Louisville earns Music City Bowl bid and will play Mississippi State

Cameron Teague Robinson | Courier Journal

For the second time in program history, the Louisville football team is heading to the Music City Bowl.

After a surprise turnaround, the Cardinals, who won just two games a year ago, finished second in the ACC’s Atlantic Division and were rewarded with a bid to the Music City Bowl. Louisville (7-5, 5-3 ACC) will face SEC opponent Mississippi State (6-6, 3-5 SEC) in the Dec. 30 game at Nissan Stadium, in Nashville, Tennessee. The game will kick off at 4 p.m. and air on ESPN.

"We are really excited," Louisville coach Scott Satterfield said. "You get 15 extra practices, roughly, to work with our guys again. We are excited to get back to work."

Mississippi State leads the series 3-2 overall. The two teams will meet for the second time in the last three years. Mississippi State defeated Louisville 31-27 in the 2017 TaxSlayer Bowl. That was the last time Louisville played in a bowl game. It missed out on the postseason last year, for the first time since the 2009 season.

More: How much did Louisville improve in Scott Satterfield's first year? The stats tell it all

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Now back in bowl play, the Cardinals will return to the Music City Bowl, the site of their 27-21 win over Texas A&M in 2015. Lamar Jackson had 453 total yards and four touchdowns in that game.

The Dec. 30 game will also be the Cardinals second trip to Nissan Stadium this season. The Cardinals defeated Western Kentucky 38-21 there on Sept. 14.

Satterfield has no problem with going back to Nashville, calling it an "ideal scenario."

"It was a good experience last time we went there, it's a really good venue," Satterfield said. "We got a big win. It's a great city, lot of entertainment in that city, it's close to us so a lot of our fans will be able to get down to that site. ... Should be a great atmosphere."

Proximity factored into the Music City Bowl's interest in the Cardinals, CEO and President Scott Ramsey told the Courier Journal this week.

"Two and a half hours up the road on a Monday game, it really allows a lot of people to come," Ramsey said. "Certainly that’s one of the goals of the bowl, to fill up our city. I feel good about that."

The Cardinals were expected to receive the Music City Bowl bid throughout the lead up to the announcement. There was drama in announcing which SEC team it would face.

Initial reports were that Louisville would face Tennessee, but in the middle of Satterfield's press conference it was announced that Mississippi State was the opponent.

The opponent doesn't change the fact that the Cardinals enter bowl season with plenty of motivation after a blowout loss to rival Kentucky to close the regular season. Louisville players said while the loss stung, in the moment, they ultimately have something more to play for.

“It’s knowing that we have a bad taste in our mouth coming off a loss, we’ve done it before, come off a loss and dominated the next week,” said wide receiver Dez Fitzpatrick after the Kentucky game. “That’s what we are going to try to do. … We’ll be excited to get that bad taste out of our mouth and beat up on somebody else again.”

A win on Dec. 30 would give Louisville eight wins, a mark it has reached in seven of the last eight seasons. Last year was the lone exception.

Winning the Music City Bowl would do more than just push the Cardinals win total to eight. For the redshirt seniors such as G.G. Robinson, Khane Pass, Blanton Creque and others, it could be their first bowl win since the 2015 Music City Bowl.

For everybody else a win would be the first of their career and end Satterfield’s first season with a lot of momentum heading into the offseason.

Also: How does Chris Mack honor Scott Satterfield's ACC Coach of the Year? By TPing his yard

Cameron Teague Robinson CTeagueRob@gannett.com; Twitter: @cj_teague; Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com/subscribe.