Louisville Football: Why Puma Pass should remain the starter for the Cardinals

Louisville football is amidst an unexpectedly close quarterback battle. We make the case for Puma Pass as the starter for the Cards.

Bobby Petrino probably expected back up quarterback Malik Cunningham to play most of the second half Saturday night against FCS opponent Indiana State. However, it is unlikely that anyone foresaw the circumstances in which Cunningham saw the field for Louisville football and beginning a QB “controversy” that is now a big topic of discussion for the Cards.

After starter Puma Pass just could not get things going, Cunningham entered the game for the second drive of the second half and led the Cards to a dominant victory.

It is easy to speculate why Cunningham could get the nod week 3 against Western Kentucky. However, there are a lot of positives to take away from Pass’s first two games.

Pass has certainly been thrown into the fire for the first two starts of his college career.

Against Alabama in the season opener, Pass ran into a buzz saw in the vaunted Crimson Tide defense. Alabama has one of, if not THE, best defensive lines in the country. Yet Pass hung in the pocket and delivered throws on target time and time again.

Although the Cards were defeated handily by the Tide, Pass threw for more 252 yards, more than any player has against Bama in two years. In that time period, the Tide have faced names like Sam Darnold, Jared Stidham, Deshaun Watson, and Kelly Bryant, which shows that Puma did a great job of completing passes under pressure.

The Alabama game left much to be desired, but also left those around the program with a lot to be optimistic about moving forward under Pass.Yes, Puma struggled with accuracy but if you had two giant bears running at you, you’d likely struggle with that as well. Petrino talked about Pass the Monday after the Bama loss, saying:

"“I thought he did a good job of competing, standing in the pocket, getting hit,completing passes. Then he does what all quarterbacks have done at some point intheir career, a lot of times it’s early, and when you’re young and inexperienced, you getyour eyes down…. I know he’s going to learn a lot from it, and a lot of the speed that we’ll see won’t quite be what we just saw, so hopefully that will make a lot of difference for him. I wasreally happy that he stayed in there, finished, and competed. I was not going to take himout. I wanted him to stay in there and get better, work through it, and see hiscompetitive spirit. That’s what we were talking about on the sideline. He said, ‘I’m goingto keep working on it, keep going.’ So, I was impressed with his mindset.”"

That’s what made Pass’s second start such a head-scratcher.

Against Indiana State, Pass was not on the same page at all with his receivers, and threw an interception that set up an easy touchdown for the Sycamores. He finished the game with a measley 12.6 QBR throwing for just 89 yards on 57% passing.

The optics of the game are much worse, however, than what the reality of the situation probably is. Firstly, it is important to understand that players have off games. Pass only threw the ball 14 times, and many of his passes were influenced by the sheer force of the wind and rain.

Speaking of the weather, Pass threw his 14 passes over the course of nearly four hours. The game was stalled on three separate occasions for lightning delays, and then again for halftime. This had an obvious- and understandable- effect on Pass.

On Monday, we found out that Pass was also struggling with some turf toe symptoms- which is a painful spraining of the big toe.

Overall, Bobby Petrino should get more credit than he has for recognizing that Pass was out of rhythm in the rain and putting in a more run-oriented Malik Cunningham.

Cunningham may have been the best player for this game, but Pass is the best option for this season going forward.

Let’s give Pass some more time before anointing Cunningham the starter for the Cards.