Orangeyes Daily Articles for Wednesday - for Football | Syracusefan.com

Orangeyes Daily Articles for Wednesday for Football

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Welcome to Black Cat Appreciation Day!

Because of superstitious beliefs in some cultures, black cats are sometimes associated with bad luck and, sadly, are more likely to be put to sleep or wait a long time to be adopted from shelters. Black Cat Appreciation Day was launched to show people that a black cat could be the perfect cat for them, and help raise awareness about black cats in general.

If you’ve been looking for a rescue cat yourself, why not consider a black cat? Not only are the superstitions about them bringing bad luck completely untrue, but you might find a black cat to be a fantastic feline companion for you! On Black Cat Appreciation Day, a fun way to celebrate, if you own a black cat, is to take photos with your pet to share and spread awareness about the day on social media. Children can join in by drawing pictures of black cats.


SU News

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http://www.orlandosentinel.com/spor...iss-at-least-first-3-games-20160816-story.htm
l (orlandosentinel.com; Hays)

Orlando Dr. Phillips is expected to be without star linebacker Dylan Meeks, one of the top players in the state, for at least the first three regular-season games this season.

Meeks, a 6-foot-2, 225-pound senior, is still recovering from surgery he had last month after suffering a torn labrum in his shoulder during the summer. Meeks said he will miss games against Wekiva and Lake Mary, and most likely West Orange, as well as the kickoff classic against Orlando Jones on Friday night.

Dr. Phillips coaches, as is their policy, do not comment on injured players.

His tentative target date for return will be a Sept. 16 game at Apopka.

Meeks, who is also a three-time state champion in wrestling, coincidentally has suffered the same injury his brother Alton had prior to his senior season at DP. Alton Meeks is now a linebacker at Northern Illinois. Meeks has one other brother, Cody Meeks, who is a redshirt freshman offensive lineman at Colorado State.
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Brooks star Freiermuth commits to Penn State football (eagletribune.com; Willis)

With two years remaining in his high school career, Brooks star Pat Freiermuth has already locked up his spot at one of college football’s most iconic programs.

Freiermuth, one of the top tight end recruits in the country, has committed to play college football for Penn State University starting in the fall of 2018.

“It all came down to where I knew I wanted to be,” said Freiermuth, a Merrimac resident. “Going to Penn State, feeling the atmosphere and the football tradition, I just knew it felt right. The coaches and the team were amazing to me, and I knew Penn State felt like the place I wanted to make my new home.”

The 6-foot-6, 235-pound Eagle-Tribune All-Star made the blockbuster announcement on Tuesday during his second recruiting trip of the summer to the school.
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But the former Pentucket star narrowed his finalists to Penn State and Syracuse after an exhaustive summer of recruiting visits.

“My top two choices were Syracuse and Penn State,” he said. “I had originally planned to visit both again. I was very high on both schools and was swinging back and fourth on which was my No. 1.

“I talked to coach Foley and he really helped put it in perspective. He told me to go to the schools and watch a practice. That way you aren’t guessing what it was really like to play football there.”
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Prep football preview: Who, what to watch (jsonline.com; Stewart)

PLAYERS TO WATCH

Ezekiel Banks, sr., RB, Greenfield: The 5-foot-10, 198-pound speedster averaged 10.2 yards per carry as a sophomore and 7.8 as a junior. The key is staying healthy. He was hampered by injury the past two seasons.

Tyler Beach, sr., OL, Port Washington: Given the Pirates offense, the 6-6, 285-pound tackle who orally committed to Wisconsin is more adept at run blocking. He had offers from Notre Dame, Michigan, Syracuse, Oregon State, Arkansas, Vanderbilt and a number of schools in the Mid-American Conference before committing to UW.

Seth Bickett, jr., DL, Pewaukee: One of the few sophomores on the coaches' all-state team, the 5-11, 231-pounder is considered by one Woodland coach as the most disruptive defensive player in the league.

Mike Bruner, jr., LB, Homestead: The all-North Shore pick is one reason few expect the Highlanders to stumble despite graduating a strong senior class. He already has received a scholarship offer from Iowa.
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Football: SU’s new coach Dino Babers facing uphill task (oneidadispatch.com; Kekis)

In his first public appearance as Syracuse’s new football coach, Dino Babers didn’t make any bold proclamations. Just a plea for fan support.

“We’re not going to make promises, but if you have faith and fill this place ... you’re going to see something you’ve never seen before,” Babers said in January to a Carrier Dome basketball crowd of nearly 27,000. “We will win!”

To be certain, the 54-year-old Babers, the fourth coach in seven years at Syracuse, faces a tall task.

Syracuse won just seven games the past two seasons under Scott Shafer and is looking for a way to compete in the Atlantic Coast Conference with the likes of Florida State and national runner-up Clemson. The Orange was 4-8 in Shafer’s third and final season.

Since the turn of this century, bright spots have been fleeting for the Orange. The program hasn’t been nationally ranked since 2001 under Paul Pasqualoni and still is struggling to emerge from a low point reached under Greg Robinson — his 10-37 record from 2005-08 represents the worst four-year stretch in school history.

The Syracuse program has regularly has had its ups and downs. The trick is to start trending upward in the ACC’s Atlantic Division.

“We just want to try and make sure we get better every day,” Babers said after spring ball. “And hopefully by getting better somewhere, when the season ends we’re good enough.”

Syracuse opens the season against longtime upstate New York foe Colgate, which won the Patriot League last season, made the FCS playoffs, and figures to offer a stiff first test. The Orange has sometimes struggled in the past against FCS teams. A fortunate one-point win over Villanova two years ago serves as a reference.
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Syracuse football recruiting: Could Cincinnati joining Big 12 hurt Orange? (TNIAAM; Cassillo)

Admittedly, it’s tough to keep up with the daily nonsense around the Big 12’s summer-long expansion quest. But the latest, for those that missed, is that the Cincinnati Bearcats appear to be frontrunners in the race if the conference does, indeed, expand.

You may remember Cincinnati from such hits as “the time they made things miserable for Syracuse in the old Big East,” and “that one time we blew them out in 2010.”

Now, I’ve always liked Bearcats fans. And actioncookbook is a pretty nice dude that you should follow on Twitter. To be honest, I want them to make it into the Big 12 (especially if it’s instead of UConn). But there’s also an argument to be made that their promotion to a Power Five conference wouldn’t do the Orange any favors on the recruiting front.

Take, this year, for example:

Of Syracuse’s current 2017 commits, four (Tommy DeVito, Allen Strizinger, Zach Morton and Aaron Hackett) hold Cincinnati offers. Looking at the 2016 class, six (James Pierre, Jaquwan Nelson, Rex Culpepper, Tim Walton, Andrew Armstrong and Liam O’Sullivan) had offers from the Bearcats and O’Sullivan was a Cincy flip after Babers took over.

While both schools recruit from a variety of areas around the country, it’s tough to deny that there’s some intersection, especially in the Pennsylvania/Ohio/Indiana/Michigan area. SU goes to Florida a little bit more, but that’s because they’re not a state school in Ohio. Back when the two teams shared space in the Big East, they were also pursuing similar recruits, and the Bearcats won those battles more often than not. Several 10-win seasons certainly helped them gain an advantage there. Just like SU’s P5 status has helped them gain an advantage lately.
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Syracuse football: Eric Dungey and his brother, Matt (photo gallery; PS; Mink)

Matt Dungey enlisted in the Army while Eric and Emma Dungey earned athletic scholarships in college. (Photo courtesy of Cindy Dungey)

Syracuse football: QB Eric Dungey says offense ‘not up to my standards’ yet (TNIAAM; Menefee)

Syracuse Orange football quarterback Eric Dungey spoke to the media after practice Monday about - what else? - the new offense. Just 18 days remain until Syracuse opens the 2016 season against Colgate, but Dungey is aware that there is still work to be done.

“It’s obviously not up to coach’s standards yet and not up to my standards yet,” he said.

Dungey stated that going “with the flow” and “with what the coaches tell you” has helped him get accustomed to the new system. He mentioned that he’s had to learn five different offenses in the last five years, so he doesn’t seem to find adjustments to be a big deal.

One of the more major adjustments has been learning the playbook, on which Dungey had this to say:

It’s going well, just executing the playbook is what we need to work on.


He’s been singing Dino Babers’ praises about the new up-tempo offense basically ever since the new coach arrived. That’s a good sign that the players really believe the system will work.

“I love to go fast, I love the quick passes, the quick game,” Dungey said.

It’s great to see Dungey excited and ready to play, but from what he said, it sounds like the Orange really need to make the most of every second they get during fall camp to be as prepared for the upcoming season. I don’t think people are expecting everything to click right away, but the more prepared, the better. The season opener is rapidly approaching.
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ACC Should Expand Its Football Schedule To 9 Conference Games (todaysu.com; Holcomb)

The new ACC Network television contract was a huge victory for the conference, but without a doubt, there are big obstacles to overcome in order to make it a reality. The hardest and most difficult one might be the football schedule.

In exchange for creating the television station, which is set to launch in 2019, ESPN asked for two scheduling stipulations.

  1. All ACC football teams must play eight conference football games, plus at least two non-league games against Power Five opponents; or play nine conference games and one Power Five.
  2. All ACC men’s basketball teams must schedule 18-20 conference games.
The second request has already been fulfilled; the first one is where the league is having its disagreements.

ACC athletic directors remained deadlocked Friday on which option to chose in order to satisfy ESPN’s first request according to David Teel of The Daily Press. Both stipulations are completely understandable. ESPN wants additional quality content for the ACC Network. Nobody wants to watch North Carolina play James Madison, so any ratings for such a matchup wouldn’t score very highly for ESPN.

Although this is problem could potentially linger into October when the annual fall meeting occurs, it’s pretty clear from an outsider’s perspective that nine games with one contest against another Power Five school is the way to go.
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Tomlin On Steelers S Shamarko Thomas: "He Just Needs To Continue To Get Better" - Steelers Depot (steelersdepot.com; Bryan)

The career of Pittsburgh Steelers safety Shamarko Thomas certainly hasn’t gone like the team probably hoped it would as the Syracuse product has mainly been used as a core special teams player over the course of the last two seasons. With the 2016 season quickly approaching, Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin was asked Tuesday during his weekly press conference what he needs to see out of Thomas in every area of his game as he enters
the final year of his rookie contract.

“We talked openly a few nights ago in a team meeting, a guy like him that’s trying to expand his role as a defender,” said Tomlin of the team’s former fourth round draft pick. “I’m for that, I never put guys in a box, but there’s certain expectations that comes with the things that he does well and I don’t want to see any waning in that performance,”

While Tomlin isn’t ready to put Thomas in a box, from a defensive standpoint, that’s exactly where he seems to have played his best football at times, which has unfortunately mostly come during the preseason the last two years as he’s been less than stellar when forced to play deep and in open areas of the äeld. Thomas, however, for the most part, has been a solid special teams player during his career in Pittsburgh outside of a few mental lapses and penalties and Tomlin was quick to praise that area of his play on Tuesday.

“He’s been a solid special teams contributor here for a number of years, that’s always been a strong component of his game,” said Tomlin. “He’s been arguably one of the best in the world in that area and we expect him to continue to be that as he works and tries to take advantage of the defensive opportunities that he’s getting.”
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Other

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Why Syracuse put 5 firefighters 24 hours a day in an upscale apartment building (PS; Moriarty)

In what could be an unprecedented action, five firefighters have been stationed 24 hours a day inside an upscale Syracuse apartment building on Clinton Square for more than a week to watch for fire.

Starting Aug. 5 and ending Monday, firefighters patrolled around the clock on five of the six floors of the former Syracuse Savings Bank building at 100 N. Salina St. at the building owners' expense.

City officials said they took the unusual action after discovering that about six of the 21 apartments that were recently built on the upper three floors of the historic six-story building had tenants living in them even though the city had not issued a certificate of occupancy for the apartments.

City building inspectors said the building's fire alarm system does not meet the city's requirements because alarms on the three residential floors are not connected to the alarms on the first three floors, which are occupied by the Bank of America. So if there was a fire on, say, Bank of America's third floor offices, the people living on floors 4 through 6 would not be alerted by the alarms on those floors, the inspectors said.

Ken Towsley, the city's director of code enforcement, said he wasn't even sure if the alarms on the residential floors were interconnected so that a fire on, say, floor 4 would set off alarms on floors 5 and 6. The reason he was not sure, he said in a court affidavit, is that the city had not received complete smoke detector certifications from the building's owners.
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