Question No. 5 for USF Bulls: Is B.J. Daniels most important player to any team?

Posted Aug 3, 2010 by Scott Carter

Updated Aug 3, 2010 at 02:02 AM

Here is the last scene USF coach Skip Holtz wants to see this season: an injured B.J. Daniels on the ground unable to get up.

He may only have 10 career starts on his resume, but you could make a strong argument that USF sophomore QB B.J. Daniels is as important to his team as perhaps any player in the nation.

Why? Because USF’s second-best quarterback, Evan Landi, is a receiver—one that is very much-needed due to a recent rash of injuries—and the only other quarterback on scholarship, Jamius Gunsby, is a true freshman who has played a lot more basketball than football since last season.

To serve as an official countdown to the start of football season here in our little corner of the blogosphere, I’m throwing out the 10 most important questions the Bulls face heading into the season.

We learned from Holtz on Monday night that practice will now open on Thursday, a day earlier than USF officials originally reported. You can check out the blog each day for the latest question. After I give my take, I’d like to hear what your take is on the question of the day.

With that said, let’s take a look today at Question No. 5: Is B.J. Daniels as important to his team as any player in nation?

This could easily be the No. 1 question on our list since in the big picture, there is probably not a more important one.

Daniels remains inexperienced in many ways, but there’s no denying he showed a tremendous amount of ability and leadership after senior Matt Grothe suffered a season-ending knee injury in the third game last season.

If Daniels stays healthy and progresses as expected, the Bulls could surprise people. If he gets hurt like Grothe did last season, USF’s insurance plan doesn’t pay off nearly as well.

While Landi is a nice athlete and had his moments in the spring game, he wants to play receiver and has little game experience at quarterback.

Gunsby is considered a strong athlete but is not ready to come in and play quarterback at the college level right away.

Holtz has made it a priority for the Bulls not to rely on Daniels’ rushing ability as much this season, primarily to keep Daniels healthy and fresher as the season progresses.

In your view, is there another player in the Big East or the nation you think is as important to their team as Daniels is to USF this season?

I’m not sure there is.