sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
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Welcome to World Afro Day!
World Afro Day is a global day of change that educates about and celebrates Afro hair, culture, and identity. Founder Michelle de Leon has stated that the vision for the day is "to create a platform to celebrate and educate people about Afro hair," and that "through annual events and a worldwide educational network, we will unite people globally in raising Afro hair to world class status through positive awareness and academic excellence." Historically, there has been bias against Afro hair in society, which has increased exclusion and feelings of inferiority and caused lasting effects on health and economic opportunity. Conversely, straight hair has been associated with success and beauty. As Afro hair is not regularly celebrated, especially on a global scale, the aim of World Afro Day is to change this.
After hearing her daughter sing about her natural hair, de Leon decided to start the day, because she wanted all children of African descent to feel positively about their hair like her daughter did. Once the mission of the day was established, a date had to be chosen. On September 15, 2016, a federal court ruled on a case in Alabama, deciding that companies could deny people employment if they had dreadlocks. Essentially, it ruled against Afro hair. De Leon, who is from London, England, decided that the first World Afro Day should be held on September 15, 2017, "to mark this dreadful law." During that first year, the day was endorsed by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, it hosted a World Hair Education Lesson with 400 children and teachers taking part, and notables such as Miss USA 2016 Deshauna Barber and celebrity hairstylist Vernon François took part.
SU News
Syracuse football lands verbal commitment from Oronde Gadsden II, son of former Miami Dolphins receiver (PS; $; Carlson)
Syracuse received a verbal commitment from three-star wide receiver Oronde Gadsden II, the son of the former NFL player, on Monday evening.
Gadsden announced his commitment in a cinematic video on Twitter with the title “The Journey Continues Committed.” Head coach Dino Babers offered his traditional non-specific social media seal of approval.
#2MUCHJU1CE
Gadsden picked Syracuse from a group of finalists that included Penn State, South Florida and Arizona State. He’s considered just outside the top 1,000 players nationally in the Class of 2021 by the recruiting website 247 Sports. He is listed by the website as having additional offers from Central Florida, Boston College, Georgia Tech, Iowa State and Kentucky.
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Orange Watch: Syracuse football needs to light up the scoreboard - The Juice Online (the juice; Bierman)
Item: After one frustrating week for Orange Nation knowing an upset over a Top 25 team on the road was there for the taking, the unsuccessful execution offensively has dulled optimism that the results will change quickly.
The old coaching adage in football is, “offense sells tickets, but defense wins games.”
In the case of the 2020 Orange football team so far after one game at North Carolina, the ongoing national pandemic meant there were no tickets to sell to the visiting crowd at Chapel Hill’s Kenan Stadium because of that state’s health regulations prohibiting the gathering of large outdoor crowds (UNC issued 25 tickets to senior players for use). But would it have mattered?
While the Syracuse (0-1) defense did its best to put the team in a position to win with three turnovers (one on a fumbled punt) and giving up only 10 points through three quarters, the offense (along with a special teams unit missed field goal) could not match that defensive effort finishing with only six points and 202 yards of total production.
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Three Surprising Standouts for Syracuse Against UNC – Orange Fizz – Free Syracuse Recruiting News (orangefizz.net; May)
Let’s first get this out of the way– there weren’t too many positives for Syracuse on Saturday. The Orange got whooped by North Carolina, in a game that the Tar Heels really didn’t play to their best potential. However, there has been enough negativity about SU, so let’s look on the bright side. Here are the three players who surprisingly stood out and impressed during the season opener.
MIKEL JONES
Heading into this season, the linebacker position was expected to be Syracuse’s biggest weakness. The Orange have a lot of new faces and a brand new defensive scheme. Despite all of that, Mikel Jones was surprisingly impressive. The sophomore recorded six tackles and, more importantly, one interception. He seemed to understand the new defense well and was in the right places a majority of the time. Jones got better and better throughout last year and after the UNC game seems like he improved over the offseason as well.
ANTHONY QUEELEY
There wasn’t much to be happy with on the offensive side of the ball on Saturday. Syracuse couldn’t get anything going in the run game and Tommy DeVito was either being sacked or throwing horrible balls when he dropped back. The only glimmer, and when I say glimmer I mean tiny glimmer, of hope was the play of Anthony Queely. Taj Harris led the receivers in yards and receptions, but that was expected. What wasn’t expected was Queeley to take the number two spot and haul in four catches for 37 yards. The redshirt sophomore didn’t record a single reception last season and was mostly only a special teamer. After his performance against North Carolina, however, he has earned a spot on the SU offense and could be a solid WR2 or WR3 depending on if Nykeim Johnson wants to get it together.
GARRETT WILLIAMS
If you told me that Garrett Williams was in his first career start for Syracuse, I would have been shocked. But it is true. The North Carolina game was the redshirt freshman’s first start and first game ever for the Orange. Despite that, Williams was super impressive. He tallied nine tackles and was an issue in the passing game, breaking up one toss from Sam Howell. Williams was very comfortable out there and flew to the ball. He still has four years of eligibility left, so I’d start getting to know the name Garrett Williams because he’ll be around for a long, long time.
The obvious answers of Andre Cisco, Iffy Melifonwu and Trill Williams also were impressive, but that is expected. Melifonwu tallied two pass breakups, which is a quarter of the number he had all last year. It was a solid start to the season for the redshirt junior. Despite the disappointing game, the Orange got both some surprising and reassuring individual performances. That’s something to at least build on.
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Syracuse coach Dino Babers hoping to see improvement (AP; Kekis)
One game into the season, Syracuse coach Dino Babers isn’t sure what kind of team he has.
It likely won’t take long to find out.
The Orange dropped their season opener 31-6 at No. 18 North Carolina on Saturday and now play at No. 25 Pittsburgh (1-0, 0-0 Atlantic Coast Conference) in five days. The Panthers are coming off a 55-0 season-opening win over FCS foe Austin Peay.
“I think it’s a good test,” Babers said Monday. “When you play North Carolina and how active their linebackers are — those guys can flat go — and their down linemen are very, very skilled. Now you’re coming back and you’re probably playing, outside of (top-ranked) Clemson, maybe the next best defensive line in the conference, so I think it’s a really good test to find out exactly where we’re at, and it’s not going to get any easier.
“We’re going to line up and we’re going to play. We’ll see how it goes.”
The opener didn’t go so well when the game was on the line, and it included a good share of gaffes by the Orange — a botched 29-yard field goal attempt by Andre Szmyt, a dropped pass in the end zone by a wide-open Sharod Johnson, three straight three-and-outs by the offense in the decisive fourth quarter, and all those sacks.
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Takeaways from Syracuse's season-opening loss to the Tar Heels | The NewsHouse (thenewshouse.com; Goldstein)
Missed opportunities were the story of the season opener for the Orange. Facing the heavy favorite North Carolina Tar Heels, quarterback Tommy DeVito and the Syracuse offense came out sluggish and never found a rhythm. The Orange trailed the entire game, and could not move the football all afternoon.
The Tar Heels took the game’s opening drive, and marched down the field on 10 plays for 65 yards, capped off by quarterback Sam Howell connecting with Garrett Walston for the only touchdown in the first half. Syracuse never responded following North Carolina’s opening strike, gaining just 35 yards over the next six drives, including two golden opportunities on drives that started deep in Tar Heel territory.
The most concerning unit on the offensive side for the Orange was the offensive line. After allowing the 2nd most sacks in the ACC last season, the unit picked up right where it left off. DeVito was not good on Saturday but he also did not have time to throw. He was sacked seven times, and faced pressure throughout the game.
Aside from Syracuse’ uphill battle at the line of scrimmage, the running backs were no help either. The team was already without Abdul Adams and Jarveon Howard because both chose to opt-out of the season, so other guys needed to step up. Freshman Jawhar Jordan and junior Markenzy Pierre shouldered the bulk of the backfield duties, but neither could produce. The duo combined for just 38 yards on two yards per carry. The Orange are a relatively thin team at the running back position, and it showed Saturday as guys looked clueless at times.
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Syracuse Football: How future Orange foes fared over the weekend (itlh; Adler)
As Syracuse football gets set to play at Pittsburgh this coming Saturday, let’s have a look at how its other 2020 opponents did this past weekend.
Syracuse football dropped its 2020 stanza opener to North Carolina in Chapel Hill last Saturday afternoon, 31-6, in a game where the Orange defense had a relatively solid performance and the ‘Cuse offense proved fairly non-existent.
Multiple other Atlantic Coast Conference squads that Syracuse football will face later in the fall campaign also suited up this past weekend, and we examine how they did.
This Saturday at noon, the Orange will make a trip to Pittsburgh, and the Panthers sure took care of business over the weekend. Pitt absolutely torched Austin Peay, 55-0, in a home contest for the Panthers from Heinz Field.
In one of the more surprising results in the ACC, Georgia Tech went to Tallahassee, Fla., and stunned Florida State on the road, 16-13, at Doak Campbell Stadium.
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Syracuse Football: ACC could halt 2020 term if fewer than 8 teams play (itlh; Adler)
As Syracuse football regroups following its season-opening loss to North Carolina, the ACC does have a threshold in place for the term to continue on.
When Syracuse football fell to North Carolina on Saturday afternoon, these two squads represented one Atlantic Coast Conference clash among several more that transpired over the weekend.
However, amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, Virginia Tech announced this past Saturday that its home contest against Virginia slated to occur on Saturday, Sept. 19, will get moved to a later date “stemming from COVID-19 issues at Virginia Tech. Virginia Tech will pause its football practices for four days.”
An ESPN.com article by Andrea Adelson notes that, so far, two ACC duels have gotten postposed because of the pandemic, and both of those games include Virginia Tech.
Adelson writes in her piece, “According to a document Virginia Tech released Saturday related to the postponement of its game against Virginia, at least eight of the 15 ACC football teams need to move forward with games in order for the season to continue. Anything below that threshold could lead to a postponement.”
On Sept. 8, league officials issued a statement in which they said that the ACC is proceeding forward with fall sports, including football, but that the conference has flexibility to make adjustments to individuals games and bigger-picture schedules.
Yet all the uncertainty surrounding COVID-19 means that, really at any juncture, if a team – or teams – report positive cases and games keep on getting delayed, then that could ultimately create some issues for the ACC and the other conferences that are currently competing, such as the Big 12 and the SEC.
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Pat Narduzzi Press Conference: Previewing Syracuse - Pitt Panthers #H2P (pittsburghpanthhers.com)
PAT NARDUZZI: Hi, guys. Happy Monday. Happy Monday.
Obviously was happy with where we were last week, the results of Saturday's game against Austin Peay. Like I told the kids last night, always give them the same message, it's not who we beat, it's how we beat them. To me that's what it is.
Obviously Syracuse had a top-25 team they played. We didn't have a top-25 team. I think to their advantage they've been in a war already. They were in a war for three quarters. They're probably better prepared for Saturday than we are at noon.
I was happy with the way our kids responded. Happy to get a lot of guys in the game. I was happy really with the first half offensively and defensively as far as how our kids reacted, approached the game. I talked about almost 70 players playing in the game. I think we had eight receivers catch their first ball in a Pitt uniform. Eight new ones. Wow. Kenny spread the ball around, got it to where it needed to be. I think we were good there.
Then you move on to Syracuse. Dino Babers, got a lot of respect for him as a football coach, as a person and as a friend. He's a guy that I'll hang out when we get opportunities. Like I said, really, really like him and his wife. So you always hate to go against someone you really, really like.
They've got two new coordinators on offense and defense. Not sure what you're going to get. I think offensively their offense is very similar to what they've got. Coach Babers is always going to get somebody that is in his backyard. Got a guy that formerly worked with him. We see similar stuff.
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North Carolina football: 3 overreactions from runaway win over Syracuse (saturdayblitz.com; Fiore)
It took longer than expected, but North Carolina football got rolling late and the Tar Heels opened up their season with a win over Syracuse.
North Carolina opened up their much-anticipated season Saturday and came away with a win over Syracuse.
The game didn’t play out how a lot thought it would. It was ugly at first and Syracuse was hanging around until the fourth quarter. Sam Howell and Carolina continued their fourth-quarter dominance from last year when they outscored opponents 120-51 in the final frame and Saturday they won the fourth 21-0.
The offense looked shaky early but once they figured it out it was over for Syracuse.
The Orange had multiple chances to take the lead early on but failed to capture any momentum at all. Carolina’s defense locked down when it had to to keep the Heels lead before the offense figured it out.
It wasn’t the best performances from North Carolina but the Tar Heels started their run for an ACC title with a win. You’ll surely hear plenty of opinions about the hype train that is the North Carolina Tar Heels, don’t buy into these overreactions.
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UNC Football vs. Syracuse: Winners, Losers, & Honorable Mentions (tarheelblog.com; Hood)
If you’re like me, it took until about 11:00 AM Saturday morning to really get hype about the football season. Combined with the uncertainty of COVID results and the fact that getting UNC students on campus was nothing short of a disaster (which other colleges seemingly haven’t learned from by the way), it just didn’t feel right to put the emotional investment into the game.
Then the ball was kicked, and there we were.
This Tar Heel football team entered 2020 with more hype, and hype that only grew as circumstances changed a pretty difficult schedule into a really manageable one. A strong 2020 recruiting class added some depth, and one of the best offenses in the ACC took the field against a squad that was struggling to figure out who their complete team would be at multiple points. The Tar Heels never trailed, but...it very much looked like a game where you understand why teams usually don’t want to start their season against a FBS opponent.
Still, a win is a win and its nice to have football back. Let’s look at our inaugural W, L, & HM for week 1.
Winners
Defense: It was a complete role reversal from last year this game: the offense just seemingly couldn’t get off the ground, but the defense time and time again picked them up. At one point the color analyst said that Chaz Surratt wasn’t making himself known during the game and he ended up leading the Tar Heels with nine total tackles and two sacks. The Tar Heels had a grand total of seven, yes seven, sacks, and only gave up a total of 202 yards on offense. That’s a combined total, passing and rushing yards, of 202. Year Two of the Bateman system combined with significantly increased depth could make the defense a bigger factor than fans expected this season.
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2021 US News Rankings - Best Colleges (RX; HM)
2021 US News Rankings - Best Colleges
Just a quick post - US News has released their annual ranking of best national universities, so here's how the 15 ACC schools fared...
2021 Best National University Rankings
2020 Week 3 ACC Predictions (JHowell) (RX; HM)
2020 Week 3 ACC Predictions (JHowell)
From JHowell's computer predictions...
Below are the projections through the games of 9-19-2020. Games against non-FBS teams are excluded.
NOTE: The favorite is listed first with the projected margin of victory (i.e., the line) in parenthesis. 'TP' represents the total number of points expected to be scored in the game and 'Odds' represents the odds of the favorite winning straight-up (not against-the-spread).
COMMENTS:
I question UCF laying 10.5 points at Georgia Tech - I believe the Yellow Jackets will win straight up.
On the other hand, I don't see Syracuse being able to stay within 10.5 of the Panthers at Pitt.
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Power Ranking ACC Teams after week 2 (RX; HM)
Power Ranking ACC Teams after week 2
How good is your favorite team relative to the rest of the conference? Now that all but four teams have played, the answer is beginning to come into focus...
| Rank | Team | PR | SOS |
| 1 | Clemson | 0.923 | 0.609 |
| 2 | Notre Dame | 0.822 | 0.674 |
| 3 | Miami (FL) | 0.653 | 0.691 |
| 4 | Pitt | 0.628 | 0.663 |
| 5 | Virginia Tech* | 0.614 | 0.616 |
| 6 | Louisville | 0.611 | 0.66 |
| 7 | Virginia* | 0.607 | 0.574 |
| 8 | North Carolina | 0.599 | 0.626 |
| 9 | Wake Forest | 0.563 | 0.702 |
| 10 | Boston College* | 0.558 | 0.696 |
| 11 | Georgia Tech | 0.539 | 0.789 |
| 12 | Florida State | 0.530 | 0.706 |
| 13 | Duke | 0.526 | 0.611 |
| 14 | N C State* | 0.517 | 0.595 |
| 15 | Syracuse | 0.488 | 0.699 |
Other
Built to lead on indoor air, Syracuse Center of Excellence struggles for role in coronavirus fight (PS; $; Knauss)
The world is looking for answers on indoor air quality. Thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, nearly everyone has a newfound interest in how to make buildings safe from an invisible airborne menace.
That’s a challenge tailor-made for the Syracuse Center of Excellence, a state-funded $41 million research facility where indoor air quality is a core mission.
But the center’s contributions to the war on coronavirus have been modest thus far. Despite its world-class labs, the center has fallen short of promises that it would make Syracuse a worldwide leader in indoor environmental technology.
“They built a beautiful building there,’' said former U.S. Rep. James Walsh. “But the output didn’t register.’'
Walsh, who directed millions in federal research funds to the Center of Excellence before he retired in 2009, said he was disappointed the center has not made more of an impact.
“I wanted them to be world-beaters,’' he said.
There’s still time, say leaders at the Center of Excellence. They see the coronavirus pandemic as an opportunity to shine.
The Syracuse center was launched in 2003 as part of former Gov. George Pataki’s program to build research-and-development centers attached to major universities. It operated virtually until its headquarters on East Washington Street was completed in 2010.
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