Ever feel like someone’s little brother?
Ever watch as they get all of the praise, all of the rewards, all of the attention?
This week, Florida Atlantic and South Florida both know how you feel. Two of the smaller college football programs will try to pull shockers againat two of the more highly regarded, more traditional teams in the state.
The FAU Owls play against Miami tonight, and USF plays Florida State Saturday morning.
In other games, Florida is host to East Carolina, Central Florida travels to Stanford and Florida International goes to Indiana.
For FAU, it will be a different game than their first game, a 47-44 loss to Tulsa. The Hurricanes smothered Bethune-Cookman in last week’s opener, holding them to 26 yards passing and a 1.5-yard average on the ground in a 45-0 victory. Quarterback Brad Kaaya has thrown for a touchdown in all 14 of his college starts. Howard Schnellenberger, who coached both teams, will be honored before the game.
For USF, the challenge will be to stop an FSU offense that clicked in an opening-day win (59-16) over Texas State. Quarterback Everett Golson (the ACC player of the week) threw for 302 yards and running back Dalvin Cook ran for 156, a balance that will be difficult for the Bulls to play. Oh, South Florida fared well against the other school in Tallahassee last week, beating FAMU 51-3 behind quarterback Quinton Flowers, but this challenge is larger.
Florida turns to redshirt freshman Will Grier for his first start against East Carolina. Grier will be the ninth quarterback to start for the Gators since the graduation of Tim Tebow. East Carolina is traditionally tough against the run, so Grier and backup Treon Harris, who will have a seven-game streak interrupted as a starter, may have to go to the air often.
There might be better times for UCF to travel to the west coast to take on Stanford. The Knights suffered a 15-14 loss to FIU last week in which they gained only 46 yards rushing and did not have a sack. Stanford lost its opener to Northwestern, so it might be in a foul mood.
FIU has a chance – get this – to be 2-0. The Panthers face an Indiana team that won only 48-47 against Southern Illinois, an FBS team, last week.
