Matt Barkley Will Not Play in USC’s Bowl Game

Has there been a prospect that lost more steam in 2013 than Matt Barkley? Once the top prospect in many eyes, Barkley struggled during his Senior campaign. A big reason was because Khaled Holmes was lost with injury and wasn’t the same when he came back, but Barkley didn’t exactly inspire the draft community with his individual play either.

Things kind of came to a head when he was injured in the UCLA game, and USC went on to lose to Notre Dame in his absence as well.

Everyone was expecting to see Matt make his triumphant return in USC’s bowl game, but apparently it’s a no-go for that shoulder:

In an announcement that seemed to be a foregone conclusion for at least a week, Kiffin confirmed Thursday that Barkley will not play in USC’s first postseason game since the quarterback’s freshman season. Barkley suffered the shoulder injury in the UCLA loss and missed the regular-season finale against Notre Dame because of it.

Kiffin said Barkley wanted to play, but doctors would not medically clear him to do so. “I’ll be here with my team to finish strong. Proud to be a Trojan!” Barkley wrote in a tweet posted to his Twitter account.

-PFT

Even with his college career coming to a unexpected end, the future is still bright for Barkley. He was thought of one of the best QB’s in the loaded 2012 draft class and is undoubtedly still among the best in the 2013 crop. Who knows, he may be a second round pick but it’s not the end of the world. Some guy named Favre was drafted in the second round and had plenty of post-win interviews with legendary reporters like Ms. Lesley Visser.