Louisville is alive and — well, check on the rest of that phrase at the end of the season.

What’s been a strange season seems like it’s on an upswing for coach Scott Satterfield’s program, perhaps prolonging what’s been a strange tenure for the fourth-year coach who was at Appalachian State for more than two decades between time as a quarterback, assistant and head coach.

The Cardinals alternated losses and wins for the first five weeks of the season before winning their last two games, at Virginia and home against Pittsburgh last week. Louisville’s remaining five games are against teams with a combined 29-7 record — Wake Forest, James Madison, Clemson, N.C. State and Kentucky.

Four of those five are ranked and the one that isn’t, James Madison, was ranked until losing its last two games.

Here are five things to know about Louisville ahead of Saturday’s game:

Boston College has two wins this season and one of them was against FCS-level Maine, which is 2-5.

The Eagles’ other win was a 34-33 win against this Louisville team, which landed the Cardinals at 2-3 — and 0-3 in the ACC. On shaky ground entering the season because of a dalliance with South Carolina a couple of years ago and a lack of sustained success from his debut season in 2019, that could’ve spelled the end for Satterfield.

Instead, his team has rallied.

Since then, Louisville has a 34-17 win at Virginia in which it fell behind 10-0 less than 10 minutes into the game, and has a 24-10 win over Pitt last weekend.

Having played Louisville in each of the last four seasons, Wake Forest has seen the transformation of Malik Cunningham as a true dual-threat quarterback play out.

Cunningham has developed into more of a passing threat in the last couple of seasons, and one of the first examples of that development was his 19-for-26, 307-yard performance through the air against the Deacons last season.

“He is one of the most-gifted, talented players in the league,” Wake Forest coach Dave Clawson said. “And he has really improved reading plays. His accuracy on throws — when he sets his feet and is able to get through a progression, this guy puts the ball on the money.

“Every single year, he has gotten better.”

Cunningham hasn’t thrown for more than 243 yards in a game this season, but he does have three 100-yard rushing games (against UCF, Florida State and South Florida) and is third in the ACC with nine rushing touchdowns.

If you assumed Clemson has the most sacks in the ACC because of the Tigers’ talent on the defensive line, that’d be a fine guess.

You’d be wrong.

Louisville’s 25 sacks are the most in the ACC — Clemson is actually fourth with 22, and has played one more game than every team but Duke — and the Cardinals are able to generate pressure with two of the best edge rushers in the conference.

YaYa Diaby has 5½ sacks to lead the Cardinals; the fifth-year defensive end is in his third season with the Cardinals after transferring from Georgia Military College. Yasir Abdullah is also a fifth-year player—he had 10 sacks last season and has only been credited with 3½ this season, but Pro Football Focus has recorded 33 QB pressures by Abdullah (and 20 for Diaby).

Monty Montgomery, a 5-11, 220-pound linebacker, has four sacks in Louisville’s last three games. Ashton Gillotte, a 6-3, 265-pound defensive tackle, had two sacks against Syracuse in the opener and has two sacks since, giving four also.

Louisville has held its last two opponents to 319 yards (Virginia) and 326 yards (Pitt), and it’s no coincidence that both games have been multi-touchdown wins by the Cardinals.

Virginia gave up seven sacks when it played Louisville, resulting in a rushing total of 6 yards. Pitt rushed for 168 yards but quarterback Kedon Slovis completed 16 of 29 passes for 158 yards. He was sacked twice and was picked off twice.

Louisville has held three opponents under 5 yards per play, all of them wins. For comparison’s sake, Wake Forest has been held under 5 yards per play once this season: In its 37-36 win over Liberty.

Louisville’s Cardinal Stadium has a capacity of about 60,000 and with a top-10 opponent arriving and two straight wins, it’ll be interesting to see how full and loud things get.

Wake’s record in front of crowds of at least 45,000 comes into play here. The Deacons are 4-12 since the start of the 2016 season playing in front of crowds of at least that many, including this season’s 31-21 win at Florida State (69,749).

Attendance for Louisville’s game against Pitt last week was 41,840 — that was an 8 p.m. kickoff.