Louisville players "buying in" to COVID-19 Precautions & Procedures

COVID-19 forced the University of Louisville's administration to put in place a plethora of protocols & guidelines upon student-athletes' return to campus, and the football program has had no trouble adhering to them.

In the last couple weeks across the college football landscape, the confidence that the upcoming 2020 season will start as planned - or even start at all - has been slowly decreasing with each passing day due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, head coach Scott Satterfield and the rest of the coaching staff for the University of Louisville football program have expressed one simple message to their players: "control what you can control".

The message is just that - simple. Maybe a bit cliche too. Whatever you want to call it, make you included the word "effective" when describing it as well. Ever since the majority of the football team made the trip back to Louisville as part of Athletic Director Vince Tyra's phased plan to return student-athletes back to campus, the players have had no issue following the precautions and procedures that came with it.

"Everybody is pretty much buying in and just following Coach Satterfield and (Strength) Coach Mike (Sirignano)," junior wide receiver Tutu Atwell told reporters in a teleconference on Wednesday. "We're just doing the best that we can right now."

Around 30 members of the football team arrived to campus on June 1 for voluntary workouts as part of the phased plan to reopen the University following its closure in mid-March. Now the program has returned more than 80 players, with many of the remaining players yet to return comprised mostly of walk-ons and scout team players.

In order to create as seamless of a transition as possible as well as keep a healthy training environment within, the University instituted plenty of protocols and guidelines upon the players' return. This was to not only identify potential COVID-19 cases in players, but also to isolate them and quell the spread of the virus.

While the program never revealed their testing numbers during this time, but voluntary workouts carried on as planned. This could indicate that positive cases were either never uncovered or weren't numerous enough to warrant temporarily shutting down the workout programs like the men's basketball program did.

In fact, Satterfield went as far to say that he felt more comfortable having his guys on campus as opposed to having his players "living life like everybody else". It's a sentiment also shared by his players.

"Us being here and bringing us back together is a great thing for us to do," Atwell said. "We all stay at the same place, we're all tested the same and we're just around us. We don't go anywhere on weekends, we're just here. So nobody is going to be able to catch the virus."

Because everyone from the coaches to the players have been able to adhere to the guidelines put in place bu University administration, it's allowed the program to make their transition into the next phase of the offseason. The players are no longer strictly limited to voluntary workouts, and on Tuesday held their first full team walkthrough this offseason. They are also now taking part in positional meetings with coaches and on-field walkthroughs with a football.

"Oh it's great," Atwell said when asked Wednesday how it felt to finally go through normal team activities again. "The walkthroughs are bringing everybody together. Everybody gets to see each other, now everybody's happy and just ready to get this things started "

Louisville's first practice will be held on Tuesday, August 4, and the Cardinals are scheduled to kickoff the 2020 season at Cardinal Stadium on Wednesday, Sept. 2 against the NC State Wolfpack.

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