Betting on college football has its challenges. Take injuries, for example. Notre Dame and South Florida are two teams with very realistic BCS bowl dreams, but both had very costly victories on Saturday that could very well prevent those dreams from becoming reality.
The Irish rallied to beat Michigan State to keep their hopes of a big-money bowl game alive. Notre Dame (2-1) held off the Spartans, 33-30, without the services of sophomore receiver Michael Floyd, who didn’t play in the second half after breaking his collarbone. All Floyd had done in 10 quarters this season was catch 13 balls for 358 yards and five touchdowns, averaging a whopping 27.5 yards a catch. But it now appears his season is over.
Irish coach Charlie Weis stated the obvious: "You can never really replace a Michael Floyd, a guy who's that caliber of player."
While Notre Dame’s schedule looks very conducive to the Irish running the table from here on out, especially with how average Southern Cal looks, this high-powered offense will miss Floyd a ton. Last year Floyd suffered a leg injury in a late-season game against Navy. While the Irish squeezed out a win there, they then lost to Syracuse and USC to close the season, and the offense didn’t look very good. In the 10 games Floyd played last year, Notre Dame averaged 386 yards of offense and 285 yards a game passing. In the three games Floyd missed (he played just a few snaps vs. Navy), the Irish were 1-2, averaging 254 yards of offense and 147 yards a game passing. Defenses loaded up against the team’s other star wideout, Golden Tate – and that’s no doubt going to be the case again.
Junior Duval Kamara and senior Robby Parris figure to get more playing time now, and the Irish will certainly throw more to tight end Kyle Rudolph. But none of those guys brings the big-play element Floyd did. The Irish are at Purdue this week before racing ranked teams Washington and USC the following two games.
As for South Florida (3-0), it was considered one of the favorites to win the Big East and take that conference’s BCS bowl spot. But that seems unlikely now that the Bulls will be without star quarterback Matt Grothe for the rest of the season. The senior tore his left ACL in Saturday’s 59-0 win over Charleston Southern.
Grothe was the South Florida offense and is probably the best player in school history. He has started 41 straight games and just set the Big East's career total yardage record. This season, he was 43-of-59 passing for 512 yards with five touchdowns and two interceptions. He also had 121 yards rushing, averaging 5.3 yards per carry.
Now steps in redshirt freshman B.J. Daniels, who has to make his first career start this week at No. 18 Florida State; it will be a homecoming for Daniels, who is from Tallahassee. At least Daniels isn’t stepping in totally unprepared, as he has played in USF's first three games. He is 12-of-15 passing for 179 yards and two TDs and rushed for 133 yards on 15 carries with three TDs.
Maybe Daniels is a future star, but I don’t count the Bulls as Big East contenders any longer.
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