Cincinnati coach Scott Satterfield during Fenway Bowl: 'I'm very fond of those players at Louisville'

Scott Satterfield left Louisville for Cincinnati during this coaching cycle and ironically, the two teams played each other Saturday in the Fenway Bowl. Satterfield joined the ESPN broadcast as a spectator of the game, since Kerry Coombs served as the interim coach for the Bearcats and Deion Branch for the Cardinals. But the former Cardinals coach did not mince words about his former team.

“Yeah, very fond of those players at Louisville,” Satterfield said on the broadcast. “Spent a lot of years there, a lot of hard work getting those guys there and getting them to play at a high level. But yeah, it’s certainly an unusual situation that we have going on right now in this time of year in college football, but for me, I’m just checking this out and looking forward to 2023 Bearcats.”

Satterfield just wrapped up his ninth year as a head football coach. He spent his first five with Appalachian State where he led the Mountaineers to a 47-16 record. That led him to earn the Louisville job in 2019 to replace Bobby Petrino.

However, things haven’t gone perfectly during his time with the Cardinals. On one hand, he had found success on the recruiting trail as he’d earned enough commitments in 2023 and 2024 to earn Top-20 class ranks for both per On3’s Consensus Team Rankings. Still, the product on the field was inconsistent with a 25-24 overall record. That stretch of time saw high rankings and bowl games but also reached five or more losses every season with Satterfield at the helm.

Cincinnati has high expectations after the goals Luke Fickell hit during his time in the program. That already leaves a very high bar for Satterfield to immediately try and meet. From there, the Bearcats are just months away from joining what will now be a very deep Big 12. 

Satterfield is more than capable, but he’ll have to hit the ground running in order to meet expectations at his new home and, soon, new conference.

“Yeah, this is kind of my first look at Cincinnati really, you know, since my time here in the last couple of weeks,” Satterfield said. “(We’ve been) working on staff working on recruiting, and that’s all we’ve been doing. I have not seen one practice and I’ve not been in the indoor facility here. You know, we’ve just been recruiting and so this is kind of interesting for me to watch and watch these guys and watch them fly around.

“They’re getting after it at practice and coach Combs, excited to be able to have him be a part of our staff. But yeah, this was obviously a very unusual situation, but really, we’re getting recruits in today. I’ve already talked to recruits this morning, got several more this afternoon here.”

Sam Gillenwater contributed to this report