the league. He understands what a good player looks like and what a good person looks like. Obviously, we want both.

We needed to continue to add to our recruiting department. He is going to bring a wealth of knowledge in that regard as far as being a position coach. He understands what you're looking for as a player and particularly in the defensive back field. I think more than anything he is a good person.

We try to fill our building with good people. They're going to be interacting with our student-athletes on a daily basis, so we want those kind of people to be around those players.

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Q. Coach, you've been a part of different institutions as well as different conferences. Seeing the last 12 months of realignment and all this shift and now obviously the Pac as well as the Big 12, Big Ten, and SEC all being affected in some way, shape, or form, how do you view the current climate of collegiate athletics?

Scott Satterfield: Well, I think if you go back and look at throughout the whole history of conferences and schools, there's been a lot of realignment. It seems to happen a lot. I was a part of it when I was at Appalachian State. We moved divisions and moved conferences.

I think that's been a part of it. Here at Louisville, we've been in several different conferences over the years, and I think each institution is always looking to better themselves and be in a good spot.

I think the ACC is a great conference. It's a great league. I grew up in the Raleigh-Durham area right in the heart of ACC country, and as a little kid going to football games, basketball games in the ACC and know what kind of impact it made on me. Being able to watch the TV games growing up. It's a great conference.

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We want to make this conference one of the best conferences in the country, and I think we got great leadership at the top, and they're going to do the things and make decisions that will continue to benefit this conference.

As a coach and as a player, you don't really look at those things. I mean, we're focused on what we have to do on a daily basis of getting better as a football team and being a team that can win championships. That's kind of what our focus is. I know that's been kind of the hot topic out there is all the realignment. That's because it's in the news now.

Our focus is on being the best we can be here at Louisville.

Q. Coach, it's been a good bit of news lately about the success you've had in recruiting. So what has changed about your strategy or approach to recruiting, especially in the south?

Scott Satterfield: Well, we've kind of over the last two years kind of built out our recruiting department. We didn't have that when I first got to Louisville. We've been building that out.

Some of the things that's happened here recently in recruiting has been really a two-year process and it's just now coming to fruition. So I think a lot of things have changed over the last two years when you think about transfer portal and NIL opportunities, it's really changed the landscape of college football.

Recruiting latest:Louisville football scores 2023 commitment from top-5 offensive lineman Madden Sanker

We've kind of been — our people have done a great job of being kind of early with some ideas as far as that goes, and I think that's really benefited us. We've also broadened our scope in recruiting and not just recruiting maybe in the Southeast. We're nationwide, and we're going to the West Coast, Texas. Obviously, going to Florida and right there in the Midwest. We've kind of just opened all the doors throughout the whole country to say we're an easy school to get to. Our airport is three minutes away from our stadium. It's an easy flight to come in, and the city of Louisville has a lot to offer. Great restaurants, the Bourbon Trail, Churchill Downs is right across the street. There's a lot of great activities going on in our city. We're bringing in the families and recruits, and they all have a great time there, and they see our football program as a program on the rise also, a program that can be one of the best in the country. That's what we're selling.

It's resonating with a lot of prospects.

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Moderator: Again from the podium. A great deal has been made about the upgrades to the fan experience at Cardinal Stadium for the season. How does the environment around for where you play, how does that fit into the culture for the program that you have been building?

Scott Satterfield: Yeah, obviously, you want to have a great environment to play a football game. When our stadium is full, it's an unbelievable environment.

I go back to my very first game as a head coach at Louisville. We played Notre Dame. It was an unbelievable environment. Packed house. That's what college is all about when you are playing college football to come and play in an environment like that.

Like I mentioned earlier, there's so many other things that are involved with the college game-day experience Louisville, from the tailgating to the other things downtown in Louisville as well as great food, great restaurants, and the city of Louisville loves to have a good time. I think you put that all together, and it's a great place for sporting events. It's a great place for college football.

Q. Someone asked you before about the new scheduling model, and I wanted to ask you particularly about your primary partners and just kind of how you feel about how that shook out for your —

Scott Satterfield: You're talking about the three teams that we're playing? As we were having discussions and meetings within the ACC about how they're looking at that, I think it could kind of make sense. You have a team kind of just straight east of us. You have a team down in Atlanta and a team down in Miami, which for us I think it works out great.

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We're going to recruit the state of Georgia around Atlanta area, and we're also going to recruit South Florida. We've had some of our greatest players to play at Louisville have come from the South Florida region. Now partnering with Miami to be able to go down there every other year is going to be good for us, for our coaches to be able to get out.

We're going to be visible down there. Our brand. I think it works out really good for us of the footprint that we want to have in the recruiting aspect.

Q. I was just wondering, the hiring of Lance Taylor as your offensive coordinator, how has that impacted your offseason? What changes on offense, if any, are coming?

Scott Satterfield: Lance Taylor we hired from Notre Dame. He was there for three years, and he has been a great addition to our staff. Very organized.

What he has done is come in and really — the organizational skills that he has with our offensive staff, and then our offensive unit bringing them together. A lot more of the offensive units, making the whole offense feel a part, and I think he is tremendous with that.

It gives the offense a voice I think more than anything. Lance is a great young coach. An up-and-coming coach, will be a head coach. He does a tremendous job with our team. He is fun to be around on top of all that.

He brings a wealth of experience having coached at Stanford, coached with the Panthers. Of course, at Notre Dame. A lot of great experience that he brought to the table. He will be heavily involved in our offense. He has brought some new ideas, some new things that we can do, and he is coaching our wide receivers, and I love our group in that room.

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Yeah, we're fired up to have Lance be a part of our football family.

Moderator: I know you're a one-game-at-a-time head coach, but two league games to open of up the season. That's a heck of an opportunity.

Scott Satterfield: We know we've got a challenging schedule ahead of us. Opening up at Syracuse in the Dome, which we haven't been; the last three years we've played at Cardinal Stadium. It will be the first time I've been up there to the Dome. We know what kind of environment that's going to be and a good football team that's going to be. That's going to be huge.

You have to start off midseason form and go to Central Florida and then Florida State in the third week. Challenging schedule to start out with.

What we're ending with is pretty challenging too, with NC State, Wake, and Clemson. We know it's a great challenge, but, man, we're excited about it. Fired up for this season. Glad to get this thing started. We feel like we have a really good football team. We'll be able to compete for ACC Championship.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Louisville football's Scott Satterfield comments at ACC Media Days