Louisville is 'optimistic' that Malik Cunningham will return to lineup

The Louisville football program received a fair amount of preseason buzz coming off a 6-7 record in 2021. Most of that was the fact that Malik Cunningham was returning for his super senior season to be QB1 for Scott Satterfield for the fourth year in a row.

However, the 2022 year has not been a smooth one for the Louisville offense.

The Cards are winning games with defense this season as Malik Cunningham is posting career-low numbers with Satterfield in yards per attempt (7.3), passing touchdowns (8), and QB rating (132.9), Injuries have also been an issue.

Cunningham missed the Virginia game with a concussion in Week 6. The star quarterback returned to the lineup after the bye week, but suffered a left-hand injury in the win over James Madison on Nov. 5. The next week, Cunningham appeared to aggravate that hand injury and also hurt his shoulder on the last play of the first half in a road loss to Clemson on Nov. 12.

The quarterback was a late scratch last week as Brock Domann earned his second start in Louisville’s 25-10 Senior Day win over NC State. However, Cunningham has a chance to return this week as the veteran enters Week 13 with an 0-3 record against Kentucky.

“Malik [Cunningham] is still going to be listed day-to-day. I think we got a much better chance to have him back this week,” Satterfield told the media on Tuesday. “We’ll see kind of where he stands as the week goes by. He’ll go out today and do some things with us.”

“He won’t do everything today. He’s going to be out there in uniform, he’s going to be practicing but it’s not going to be where you’re getting normal reps. We were hoping tomorrow a lot more, Thursday a lot more, Friday a lot more, and then by Saturday ready to go. That’s the plan. We’ll see how it goes.”

This is a big development for a multitude of reasons. Cunningham is Louisville’s most proven passer who has posted better numbers than Domann this season. The dual-threat quarterback also leads the team with 633 non-sack rushing yards and 11 touchdowns. Louisville is much tougher to defend when No. 3 is taking snaps.

However, Cunningham figures to be fairly hobbled. Against Clemson, the elusive QB was wearing a glove on his left hand with huge padding. That makes ball handling a bit of an issue for the offense. But Louisville is still better with a hobbled Cunningham on offense. Satterfield seems to think he’ll get his only QB1 at Louisville back for this week.

“I feel good about it,” I feel pretty optimistic that he’ll be able to go.”