sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
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On this Day in 1900 the first ‘hamburgers’ were served at Louis’ Lunch diner in New Haven, Connecticut.
Five Food Finds about Hamburgers
- The oldest fast food restaurant in the world is the White Castle franchise, which opened in 1921.
- The people of America eat more burgers out at restaurants or on the go than they do at home.
- The largest hamburger ever created was over 8,000 pounds and was cooked for a burger festival in Wisconsin.
- However, the hamburger in its current form, with ground beef and a bun, is a decidedly American creation.
- Hamburgers are made of beef, not ham, and there is much debate over whether they actually originated in Hamburg.
Flaherty: Syracuse football made 'fantastic' move switching to 3-3-5 defense - The Juice Online (the juice; podcast; Cheng)
In the offseason, Syracuse head coach Dino Babers hired away defensive coordinator Tony White from Arizona State. White will be switching SU’s defensive scheme away from the 4-2-5 and into the 3-3-5.
The new defense is a paradigm shift for Syracuse’s linebackers, who will be called upon more often to stop the run. With that in mind, I chatted with former Orange linebacker Jake Flaherty, Syracuse’s defensive captain in 2008.
Flaherty breaks down what’s ahead for Syracuse in their new defense, and shares some personal milestones (congratulations again on getting married!) with us in this week’s edition of The Juice on the Cuse podcast.
TJO editor in chief Brad Bierman then calls in and we discuss whether there will be a football season at all as the ACC leadership meets this week amid COVID-19 numbers climbing in the United States. Brad lays out the best case and worst case scenarios for collegiate football in 2020.
Brad’s closing thought centers on whether COVID-19 will spill into the Syracuse basketball season, while I get excited about the return of the NBA regular season later this week.
Rundown:
1. Former Syracuse football linebacker Jake Flaherty calls in
2. Activities during quarantine
3. Syracuse switching to 3-3-5
4. What’s the best kind of linebacker for the new scheme?
5. Adjusting to a new defensive coordinator
6. Editor in chief Brad Bierman calls in
7. Best case scenario for fall football
8. The reality of college athletics in COVID
9. Closing thoughts and wrap up
Syracuse Football: The ideal schedule with an 11-game docket for Orange (itlh; Adler)
ACC leaders are considering an 11-battle slate for Syracuse football and its conference peers, and we’ve naturally selected the perfect calendar.
Syracuse football and its Atlantic Coast Conference counterparts are expected to hear from league officials by the end of this month as to what the 2020 campaign will look like, in football and other fall sports.
As it relates to football, the ACC brass is reportedly considering a range of options, and one model that officials are apparently weighing would entail 11 games – 10 conference contests and then one non-conference encounter for each league school.
Under this scenario, media reports indicate that Notre Dame, a long-time independent in football, may join the ACC just for the 2020 stanza as a “quasi-league member,” per CBS Sports.
So should the conference move ahead with this alternative, we’ve of course come up with the most gloriously constructed 11-duel docket for Syracuse football. As always, any feedback is gladly welcomed.
First and foremost, the Orange likely would have to suit up versus all of the other teams in its division, which is the Atlantic, unless ACC officials aim for a more geographically focused arrangement.
So, if we’re talking about the Atlantic division, that probably puts on the Syracuse football schedule Clemson, Louisville, Florida State, Wake Forest, N.C. State, Boston College and Notre Dame.
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Former Syracuse University running back Otto Zaccardo works on his arms while working out with Troy Shallow and Gus Ramstrom at Shallow’s home gym in Sudbury, July 24, 2020. [Daily News and Wicked Local Staff Photo/John Walker]
Former Lincoln-Sudbury, Natick football standouts put in the work in makeshift garage gym (milforddailynews.com; Keene)
The three buddies and football players have been working out together, religiously. And the trio is getting ripped.
SUDBURY — For the last four months, Troy Shallow has spent a lot of time in his garage.
Sitting on the right-hand side of his Sudbury driveway, the former Lincoln-Sudbury football standout has turned the white, non-attached structure into a home gym.
And he’s not the only one taking advantage of the makeshift workout area.
Shallow has been joined by longtime friend and former Warrior teammate, Otto Zaccardo, as well as former Natick High football standout Gus Ramstrom. The three buddies and football players have been working out together, religiously.
And the trio is getting ripped.
“It’s the mindset of just training hard every single day,” Zaccardo said. “There’s not a lot of people around here that like training as hard as we do. Obviously, Troy and I want to make it to the top, so it’s easy to build our friendship off of that and Gus trains just as hard, so we mesh perfectly. Honestly, there’s been a couple workouts where we didn’t have Gus or Gus didn’t have us and we were doing max lifts and it just wasn’t the same.
“We’re all in this together. That helps us train a lot harder and that’s when the vibes are high, the PRs (personal records) happen and the smelling salts come out.”
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A Better ACC Schedule for Clemson Football (shakinthesouthland.com; Kantor)
Since Louisville joined the ACC in 2014, Clemson has played the following seven ACC foes each season: Louisville, Boston College, Florida State, NC State, Syracuse, Wake Forest, and permanent Coastal Division rival Georgia Tech. In addition to these teams, a second ACC Coastal opponent rounds out the conference schedule.
To say that some of these matchups are growing stale would be an understatement. With COVID-19 induced scheduling changes likely coming, we could see a shake-up in 2020. Perhaps that’ll be the impetus for longer term changes. If it was up to me, here’s who I’d like to see Clemson play annually and who I wouldn’t mind seeing rotate off the schedule sometimes:
Clemson should continue playing these ACC foes annually:
Florida State: The Tigers and Seminoles have had some of the best and most meaningful games in the ACC over the past two decades. The Bowden Bowls with Bobby and son Tommy Bowden were classic! FSU QB Jameis Winston made his mark on the rivalry by leading the Seminoles to a blowout win in Death Valley in 2013. Then the next year he got suspended to for screaming obscenities in the dining hall the week of the game, but the Tigers fumbled away the victory. Epic hard fought Tiger wins in 2015 and 2016 turned the tide in the Tigers favor where it currently resides. These are the two best programs in the conference. Geographically it makes sense too. We want to see Tigers vs. Seminoles every year.
Georgia Tech: Less than two hours down I-85, Clemson and Georgia Tech are the two nearest ACC schools excluding the quartet in North Carolina. Clemson’s $2 bill tradition was born from this rivalry and the need to play every other year in Clemson. They’ve played 84 times and while Clemson has won five straight, they trail 32-50-2 in the series all-time.
NC State: The Textile Bowl has been played 88 times. The Tigers hold a commanding 59-28-1 record, but it’s been a heated rivalry nonetheless. In recent years NC State Head Coach Dave Doeren has applauded his team for knocking Clemson RB Wayne Gallman unconscious and causing a fumble. He has also falsely accused Coach Swinney’s staff of using a laptop on the sidelines to somehow cheat. Coach Swinney showed he can troll with the best of them when he had his staff hold up a giant play card with an emoji of a laptop the next season when the Tigers already held a commanding lead. We want the Textile Bowl to keep delivering Tiger wins and entertainment for all.
This is so well done @ClemsonFB #laptopgate
Clemson doesn’t need to play these ACC foes annually anymore:
Boston College: The Tigers and Eagles have played each of the last 15 years, but after Boston College took the first three matchups, Clemson has won 11 of the last 12. Playing often doesn’t make it a rivalry. In a good year, the McFadden-O’Rourke Trophy isn’t even one of the five most relevant trophies the Tigers earn. It’s a long trip to play in a cold, quiet stadium. There are a lot of teams not so far away that have much more history against Clemson.
Syracuse: Clemson has only played Syracuse, a basketball school only a few hours from Canada, eight times on the football field. Syracuse pulled an upset in 2017 and nearly did it again in 2018. Although the games have been decent and the trip to Syracuse is highly underrated (It’s a short drive to Niagara Falls), it’s just strange that this is a team Clemson plays every year. It doesn’t make sense historically or geographically. It is a game that happens so the ACC Network can be on cable packages in New York City.
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Decision on ACC Football Could Come Soon (SI; Barnett)
The ACC, as well as the SEC and the Big 12, will likely decide their fates for the upcoming college football season this week.
With decision deadlines being delayed from June 15, to July 1, then July 15, and now to this week, the clock is officially ticking on how much time is left to further discuss the fall sports season. Especially with the scheduled start to college football kicking off in a little over a month.
Atlantic Coast Conference officials are reportedly scheduled to meet Wednesday to discuss final decisions on a start date and model for the 2020 season.
Both the SEC and ACC have a teased a "late July" decision - and July ends on Friday. With football teams' camps set to begin next week, some form of scheduling agreement should be made among conferences.
“When this (pandemic) started, we said, ‘O.K., we’ve got four months to figure it out,’“ one FBS commissioner told Sports Illustrated. “Now we’ve got no months to figure out it. It’s all circular. We just go back and revisit and re-think it. Everyone is doing their part, but the answers are not easy.
“We’ve got 50 governors. We’ve got state and local health officials. We’ve got boards of trustees and university presidents. Below them we have athletic directors, who are between a rock and a hard spot. We are all trying to assess risk tolerance and his twin, liability.”
Currently, the Pac-12 and Big Ten are finalizing plans for conference-only seasons and pushed start dates.
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https://www.charlotteobserver.com/sports/college/football/article244503712.html (charlotteobserver.com; McClatchy)
The fate of the college football season for the Southeastern and Atlantic Coast conferences will likely be decided this week.
The ACC is expected to publicly reveal its format and possible starting dates for the 2020 football season. ACC presidents are scheduled to meet Wednesday.
Regularly scheduled calls between SEC athletics directors, and presidents and chancellors, will happen this week, the league said. The SEC presidents meeting is Thursday, 247Sports reported. It’s possible that’s the day the league finalizes its plans for a 2020 season.
Both leagues have teased “late July” as the probable deadline for making a decision, though it’s at least possible another delay could come. Football teams’ preseason camps are scheduled to begin next week.
The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has forced all conferences to determine how fall sports can proceed, if they move forward at all. The Pac 12 and Big Ten have announced plans for conference-only seasons, while the Big 12 has yet to make a decision about its seasons.
Below, nine of McClatchy’s SEC and ACC beat writers predict what will happen this week and discuss what the months ahead might look like.
AUBURN TIGERS
Will there be a 2020 season? Yes
Final thoughts, predictions: I’m optimistic we’ll have a season, yet not entirely sure what it will look like. I see both conferences going to a conference-only schedule, but still trying to make the notable non-conference games like FSU-Florida and Georgia-Georgia Tech happen. Auburn plays North Carolina in Atlanta in Week 2 and I’m expecting that game to still take place.
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BOZICH | It's Decision Week (maybe) for ACC Football (wdrb.com; Bozich)
This is the week college football is supposed to fill in critical blanks for the 2020 season.
My suggestion: Announce the decision on a grease-board, not with a printer.
College football will not fill in the blanks. The novel coronavirus will fill in the blanks — and the virus will decide the schedule, not the Atlantic Coast Conference.
Ask Major League Baseball. Ask the Florida Marlins.
When I began writing this column two of the dozen big-league games scheduled for Monday night had been postponed.
Three games into the season the Marlins reported that 11 of the 33 Florida players who traveled with the team for its season-opening series in Philadelphia have tested positive for COVID-19.
That inspired questions that a season might not be possible without creating a bubble environment, like the ones being employed by the NBA in Orlando, Fla., or by the NHL in Canada.
College football is not a sport with bubble possibilities. There are days when it appears this is a “Hail Mary,” situation.
ACC commissioner John Swofford started the month by saying his league would have a decision (or at least its next decision) about the 2020 season by the end of July.
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2020 Bowl Match-Ups We’d Like to See (cardiachill.com; HM)
If college football is, in fact, played in 2020, it will likely be weird. With that assumption, could we at least get some cool bowl match-ups from all of the weirdness? Why not! In this article, I’ll try to identify some bowls and bowl match-ups we need to see just because...
2019 Orange Bowl Photo by Douglas Jones/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
First, we need to have the Syracuse Orange in the Orange Bowl - too easy! My only concern is would they throw actual oranges onto the field, or would it be players, cheerleaders, mascots, or what? The Illinois Fighting Illini should be the opponent, and just to mix things up a bit, each team should play half the game in their home uniforms, the other half in their away unis - keep the television audience on their toes!
Duke in the Duke’s? Michael Tercha/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
Next, the Duke Blue Devils in the Duke’s Mayonnaise Bowl - duh! This would be worth the watch if they would guarantee that David Cutcliffe gets dowsed with a drum full of the sponsor’s mayonnaise - win or lose!
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BREAKING: UNC to limit 2020 stadium attendance (RX; HM)
BREAKING: UNC to limit 2020 stadium attendance
When the Big Ten school with the biggest attendance - Michigan - announced it wouldn't sell season tickets this year, you knew they were starting a trend. Then the governor of New York had to go too far and declare there would be absolutely NO fans at Syracuse home games - or any other college in the Empire State. Now we get this news item from the UNC Tar Heels:
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https://accfootballrx.blogspot.com/2020/07/strange-2019-games-duke-at-vt.html (RX; HM)
Strange 2019 Games: Duke at VT
While we're waiting to find out what kind of college football season we'll have this year - if any - I thought I'd write a few posts to explore some of the stranger results of 2019, starting with my own favorite team.
In week 5 of the 2019 college football season, Virginia Tech hosted Duke for a Friday night game. I'm not sure what the Las Vegas line was for that game, but JHowell's computer program had the Hokies as a slight (1.5-point) favorite, and Bleacher Report predicted a 31-27 win for Virginia Tech. In other words, everyone was expecting a close game.
So the fact that the Hokies lost to the Blue Devils wasn't a shock, but the manner in which they lost was. Virginia Tech lost to Duke by five touchdowns (10-45) - the worst home loss for the Hokies since 1974! How did that happen? Let's see if we can figure this out, starting with the Team Stats:
| Matchup: | Duke | VT |
| 1st Downs | 24 | 14 |
| 3rd down . | 7-14 | 4-13 |
| 4th down . | 2-2 | 0-1 |
| Total Yards | 422 | 259 |
| Passing | 188 | 120 |
| Comp-Att | 21-28 | 8-20 |
| Comp% | 75% | 40% |
| Yards per pass | 6.7 | 6.0 |
| Ints thrown | 0 | 1 |
| Rushing | 234 | 139 |
| Rush Attempts | 41 | 43 |
| Yards per rush | 5.7 | 3.2 |
| Penalties | 8-62 | 5-52 |
| Turnovers | 0 | 2 |
| Fumbles lost | 0 | 1 |
| Ints thrown | 0 | 1 |
| Possession | 32:14 | 27:46 |
https://accfootballrx.blogspot.com/2020/07/tv-ad-revenue-ESPN-cfb.html (RX; HM)
TV Ad Revenue for CFB - 7/28/20
According to the source article, nearly 20% of ESPN's overall ad impressions came from college football last year - making that sport the network's biggest live sports draw. In addition, Walt Disney is invested more heavily into college football than another other media company. So the Mouse is committed to college football.
Not including the ACCN, ESPN+, or SECN, the ESPN family of networks sold $792.5 million in ads last season for the 282 games they televised. By contrast, ESPN's NFL package generated $314.8 million. Here's how that ad revenue breaks down according to Sportico.com:
| ad revenue, $M | |||
| CFB subset of games | total | avg/game | graph |
| CFP championship | $84.60 | $84.60 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| |
| New Year's 6 Bowls (6 games) | $182 | $30.33 | ||||||||||||||| |
| Second-Tier Bowls (29 games) | $77 | $2.66 | | |
| Regular Season (245 games) | $449 | $1.83 | | |
https://www.cbssports.com/college-f...n-college-football-should-be-a-permanent-one/ (cbssports.com; Fornelli)
When the Big Ten and Pac-12 announced that they were canceling nonconference games and moving to 10-game conference schedules for a possible 2020 season, I was filled with dueling emotions.
The strongest was one of fear. Fear that, if two Power Five conferences were already taking such drastic steps, the likelihood that there won't be a 2020 college football season at all was more significant than I wanted to admit. The second feeling was one I didn't want to share too strongly because of the fear.
The second feeling was excitement.
I've long felt that more conference games is the direction college football should go. I would prefer seeing schools play 10 conference games every season and two nonconference games to what we see now. There are too many games played between schools with no connection to one another, while regional rivals who share a conference and began playing a century ago might see one another once a decade. It's a system that makes little sense.
For example, look at the game that had initially been scheduled to take place this fall between Alabama and USC. It's an attractive matchup for sure. They're two of the most successful programs in college football history. It's the kind of game bowls were made for, but we wouldn't have to wait until January to get it.
The problem is that Alabama and USC met just a few years ago in 2016. That means the 2020 game would have been the second time in five seasons that Alabama and USC had met during the regular season. Compare that to how often Alabama has played conference mates like Georgia and Florida. As things stand, Alabama and Georgia are scheduled to play in September. This is a big deal because they're both College Football Playoff contenders, but it's also a big deal because it would be the first time they've met in the regular season since 2015. That means that, had Alabama's game with USC not been canceled, the Tide would have played more regular-season games against USC in the last five years than Georgia. What makes it more remarkable is that, before the 2015 meeting, the last time Georgia and Alabama had a regular-season meeting was the 2008 season.
They've met three times in the SEC Championship Game since that 2008 meeting, meaning they've played more games in Atlanta than on campus. Alabama hasn't played Florida in the regular season since 2014. The Tide have played the Gators in Atlanta for the SEC title twice in that time.
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https://www.si.com/college/tmg/tony-barnhart/footballs-future (SI; Barnhart)
In 2019 we celebrated the 150th anniversary of college football in the United States. And in that span the game has survived some significant challenges:
**--In 1905 President Teddy Roosevelt summoned the head coaches of Harvard, Princeton and Yale to the White House and told them to clean up the unchecked violence in the game or he would shut it down. The game changed, survived, and ultimately prospered.
**--In 1918 The Spanish Flu killed 675,000 people in the United States. College football marched on. While many schools played reduced schedules, only 18 schools shut down their programs completely.
**--While some colleges did not play during World War II, many did and the game survived and came back stronger than ever when the war was over.
**--There was the challenge of what to do after Sept. 11, 2001. College football took a week off and resumed play. The game became part of our national healing process.
But it is no exaggeration to say that the challenge of the COVID-19 virus which threatens to delay the start of the 2020 season at best and cancel it at worst, represents the most serious threat to college football in our lifetime.
“Next week will be an important milestone for our conference,” SEC Commissioner told ESPN’s Rece Davis last week.
Here’s why: After months of study and planning and working on every possible contingency plan to play the season while safeguarding the health of the players, the Power Five conferences have arrived at crunch time. The Go/No Go decision on the start of the season must be made. And what the Power Five conference (ACC, SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12) ultimately decide will send a rippling effect through the rest of college football.
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https://www.si.com/college/2020/07/27/college-football-season-status-decisions-acc (SI; Forde)
In the long-ago spring, when time was an ally, some college athletic leaders targeted June 1 as a deadline for declaring the fate of the football season. Then that became June 15 … then July 1 … then July 15. The worse the outlook got, the longer everyone wanted to put off potentially cataclysmic decisions.
And so the can has been kicked so far down the road that it has crossed state lines. Now, here in the final week of July, just over a month from the scheduled start to the season, the battered can has come to rest at a fork in said road. Decisions finally must be made.
College football this fall, or not? If so, when? And how much?
This week should provide some answers. Maybe not the final answers, but some plans must be agreed upon—or abandoned.
“When this (pandemic) started, we said, ‘O.K., we’ve got four months to figure it out,’“ one FBS commissioner told Sports Illustrated. “Now we’ve got no months to figure out it. It’s all circular. We just go back and revisit and re-think it. Everyone is doing their part, but the answers are not easy.
“We’ve got 50 governors. We’ve got state and local health officials. We’ve got boards of trustees and university presidents. Below them we have athletic directors, who are between a rock and a hard spot. We are all trying to assess risk tolerance and his twin, liability.”
Is there agreement on where we’re heading? Hardly. On one end of the spectrum you have a coach who sources say declared on a league conference call last week, “We’ve got to start swappin’ spit here and see what happens.” On the other end of the spectrum are medical experts sitting on conference advisory boards who by no means are in favor of swappin’ spit.
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Other
Phillippe and Natalia Meyer, owners of the the Green Gate Inn at 2 Genesee St. in Camillus
https://www.syracuse.com/restaurant...ner-explains-state-coronavirus-violation.html (PS; Cazentre)
It was a busy Friday night at the Green Gate Inn. This was in May, when the Camillus restaurant was still only open for takeout under the state regulations in place at the time.
It was also fried fish night, and some other local restaurants weren’t open.
“It just started getting out of control,” said Natalia Mayer, who owns the restaurant and pub at 2 Genesee St. in the village with her husband, Phillippe. “We had customers coming in the door, people waiting for their orders, the phone ringing off the hook.”
With her staff laid off, Meyer and her family struggled to keep up. Some customers got impatient while waiting. One or two cracked open the to-go only beverages they had purchased and started drinking them while they waited.
At some point, someone called the police.
“It was our fault,” Meyer said. “We know the rules and we want to do what’s right. We just lost control that night. You can’t watch everyone all the time."
That night led to the Green Gate Inn making a list of the 443 bars and restaurants across the state that have been charged by the State Liquor Authority with violating Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s executive orders intended to contain the spread of the coronavirus. Ten of the locations are in Central New York.
Meyer has been in touch with an SLA lawyer and is hoping to negotiate a fine. Such fines can be as much as $10,000, but Meyer is hoping to settle for a lesser amount.
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