Louisville football: 5 most important players vs. EKU

Malik Cunningham

Will he play or won’t he play? That’s one question I have heading into Saturday when it comes to backup quarterback Malik Cunningham.

We’ve known that Cunningham was out with an injury for quite some time now, but we finally got to see what happened during Saturday night’s All-Access show on the ACC Network. While things didn’t look serious, it was clearly bad enough to keep Cunningham out for nearly all of fall camp essentially ending the quarterback battle early.

All signs pointing to Jawon being named the starter before the injury, so I don’t see there being any sort of “quarterback debate” on who starts or who plays, but if Malik is back healthy and able to go on Saturday Louisville’s offense will be getting another huge weapon to add to what was out on the field against Notre Dame.

https://twitter.com/CurlyShea/status/1169366153111789568

Cunningham would more than likely receive reps at quarterback in a blowout situation, which I hope we’ll see on Saturday against Eastern Kentucky – but that doesn’t mean he won’t be on the field any other time.

This summer Satterfield was very adamant that Cunningham was too big of a weapon to be on the sideline holding a clipboard.

"“Malik Cunningham has been one of the best athletes on our team. He’s incredible what he can do. I don’t want him standing on the sideline. He’s too good of a player. We’ll try to get him in the game wherever that may be.”"

Cunningham is tailor-made for the Louisville offense, whether playing at quarterback, running back, or any other position. His speed and playmaking ability forces defenses to put extra focus on containing him, which will either open up things for others or allow Louisville to capitalize on over aggression.

Testing that knee out against Eastern Kentucky in limited time could be very beneficial to both Cunningham and Louisville. Adding another weapon to the fold only makes Louisville’s offense that much more dangerous, while providing another option at quarterback should an injury happen or change need to be made.

Again, Pass is not going to be pulled in week two of the season like we saw last year let’s make that clear. But being able to get the redshirt sophomore more reps on the field in whatever helps Louisville win can only help moving forward.