https://www.wdrb.com/sports/bozich-...cle_0ffa6b9a-38a9-11e9-8d01-63eab885d4f8.html
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — Here is one for the college football recruiting gurus to chew on:
Can a 6-foot-1, 215-pound, 2-star linebacker ranked the 14th best prospect in Utah be one of the primary forces to fix the sagging University of Louisville defense?
Cort Dennison thinks so — and he has returned to Louisville from Oregon with the 5-star energy that helped him overcome his 2-star recruiting pedigree as a college football player.
“I came back because I love these kids,” Dennison said. “They mean something to me.
“I want to see these guys happy. I want to see them win football games. I want to see them have the complete college experience where you’re doing things right on and off the field.
“I’ve always had a place in my heart (for Louisville), where if it was right, if it felt right, that I would always be willing to come back
“This just felt right.”
There is a reason you remember the name. Dennison worked at U of L from 2014-2017 on Bobby Petrino’s staff — and then left for Oregon because Pac-12 football was in his DNA.
But Dennison came back.
Leaving Oregon for Louisville after the 2018 season is not the career path many top coaching prospects would make after the toxic season U of L delivered last season.
The Ducks won nine games in 2018. Louisville won two.
Oregon is one of Nike’s signature football programs, the one that usually gets the latest technology and fashion. Louisville football does not have most favored nation status with adidas.
The Ducks figure to be in the mix to chase the Pac-12 title. Louisville will not be in the mix to overtake Clemson in the Atlantic Coast Conference for several years.
But last December, when word got to Dennison that U of L athletic director Vince Tyra and new head coach Scott Satterfield were interested in bringing him back to Louisville, Dennison’s adrenaline started percolating.
“Coach Satterfield, I call him ‘Steady Eddy,’ “ Dennison said. “There’s never too many highs. There’s never too many lows. What you see is what you’re going to get every time.
“I think the players really respect that. They know what to expect from him on a daily basis. It’s consistent. They’ve definitely gravitating to him.”
It’s risky trying to tell Dennison what cannot be done because his career features multiple chapters of making skeptics look silly. Overachiever? Dennison is fine if you call him that.
Dennison grew up in Salt Lake City. That’s not like playing in Miami, Dallas or Birmingham. For prime-time college exposure that’s not even like playing in Louisville, Indianapolis or Nashville.
At the end of his senior season, Dennison had zero FBS offers. Several FCS schools were interested, but the best promise Dennison could squeeze from a Power Five program was the opportunity to walk on.
In December of his senior year, a coach from the University of Washington visited Dennison to scout his high school basketball team. The coach must have liked the way he played power forward because days later Dennison had his chance to play for the Huskies.
More schools got involved — Oregon State, Arizona, California, Washington State, Arizona State, BYU.
Dennison went with the school that liked him first — the Huskies.
That didn’t change his size or his recruiting ranking. Dennison got on the field at Washington the old-fashioned way — step by step. Redshirt season. Special teams season as a freshman. Back-up player/special teams season as a sophomore. Solid starter as a junior.
Get this: As a senior Cort Dennison was a 2-star recruit with 5-star statistics. He led the Pac-12 in tackles.
He tried out for two NFL teams. Got cut. Part of the problem was his size. Part was lingering concussions issues.
Worked in real estate. Worked in insurance. Worked at a Seattle area restaurant, waiting tables as well as managing. Served several friends and former teammates who played for the Seahawks. Coached a high school football team for $1,500.
“It was a humbling experience,” he said. “But it motivated me to get to the point where I am today. I will never forget. I remember those were tough days.”
That all changed in 2013 when Nick Holt, his position coach at Washington, called and asked if he wanted to work as a graduate assistant coach at Western Kentucky.
The best Holt could offer was the opportunity to work 60-to-70 hours a week with a paycheck of $650 per month — and free tuition to pursue a masters degree in sports management.
Hello, Bowling Green.
Dennison worked one season for the Hilltoppers and then followed Petrino to Louisville, working his way from graduate assistant to safeties coach to special teams coordinator/linebackers coach.
He also recruited — relentlessly. It was Dennison’s work as a recruiter than helped Louisville assemble a class that was ranked 38th nationally in 2016 and 34th in 2017. One recruiting service recognized him as one of the Top 30 coaching prospects under the age of 30. Oregon’s incoming class is ranked seventh nationally, tops in the Pac-12.
Many players on this Louisville team are guys that Dennison helped recruit. Whenever he watched highlights of the Cards losing by 20, 30, 40 points or more,
Dennison was troubled and confused.
No wonder he wanted to be part of the solution, working with defensive coordinator Bryan Brown to give Louisville a formidable defense again.
“Obviously I was focused on Oregon, but I did watch from afar,” Dennison said. “And it was hard.
“Because like I said, I cared about these kids. It was hard to see them lose games. It was hard to see them at times look like they didn’t have the passion that I knew they were capable of having. It was hard to see the fan base go through this because it’s such an amazing fan base.
“It was hard on everybody here. Like I said, it was hard for me being a coach at another school, seeing the kids because I had a previous relationship with them.
“I could just through the TV, watching games that It was hard on them.”
Now he’s here as part of the staff than Satterfield has assembled to fix a Louisville football program that went wildly off the rails last season.
I had to ask. Would Cort Dennison take a chance on an undersized, 2-star linebacker?
“I’d take him,” he said. “If he could play football, I’d take him.”
