sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
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Welcome to National Punch Day!
Today is National Punch Day! The word “punch” allegedly comes from the Hindustani word “panch,” which means “five.” In the early 1600s, sailors and employees of the British East India Company brought a new exotic drink from India to England. The beverage was made with five ingredients—spirits, lemon, sugar, water, and tea.
The recipe for punch spread from country to country and became one of the most popular party drinks in the world. Today there are hundreds of different punch recipes. Many of them still incorporate the five key ingredients: base (alcohol), citrus, sugar, water, and spice.
Mix up your favorite concoction for National Punch Day and serve it to friends.
SU News
Squeezed -- Syracuse Defense Still A Work In Progress (todaysu.com; Holcomb)
There wasn’t much to feel good about in Syracuse’s Week 2 defensive performance versus Louisville. The Cardinals gashed the Orange for 845 total yards and 62 points in the Carrier Dome, but if there was any consolation, Louisville did roughly the same thing to the No. 2 team in the country, Florida State.
The Cardinals racked up 530 yards and 63 points Saturday against the Seminoles. The 43-point margin was tied for the third-largest margin of defeat absorbed by a top-two team in the AP poll. The 63 points are the most points ever surrendered in one game by Florida State, and the Seminoles’ offense actually managed eight fewer points versus the Cardinals’ defense than the Orange did.
Many Syracuse fans who arrived at the Carrier Dome knew that Louisville had applied a supreme beatdown to Florida State in a game with a noon Eastern time kickoff. Prior to SU’s 3:30 game on Saturday versus South Florida, there were reasons to believe the Syracuse defense wasn’t actually as bad as it showed in Week 2. Louisville was just that good.
Those optimistic feelings — it’s Louisville being great on offense, not Syracuse being weak on defense — lasted about a quarter.
Syracuse held South Florida off the scoreboard through the first 15 minutes, but the Bulls found the end zone four times in the second quarter and didn’t trail again after the 4:45 mark of that quarter. South Florida went on to score 45 points, which means that in two FBS games, Syracuse has allowed an average of 53.5 points.
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Early deficit no worry for USF against Syracuse (romesentinel.com; AP)
Being down 17-0 to Syracuse was no problem for South Florida on Saturday. Not with its quick-strike offense. And not with the Bulls playing in the Carrier Dome, one of their favorite road venues.
“It’s a great environment, we just had to block out the crowd, come out and play football,” said receiver Rodney Adams, who scored three touchdowns. “The turf felt like a speed track. I liked it.”
The rest of his teammates did, too, especially after the first quarter when the Bulls (3-0) found themselves trailing big. All the Bulls did the rest of the way was outscore the Orange (1-2) 45-3 for a 45-20 win. The victory moved South Florida to 5-0 at the Dome.
“It was a slow start, but we had to just calm down and play football like we normally do,” Adams said. “That’s exactly what we did. Coach (Willie) Taggart preached about facing adversity. We calmed down and just played football.”
Syracuse dominated the first 15 minutes but its offense stalled and defense yielded quick scores the rest of the way. The Bulls stormed back to win in a laugher.
“We’re got hit by a storm,” said running back Marlon Mack, who added two scores,” but Coach T said we just need to fight back and stay calm.”
“We knew we’d face adversity and I wanted to see how this 2016 team handled it,” Taggart said. “They didn’t flinch. They (Syracuse) threw the first punch and our guys kind of took it, then our guys settled down and thing started to really take off for us.”
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Y’know what? That Syracuse loss to Louisville wasn’t that bad after all (TNIAAM; Cassillo)
Maybe this isn’t the “time” for a reevaluation of a two-week old loss, especially after the Syracuse Orange just suffered another loss this past Saturday.
But when you look at what happened to the (then) second-ranked Florida State Seminoles against Louisville in week three, it’s at least makes you feel a little better about the Orange’s fate, no?
We’re not taking delight in our FSU pals’ loss — far from it. Just pointing out that while we were at first stunned by what Lamar Jackson and the Cardinals did to Syracuse at the Carrier Dome, it suddenly feels less painful in light of what happened the ‘Noles. The precise scores don’t matter (especially since SU lost again against USF). But the fact that the Orange managed to put up 28 against THAT team, and specifically that defense, was no small feat.
Obviously the defensive side of the ball is a rough situation for SU, and getting more so due to the growing injury count each week. And that part of things should still worry you, with Syracuse allowing 107 points over the course of the last two weeks. Still, from an offensive perspective, the pieces are there and they’re moving... even if the full vision of what this Orange offense can be has yet to be realized.
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The Infinite SU Football Road Trip Diary: USF (TNIAAM; Suxa)
Hoya Suxa is aiming to attend 10 of Syracuse's 12 regular season football games this year. He'll be filing short travelogues from his journeys.
THERE COMES A POINT IN TIME WHEN YOU GIVE YOURSELF OVER TO THE WORLD AND HOPE THAT IT DOES NOT KNOW HOW TO DO A ROUNDHOUSE KICK TO YOUR FACE
It was late in the second half that I tried to reconcile a temporal impossibility: Why was I sitting in the Carrier Dome, watching Syracuse engage in amateur surgery against its own history, drinking a sewage pipe of Canadian beer themed in a bad American nostalgia -- bad American nostalgia with a defined and contemporary social media plan -- seemingly brought east from New Era Field on an express truck purposed explicitly to pull back on the grasp one has over reality? The confluence of iterative blips within this ostensibly tethered dimension shook my skull to the point of blaring dissonance.
There is nothing painful about each aspect of the Labatt Blue Brought to You by Zubaz, Sponsored by the Buffalo Bills and Proudly Served at a Syracuse Football/Dark Performance Art Game/Theater Show. When each comes together, though, the conflict should resolve itself naturally, but this can of beer at this moment in time and space featured no piece fearing actual or potential erosion. This is synergy bending toward coalescence where it should move in the direction of deterioration -- how is it possible that a garbage beer emblazoned in a garbage brand can find its way into a garbage game when it appears originally intended to fit into another football fan's universe? -- yet it permeated reality with a vigor that actually caused reassessment of the continuum.
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Syracuse Football: The latest into Steve Ishmael’s disappearance (uinsidetheloudhouse.com; Esden Jr)
Despite the Syracuse football team’s success, their star wideout Steve Ishmael remains a non-factor. Which begs the question, what is Ishmael’s role in the offense?
The Syracuse football teams sits at 1-2 after the first quarter of the season. While they’ve had varying success on offense, they’ve been ignoring perhaps their brightest star.
Going into the season many expected Steve Ishmael to be the beneficiary of this high-octane offense. Yet through three weeks of play, Ishmael remains a relative non-factor in this offense.
13 catches for 131 yards isn’t what Syracuse fans were expecting. It’s not as if the entire offense is dysfunctional.
While Ishmael struggles, another star in the making is taking advantage. Amba Etta-Tawo a grad-transfer from Maryland has taken the ACC by storm.
More so the entire NCAA, Etta-Tawo is the third leading receiver in all of college football. That’s tough to watch for Ishmael, because that could be him.
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Other
Marriott Syracuse Downtown business strong in 1st month (video; localsyr.com)
It's been a month since the Hotel Syracuse became the Marriott Syracuse Downtown and business there is off to a fast start.
Since Aug. 19, almost all of the larger venue spaces, like the Grand Ballroom, are usually full on weekends with weddings. Much of 2017 is already booked up by couples.
Marriott Syracuse Downtown General Manager Paul McNeil says, "Never been associated with a hotel that's had that big of a draw and I think people are looking to make memories and this is truly a place for that."
One of the attractive features for couples is an extravagant bridal suite with separate rooms for both the bride and groom with the space and amenities they need on their big day.
On the books right now, the Marriott has nearly 150 weddings; meaning some couples have been getting creative to ensure they can celebrate their marriage there.
McNeil tells NewsChannel 9, "There are interests in Thursday weddings, Sunday weddings; we actually have a wedding on a Tuesday, which you don't see a whole lot in a traditional hotel and this isn't a traditional hotel as you can see."
It’s not just the event spaces, but the rooms have been full too. McNeil says the hotel is seeing about an 80 percent occupancy rate of the available rooms with more still to come on line.
"There's been a lot of activity at SU from Move In week to Alumni weekend to football games as well as the social business we do have here and some of the groups we do have in-house." McNeil says.
The rooms are junior suites outfitted completely with Stickley furniture, couches, large foyer areas and modern bathrooms.
McNeil also says the hotel's three-meal a day restaurant, Eleven Waters is exceeding projections.
Still to come an Irish pub, steak house and presidential suite -- all set to come on line in the next six months.
