At his first game week press conference of the 2014 season, Bobby Petrino announced wide receiver DeVante Parker will be out 6-8 weeks with a broken bone in his toe. Parker is currently in North Carolina with specialist Dr. Robert Anderson who will perform surgery on the broken bone. His return would likely come around the time Louisville prepares for the tough, back half of its schedule that features games against Florida State, Notre Dame, and Clemson.
Louisville comes to the Dome in six weeks, so even if the low end of this prediction turns out to be accurate, he'll miss that game. This is a huge blow to the Cards, as their game plan was likely to center around him exploiting our secondary if that hasn't improved for us. As a Sophomore against a much better Orange secondary in 2012, he had 5 catches for 83 yards and a touchdown during our rout of the previously unbeaten Cardinals. The Dome on that Friday night will be the first tough road test of Will Gardner's career (first two road games are UVA and FIU), and there's not a ton of pass catching experience at WR behind Parker and Eli Rogers.
They're also without Michael Dyer against Miami, which could prove to be a big swing if we're battling with them for third place behind FSU and Clemson.
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