JMU Respects Elon QB Cheek

“He’s wired to play quarterback,” James Madison coach Curt Cignetti, who held the same role with the Phoenix last year, said this week ahead of Saturday’s meeting between JMU and Elon. “He’s a great decision maker and he gets the ball out of his hands quickly. He keeps you out of bad plays. He’s very accurate and he sees the defense very well.”

For his career, Cheek has thrown 27 touchdowns to just 10 interceptions. His 15-yard pass for a score with less than two minutes to play gave the Phoenix a stunning win over the Dukes in Harrisonburg last October.

“Davis Cheek is probably the second smartest quarterback I’ve been around,” JMU senior defensive end Ron’Dell Carter said, “besides [former Richmond quarterback Kyle] Lauletta and then [former JMU quarterback Bryan] Schor, obviously, but I’m talking about guys who I’ve played against.

“And Davis Cheek is in his third year and he doesn’t turn the ball over. He doesn’t make ill-advised passes. He checks coverages well. He checks down passes well. He’s a smart quarterback and you’ve got to respect him.”

This season, Cheek’s eight touchdown throws have gone to five different receivers. He said playing for a third straight season in the same system Cignetti and third-year Elon offensive coordinator Drew Folmar created has helped establish confidence across the entire offense.

“It’s designed to just help out in every facet of the game — pass game, run game,” Cheek said. “It takes advantage of whatever the defense gives us. I don’t think that we’re really reliant on one thing and I think we do a lot of things really well, so I think whenever we execute, we’re a really good football team.”

Carter recorded his first sack of the season this past Saturday in JMU’s win at Chattanooga and he said the Dukes have to apply pressure on Cheek.

Madison sacked Cheek just once last year, but sacked him three times the season before during a 31-3 win to clinch the 2017 Colonial Athletic Association title outright.

Entering conference action, JMU has tallied five sacks as a team through four games.

“Hopefully that gets us rolling and gets contagious around the whole defense,” Carter said. “[Defensive tackle] Mike Greene got one. We got to get [defensive end John] Daka rolling. Got to get Adeeb [Atariwa] rolling, but Adeeb’s been doing good against the run anyway, so Adeeb has been fine. But we got to everybody rolling and get our pass rush back to what it should be. Hopefully me getting that one [sack] and the defense doing what it’s supposed to do, gets everybody going.”

Cheek said he knows he must protect the ball against JMU while acknowledging the strength of the Dukes’ defensive line and the high-level coverage skills of cornerback Rashad Robinson.

Robinson didn’t play against Chattanooga after suffering an injury the week before, but Cignetti said Robinson practiced at full speed Tuesday and that “he feels great.”

“The margin for error against good teams, and especially a team like JMU, is a lot less than some random other team that you may play,” Cheek said. “So the big thing is just execution.”

Carter and company will do whatever they can to interrupt Cheek’s streak of mistake-free football, even if it won’t happen easily.

“And he can take a hit,” Carter said. “He takes a hit and pops right back up. I remember getting a few shots on him my sophomore year, and he’s a true freshman at that time, and he popped right up like nothing was wrong, so you have to have a lot of respect for a guy like that.”