A little* on a lot of things

[outoftownie]

Read thru a lot of the posts from yesterday and this morning, instead of posting responses in each I will just compile some thoughts on season, yesterday and future into one stream of conscious post. Here goes...

Overall a great season. Very proud of the seniors on this team, especially Ianzito, Megill and Marasco. Steve came to SU from CNS with offensive expectations and transformed himself into one of the top ssdm in the country. He didn't look at this role as a demotion after running some 2nd line offense but embraced it and thrived. A true warrior he played through injury and left it all on the field. Megill is tough as nails,thrown into the fire as a freshman he never backed down from any challenge. A true leader on and off the field. Did it all over his four years, covered best attackman, went up to play middies and faced off. JoJo holds a special spot with me. I genuinely like him as a person and he is always kind to wife and family. One the field, it took him a little longer than he or all of us would have liked to find his sweet spot. He definitely found it this year. A great single season for a middie that defenses were keying on, knowing now many other guys on the field could beat their man to the goal. It was a tough spot and he thrived, almost carrying this team to the ultimate goal.

I am not going to belabor the faceoff issue. We need to get better across the board in this catagory. Not sure what it takes, hopefully we figure it out. I know one thing, the staff will not be contacting players on other college teams, they are above that and so is our program. No need to play dirty, just figure it out. If someone wants to transfer, that is great and I welcome their addition but to think that they will reach out to players that are content in their current situation and encourage a transfer is ludicrous.

As for yesterday, it was a great day outside of about 30 minutes of game time. Loaded up the family and left Syracuse at 630am. Three stops later (I have a 5 year old) and were in lot B at 1145am for lunch. It is always great to see former teammates, SU legends and the fans that make this annual trip to support the Orange. As always it was great to see board legend Bill Orange, one of my favorite SU fans. First time at Linc for a game, what a stadium great sight lines and luckily we were opposite SU bench for sun relief in second half.

SU came out guns blazing and Duke sputtered. It was nice to jump out, but our middies couldn't consistently shake their defender to draw and dump. Duke started to show their offensive prowess and depth, and we couldn't win a faceoff. Tough to score without the ball and it seemed like we were on defense the second half of Q2 and most of Q3. When we did have the ball, SU made some lazy passes that Turri picked off, that pissed me off more that the faceoffs. Faceoff losses were mostly due to Fowler being better than what SU ran out their, those passes were just poor execution. All in all, we had one run at the beginning of the game and Duke stopped it with their run. We couldn't win a faceoff to stop their run and it got out of hand.

Post game it was nice to talk with a couple of parents, players from the 88 team and the living legend, Roy Simmons Jr. The old coach greeted me as he always does, no name just "goalie." Shared a few word about the game, his foundation and our annual get together in Lake Placid. The team arrived to the post game tailgate to a terrific round of applause, you could see it on their faces that they were disappointed and exhausted. Had a few words with a couple of the guys about the game, summer plans and the difficulty of losing on that stage and dealing with the rest of the day. Then we were off and back in the driveway at 10pm. Too long of a day to post last night.

Next year, we have a lot of offensive players but also question marks of who fits where in the offense. Attack is loaded and some guys are going to have to move to midfield. In a perfect world, my starting offensive lineup looks like this next year...
Attack - Derek Maltz, Glasso and Donahue. Rice first off bench.
M1 - Loy, Schoonmaker, Staats
M2 - Evans, Walters, Lecky

As for the defense, I think we are I good shape. Rogers system is outstanding, there are some players with great potential. I hope that Mullins recovers from his ACL and Palasek figures out whatever the issue that has him suspended. A starting lineup of Mullins, Young and Palasek sounds good to me. Harris and McCartney back at pole with Manning and Firman coming in. I think the staff throws a bunch of bodies at ssdm and see what sticks beyond Grimm and Jenkins. Guys I like in that spot are Messina, Rockett, Kane and gillis.

As for the incoming class and how it stacks up against others in the ACC, it is the second or third best class in ACC. That said it is also probably the second or third best class in the country. Maryland and UVa also have outstanding classes, lead by headliner attackmen. That said, 2014 and 2015 classes are slow developing. Not sure if that is good or bad, some good players in each class. Just not the quantity of talent that the schools we compete with currently have lined up.

Sorry, that is a lot of stuff and I am not proof reading it.

 

[Moontan]

Thanks for the info!

 

[swish7]

Great post. Thanks for sharing your insight.

I agree with you on Turri. If he doesn't intercept those passes, Duke's run would not have been so fast. If we score on a couple of those possessions, we might have had a couple goal cushion, when instead, they tied it up and surged past us.

 

[GoSU96]

Good stuff.

 

[BillJay]

Thanks for the info!

Formerly known as: j-u-r-r-i-e

For more fun see my Orange related Factoids page.
Now includes: Future Football Schedules, 2012 FBS Private School Football Rankings, Big East Football Historical Overview

I did go to yr Factoids page & had more fun! Enjoyed the section about collegiate domed stadiums - some of those facilities that hold about 12K look pretty cool & worthy of a visit.

 

[PeteCalvin]

Read thru a lot of the posts from yesterday and this morning, instead of posting responses in each I will just compile some thoughts on season, yesterday and future into one stream of conscious post. Here goes...

Overall a great season. Very proud of the seniors on this team, especially Ianzito, Megill and Marasco. Steve came to SU from CNS with offensive expectations and transformed himself into one of the top ssdm in the country. He didn't look at this role as a demotion after running some 2nd line offense but embraced it and thrived. A true warrior he played through injury and left it all on the field. Megill is tough as nails,thrown into the fire as a freshman he never backed down from any challenge. A true leader on and off the field. Did it all over his four years, covered best attackman, went up to play middies and faced off. JoJo holds a special spot with me. I genuinely like him as a person and he is always kind to wife and family. One the field, it took him a little longer than he or all of us would have liked to find his sweet spot. He definitely found it this year. A great single season for a middie that defenses were keying on, knowing now many other guys on the field could beat their man to the goal. It was a tough spot and he thrived, almost carrying this team to the ultimate goal.

I am not going to belabor the faceoff issue. We need to get better across the board in this catagory. Not sure what it takes, hopefully we figure it out. I know one thing, the staff will not be contacting players on other college teams, they are above that and so is our program. No need to play dirty, just figure it out. If someone wants to transfer, that is great and I welcome their addition but to think that they will reach out to players that are content in their current situation and encourage a transfer is ludicrous.

As for yesterday, it was a great day outside of about 30 minutes of game time. Loaded up the family and left Syracuse at 630am. Three stops later (I have a 5 year old) and were in lot B at 1145am for lunch. It is always great to see former teammates, SU legends and the fans that make this annual trip to support the Orange. As always it was great to see board legend Bill Orange, one of my favorite SU fans. First time at Linc for a game, what a stadium great sight lines and luckily we were opposite SU bench for sun relief in second half.

SU came out guns blazing and Duke sputtered. It was nice to jump out, but our middies couldn't consistently shake their defender to draw and dump. Duke started to show their offensive prowess and depth, and we couldn't win a faceoff. Tough to score without the ball and it seemed like we were on defense the second half of Q2 and most of Q3. When we did have the ball, SU made some lazy passes that Turri picked off, that pissed me off more that the faceoffs. Faceoff losses were mostly due to Fowler being better than what SU ran out their, those passes were just poor execution. All in all, we had one run at the beginning of the game and Duke stopped it with their run. We couldn't win a faceoff to stop their run and it got out of hand.

Post game it was nice to talk with a couple of parents, players from the 88 team and the living legend, Roy Simmons Jr. The old coach greeted me as he always does, no name just "goalie." Shared a few word about the game, his foundation and our annual get together in Lake Placid. The team arrived to the post game tailgate to a terrific round of applause, you could see it on their faces that they were disappointed and exhausted. Had a few words with a couple of the guys about the game, summer plans and the difficulty of losing on that stage and dealing with the rest of the day. Then we were off and back in the driveway at 10pm. Too long of a day to post last night.

Next year, we have a lot of offensive players but also question marks of who fits where in the offense. Attack is loaded and some guys are going to have to move to midfield. In a perfect world, my starting offensive lineup looks like this next year...
Attack - Derek Maltz, Glasso and Donahue. Rice first off bench.
M1 - Loy, Schoonmaker, Staats
M2 - Evans, Walters, Lecky

As for the defense, I think we are I good shape. Rogers system is outstanding, there are some players with great potential. I hope that Mullins recovers from his ACL and Palasek figures out whatever the issue that has him suspended. A starting lineup of Mullins, Young and Palasek sounds good to me. Harris and McCartney back at pole with Manning and Firman coming in. I think the staff throws a bunch of bodies at ssdm and see what sticks beyond Grimm and Jenkins. Guys I like in that spot are Messina, Rockett, Kane and gillis.

As for the incoming class and how it stacks up against others in the ACC, it is the second or third best class in ACC. That said it is also probably the second or third best class in the country. Maryland and UVa also have outstanding classes, lead by headliner attackmen. That said, 2014 and 2015 classes are slow developing. Not sure if that is good or bad, some good players in each class. Just not the quantity of talent that the schools we compete with currently have lined up.

Sorry, that is a lot of stuff and I am not proof reading it.

My biggest question has always been, and hopefully the lax guru's here can comment on it, is simply this: Syracuse has always been known as a wide open, dynamic, and fearless offense that allow playmakers to shine. That being the case, why have we not seen even one dynamic playmaking passer / scorer since Mikey Powell? And where have our dominant Canadian scorers been since Stephen Keough suited up? We used to have several solid Canadian players on offense. It just seems to me that we have transformed into a defensive team (by necessity) and lost our passing and scoring mojo. The last time we had an offense equal to the defense was 2008-2009. I just wonder what has happened. Yes, I realize that there are more good programs now, but I can't believe that the HS talent pool has gotten smaller.

I personally think we put too many eggs into the Thompson basket and got screwed when they didn't have the grades. Only Jeremy matriculated to campus. I think Desko was banking on having all of them and didn't have a back-up plan. The one we lost to Albany would have helped us this year.

Thoughts? Just wondering what others think. Have we lost something or have others just caught up. I think we've regressed back into the pack a bit. Not a knock on the players, so please don't take it that way. But our style has changed.