Louisville football: Grading the Cardinals’ performance against Virginia
The Louisville football team suffered another loss this week to Virginia. Which position groups came to play and which ones struggled?
The Cardinals had another rough performance on Saturday coming on the heels of their Covid recovery. The Cards dropped the game 31-17 in a game that felt like they really should have been the victor in.
Louisville turned the ball over and just could not finish on what they were starting on every drive. It was a frustrating performance for a team that just cannot find the means to string together a performance worthy of writing home about.
There were both good and bad performances on the day. Perhaps, there were some position groups that played better or worse than you may have expected.
Even though the team lost, I thought there were some special performances in this game. One certain position group had their best game of the season.
With that being said, let’s dive into some positional group rankings for the Virginia game, shall we?
Quarterback
Oh boy, starting off hot here. I am convinced that half of the Louisville fanbase now thinks that Malik Cunningham is actually bad at football. I hear your thoughts and I fully respect them. But, I am not ready to bury Cunningham right now.
I am not burying Malik because I believe he gives the team the best chance to win. There is no reason to believe the coaches don’t believe that too.
Regardless of how you feel about him as a passer at this point, Malik is one of the most dynamic running quarterbacks in college football. He proved that on Saturday.
His performance running the football would compete with some of Lamar Jackson’s best games as a Cardinal. Oh yeah. I went there.
When Cunningham takes off, he can do so many things in the open field. It’s no fluke he finished with 197 yards rushing on the day. He really is that dynamic.
Now, Malik had a bad day throwing the ball again. Although 21 passes is a small sample size, Cunningham seemed like he was having trouble seeing the field. It’s hard to say whether that is due to covered receivers down the field or Malik is just dropping his eyes and not seeing everything in front of him.
He must have known how well he was running on the day. If his first read was not open, he was looking to take off almost immediately. You could argue three of the team’s four sacks given up on the day were on him.
Cunningham also turned the ball over twice (which proved to be crucial). The pick six in the first quarter was a spot where Cunningham was just fooled by Virginia defender Noah Taylor. Taylor faked a rush and dropped into a short zone and Cunningham threw it right to him.
Then, while trying to make a play late in an important situation, Cunningham had the ball ripped from his grasps fighting for extra yards.
This was Malik’s best game of his career running the football. However, his passing struggles today were amplified by the loss of Tutu Atwell for the game.
The turnovers were also more of the same as he has just not taken care of the ball well enough this year. I am not of the group thinking Cunningham needs to be benched because I believe Cunningham gives Louisville the best chance to win.
Grade: B-