If you asked any USF fan "Who's the best Bulls quarterback of all time?", you's probably get a couple mixed responses. But if you asked a Big East fan, "Who's statistically the best Big East quarterback of all time?", then there's no doubt that the answer you'd receive is South Florida's Matt Grothe. Grothe spent his career chasing the record himself, following West Virginia's Pat White. So just how close is B.J. to writing his own name in the history books?
One advantage Grothe had over Daniels is that he started early. He played in every game his freshman season, starting all but one. Daniels only started his career after an injury, which ultimately sidelined Grothe for the remainder of his career, threw him onto the field to close out a meaningless thrashing of some FCS team in the third game of the season. Additionally, Grothe went to bowl games in all of his first three seasons. B.J. missed out on the postseason last year, and has also sat out one whole game in each of the last two years.
Realistically, though, Daniels has all the talent and tools he could ever need to make this a reality. The main objective for that to happen, however, happens to be exactly what put him in this position in the first place: Staying healthy. Daniels has been battling injuries in his shoulders, his legs, pretty much all over, for the past two seasons. Hopefully a summer off has helped him recover enough to play four months of solid football.
Grothe's record currently stands at 10875 total career yards. Who knows what it would have been if he'd been taken out early against Charleston Southern? That's 8669 passing yards and 2206 on the ground. Entering his senior season, B.J. Daniels is sitting on 7973 total yards. I'll save you the math and tell you that he's 2902 yards behind Grothe. Daniels's best season came last year when he racked up 3186 total yards in just 11 games.
So just what does B.J. have to do to pass his fellow Bull? First of all, he'll have to have big games against USF's two clearly lesser opponents, FCS team UT-Chattanooga, and Ball State, who Daniels thrashed last year. Racking up the yardage in those games will be critical heading into the real schedule. Additionally, B.J. may need to make it to the postseason to get there. To put it into numbers, he'd need to average just about 242 yards per game of he stays healthy the whole time and USF doesn't go to a bowl again. If the Bulls do end up going bowling, it brings his number down to 224 yards per game. Both are extremely manageable, as long as B.J. keeps his feet under him and his offensive line can hold off intruders. If he ends up sitting a regular season game and ends up just playing 11, he'd need to average 264 YPG to make up for it.
When Daniels walked off the field at Florida State in 2009, I watched the team crowd around him and I said "Watch. B.J. is definitely going to break Grothe's Big East record". So for my sake, and for his, I'm hoping to see two Bulls at the top of the conference record books.
Also, thank God Geno Smith isn't in the Big East anymore.
Another shining example of how stats and numbers don't mean squat in the grand scheme of things. I'd love to see Marquell play with the offenses we've had here the last 5 or 6 years and see what type of numbers he could come up with compared to Grothe and B.J.
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