SWC75
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Every Thursday night of the football season at 7PM, Head Coach Scott Shafer does a call0in show with Matt Park on TK99, (99.5 FM) in Syracuse. To submit a question during the show you can call 1-800-746-7873 or, locally 315-424-8599. You can send a question to Matt Park via Twitter at Matt Park 1. You can also send one in ahead of time with this link:
http://suathletics.syr.edu/sb_output.aspx?form=4
MY QUESTION
“Coach, people have been questioning whether Syracuse will be good enough to compete in a conference full of southern schools with fanatical fan bases, state of the art facilities, prime recruiting areas and rosters full of speedy, athletic players. I’ll grant that Syracuse fans need to support the program better, to view it as an investment to put something into rather than a product to decide to buy or not to buy. But with our recent improvements in facilities and recruiting, are we ready to compete in the ACC?”
COACH SHAFER
Coach Shafer started by announcing that the team had selected “four great captains- Jason Bromley,. Marquis Spruill, Mackey MacPherson and Jerome Smith”.
He said that when he was growing up in Ohio, “When we looked east, it was always Syracuse-Penn State”. Penn State has “ three talented tight ends who can stretch the field…a tough running back who can run between the tackles…Their quarterbacks are very similar and can run that offense well….they can run Robinson deep or go to pop draws.“
He said that the key was to block and tackle well and avoid turnovers. He said he’d done a study and if you are +2 in turnovers or better, you tend to win 84% of the time. He also said “we’ve got to do a great job fielding kicks”. He didn’t say we needed to do a great job returning kicks. Matt asked what his message to the quarterback will be in terms of trying to win the game himself or just manage the game. “Play within the framework of the game plan.”
I called in and asked about an item in the morning paper where Bud Poliquin said that Coach Shafer would “likely make more interesting observations by Yom Kippur than Paul Pasqualoni, Greg Robinson and Doug Marrone uttered in their combined 22 years on the SU bridge.” Yom Kippur is two weeks from now. Coach laughed and said he’d be up to the challenge.
Then I asked my real question, (above). The answer was interesting. I’m not sure how much to read into this. I kind of expected Shafer to be defiant, in the manger of the speech he gave when he was first hired, when he famously said “We're gonna go to the damn ACC and we're gonna storm that conference and do better than people think we are in Year One.” Instead his response was much more subdued.
Are we ready to compete in the ACC? “We’re gonna have to be. That’s the reality of it. Their upper tier teams are competing for national championships. Up here in the Midwest, where I grew up and the Northeast, people want a good product we can be proud of. It’s a great time to get into the ACC. The population is moving into the East, (it is?), and Southeast and that’s where the TV sets are and that’s where the money will be. I’m looking forward to it.”
“We won’t get as many 4-5 star recruits on the front end but the key is how they come out on the back end. (He mentioned several players, including Moose Johnston, who was lightly recruited and Rob Moore who got more basketball offers than football). I’m extremely proud of the back end, (meaning the quality of players when they leave SU). We are looking forward to going south. They a little bit faster. We’ve got to play tough, hard-nosed football so we can stick our chests out a little bit.”
Matt Park pressed the issue: who do we compare in terms of style of play, talent and speed? “I don’t know. I hope we do. I watched the West Virginia Clemson bowl game, (two season ago when West Virginia beat Clemson 70-33 after we’d beaten them 49-26 in the Dome). They had similar speed and talent on the perimeter. It’s a great challenge and I enjoy it. We’re going to tee it up go. Right now we’re focused on Penn State. We are locked in for game #1.” Matt noted that the ACC had lost its last ten games vs. top 10 teams and Clemson will try to break that string vs. Georgia this weekend. Shafer said “We’ve got some pride in our performance vs. Top Ten teams” and noted the West Virginia win and the one last year over Louisville. “We’ve got to embrace who we are and not who we aren’t. I love the fans who have supported us and hopefully the fan base will row.”
Coach didn’t mention facilities at all. Whether that means they still don’t measure up, I don’t know. He obviously wants more fans and the stand but is not ready to complain about that yet. He seemed to acknowledge that there will be a speed a talent gap in the games against ACC team. He talked about taking under-recruited guys and turning them into good players. We are still in “under the radar” mode and it sounds like maybe he thinks we are going to stay there. He seems to feel we need to make up for deficiencies in speed and talent with a “hard nosed” attitude and a desire to show ‘em we can play football up here. Will that be enough? Or was I reading too much into what he said – and didn’t say?
Matt asked how the coach is “getting the current players up to speed” on the significance of playing Penn State. He’s been showing them clips of the Rob Moore play. Maybe they can look beyond what their receivers coach did and listen to the fan reaction to catch what that play and that game meant to the fans. Greg Paulus, who grew up here and played in the last Penn State game, called Coach Shafer up a couple of days ago and stressed the importance e of this game. “I’ve dreamed about being on this stage. We want a well-rounded student athlete who plays hard between the lines and works hard off the field.” They talked about long snapper Sam Rogers, who Matt said “Probably nobody’s heard of him but you don’t want anyone to know your long snapper’s name.” He’s got two sisters at Penn State and, per the coach, “We want him to win the dinner table discussions.
They discussed the depth chart, which Matt said had “no surprises- a lot of familiar names”. Coach said we’ve got a lot of guys back. “We want to emulate last year. You have to look at who you are and adjust to some degree. I like our systems because it’s hard to stop. We’ve got some new kids and have to adjust to their talent.” Matt asked about “finding spots for the freshmen. Coach talked about an Indiana player named Thomas Lewis who later played for the Giants. “We gave him 2-3 plays at first and had him work on them until he knew them backwards and forwards. Then we added a 4th play, then a 5th. That’s what you have to do.”
The discussed the receivers. Coach likes the size of Jarrod West and Adrian Flemming and the speed of their back-ups, Jeremiah Kobena and Chris Clark, who he said can “Spread the field”. But he said Ashton Broyld “can do both” and he’s really excited about Brisley Estime, (whose name he pronounced “Est-Teem”: I’d been told it was “Est-Tim-May”). “He’s a football player. The offense loved. The defense loved him, too.” Interestingly, when discussing the kick returners, Shafer said that Darius Kelly was the back-up kick returner. Ritchie Desir is the starter and Coach talked about how he wants to use back-up tailbacks to return kick-offs so it appears the “Salt Badger” will not be returning kicks for us- not yet, anyway.
He briefly discussed the quarterback situation. “In an ideal world you want a kid who’s already polished and who has played for you. Both (Allen and Hunt) are very mature and supportive of each other.” He refused to say who is ahead in the competition.
“We have an extremely strong senior class. I’m pleased with the way they took charge coming out of Fort Drum. The coaches didn’t do bed or meal checks. We left that up to each group and nobody missed anything. Each group took care of themselves. I don’t know how talented we are but I know we’ve got a tight-knit team with excellent senior leadership.” He doesn’t know how talented we are?
They switched to the defense. “Bromley leads the way up front. I’m pleased the way Eric Crume has progressed after his injury last year. We’ve had injuries at defensive end and are thin there. Micah Robinson has played a lot for us and we’ve seen a lot of Robert Welsh. Ron Thompson will get more consistency with more snaps.”
Regarding the linebackers, he said the depth chart is wrong on Dyshawn Davis’ weight, which is now up to 224. He described Josh Kirkland as “looking like a young Dyshawn.” He’s also very impressed with Marqez Hodge.
In the secondary, Wayne Morgan will be the nickel back this year and Julian Whigham will play at both corner and safety. “You’re gonna love him.” Durell Eskridge was “invaluable” on special teams last year- he ahd the big punt block that got us going vs. South Florida. Darius Kelly, Marqez Hodge, Josh Kirkland and Luke Arciniega will be prominent on the kicking teams as well.
Matt asked about Ross Krautman who had a great freshman eyar as a kicker, 81 of 19 on field goals) but was :just slightly off the last couple of years, (30 of 42). “He has a lot of goals in front of him. He’s gotten stronger and is looking to step up his game.” Placekickers certainly do have “a lot of goals in front of them”.
They got one other caller- Larry in Syracuse, who described Coach Shafer as “a disciplinarian. We don’t have the greatest athletes but we’ll play with a lot of heart.” Shafer said “You’ve got the message. We’ve got overachievers who will represent Syracuse on and off campus and will be playing hard.”
Coach ended the show by saying “Hopefully, we can put on a good show with a hard-nosed, physical style of football we can all be proud of.”
Are we still “The Little Engine that Could?” It kind of sounded like it.
http://suathletics.syr.edu/sb_output.aspx?form=4
MY QUESTION
“Coach, people have been questioning whether Syracuse will be good enough to compete in a conference full of southern schools with fanatical fan bases, state of the art facilities, prime recruiting areas and rosters full of speedy, athletic players. I’ll grant that Syracuse fans need to support the program better, to view it as an investment to put something into rather than a product to decide to buy or not to buy. But with our recent improvements in facilities and recruiting, are we ready to compete in the ACC?”
COACH SHAFER
Coach Shafer started by announcing that the team had selected “four great captains- Jason Bromley,. Marquis Spruill, Mackey MacPherson and Jerome Smith”.
He said that when he was growing up in Ohio, “When we looked east, it was always Syracuse-Penn State”. Penn State has “ three talented tight ends who can stretch the field…a tough running back who can run between the tackles…Their quarterbacks are very similar and can run that offense well….they can run Robinson deep or go to pop draws.“
He said that the key was to block and tackle well and avoid turnovers. He said he’d done a study and if you are +2 in turnovers or better, you tend to win 84% of the time. He also said “we’ve got to do a great job fielding kicks”. He didn’t say we needed to do a great job returning kicks. Matt asked what his message to the quarterback will be in terms of trying to win the game himself or just manage the game. “Play within the framework of the game plan.”
I called in and asked about an item in the morning paper where Bud Poliquin said that Coach Shafer would “likely make more interesting observations by Yom Kippur than Paul Pasqualoni, Greg Robinson and Doug Marrone uttered in their combined 22 years on the SU bridge.” Yom Kippur is two weeks from now. Coach laughed and said he’d be up to the challenge.
Then I asked my real question, (above). The answer was interesting. I’m not sure how much to read into this. I kind of expected Shafer to be defiant, in the manger of the speech he gave when he was first hired, when he famously said “We're gonna go to the damn ACC and we're gonna storm that conference and do better than people think we are in Year One.” Instead his response was much more subdued.
Are we ready to compete in the ACC? “We’re gonna have to be. That’s the reality of it. Their upper tier teams are competing for national championships. Up here in the Midwest, where I grew up and the Northeast, people want a good product we can be proud of. It’s a great time to get into the ACC. The population is moving into the East, (it is?), and Southeast and that’s where the TV sets are and that’s where the money will be. I’m looking forward to it.”
“We won’t get as many 4-5 star recruits on the front end but the key is how they come out on the back end. (He mentioned several players, including Moose Johnston, who was lightly recruited and Rob Moore who got more basketball offers than football). I’m extremely proud of the back end, (meaning the quality of players when they leave SU). We are looking forward to going south. They a little bit faster. We’ve got to play tough, hard-nosed football so we can stick our chests out a little bit.”
Matt Park pressed the issue: who do we compare in terms of style of play, talent and speed? “I don’t know. I hope we do. I watched the West Virginia Clemson bowl game, (two season ago when West Virginia beat Clemson 70-33 after we’d beaten them 49-26 in the Dome). They had similar speed and talent on the perimeter. It’s a great challenge and I enjoy it. We’re going to tee it up go. Right now we’re focused on Penn State. We are locked in for game #1.” Matt noted that the ACC had lost its last ten games vs. top 10 teams and Clemson will try to break that string vs. Georgia this weekend. Shafer said “We’ve got some pride in our performance vs. Top Ten teams” and noted the West Virginia win and the one last year over Louisville. “We’ve got to embrace who we are and not who we aren’t. I love the fans who have supported us and hopefully the fan base will row.”
Coach didn’t mention facilities at all. Whether that means they still don’t measure up, I don’t know. He obviously wants more fans and the stand but is not ready to complain about that yet. He seemed to acknowledge that there will be a speed a talent gap in the games against ACC team. He talked about taking under-recruited guys and turning them into good players. We are still in “under the radar” mode and it sounds like maybe he thinks we are going to stay there. He seems to feel we need to make up for deficiencies in speed and talent with a “hard nosed” attitude and a desire to show ‘em we can play football up here. Will that be enough? Or was I reading too much into what he said – and didn’t say?
Matt asked how the coach is “getting the current players up to speed” on the significance of playing Penn State. He’s been showing them clips of the Rob Moore play. Maybe they can look beyond what their receivers coach did and listen to the fan reaction to catch what that play and that game meant to the fans. Greg Paulus, who grew up here and played in the last Penn State game, called Coach Shafer up a couple of days ago and stressed the importance e of this game. “I’ve dreamed about being on this stage. We want a well-rounded student athlete who plays hard between the lines and works hard off the field.” They talked about long snapper Sam Rogers, who Matt said “Probably nobody’s heard of him but you don’t want anyone to know your long snapper’s name.” He’s got two sisters at Penn State and, per the coach, “We want him to win the dinner table discussions.
They discussed the depth chart, which Matt said had “no surprises- a lot of familiar names”. Coach said we’ve got a lot of guys back. “We want to emulate last year. You have to look at who you are and adjust to some degree. I like our systems because it’s hard to stop. We’ve got some new kids and have to adjust to their talent.” Matt asked about “finding spots for the freshmen. Coach talked about an Indiana player named Thomas Lewis who later played for the Giants. “We gave him 2-3 plays at first and had him work on them until he knew them backwards and forwards. Then we added a 4th play, then a 5th. That’s what you have to do.”
The discussed the receivers. Coach likes the size of Jarrod West and Adrian Flemming and the speed of their back-ups, Jeremiah Kobena and Chris Clark, who he said can “Spread the field”. But he said Ashton Broyld “can do both” and he’s really excited about Brisley Estime, (whose name he pronounced “Est-Teem”: I’d been told it was “Est-Tim-May”). “He’s a football player. The offense loved. The defense loved him, too.” Interestingly, when discussing the kick returners, Shafer said that Darius Kelly was the back-up kick returner. Ritchie Desir is the starter and Coach talked about how he wants to use back-up tailbacks to return kick-offs so it appears the “Salt Badger” will not be returning kicks for us- not yet, anyway.
He briefly discussed the quarterback situation. “In an ideal world you want a kid who’s already polished and who has played for you. Both (Allen and Hunt) are very mature and supportive of each other.” He refused to say who is ahead in the competition.
“We have an extremely strong senior class. I’m pleased with the way they took charge coming out of Fort Drum. The coaches didn’t do bed or meal checks. We left that up to each group and nobody missed anything. Each group took care of themselves. I don’t know how talented we are but I know we’ve got a tight-knit team with excellent senior leadership.” He doesn’t know how talented we are?
They switched to the defense. “Bromley leads the way up front. I’m pleased the way Eric Crume has progressed after his injury last year. We’ve had injuries at defensive end and are thin there. Micah Robinson has played a lot for us and we’ve seen a lot of Robert Welsh. Ron Thompson will get more consistency with more snaps.”
Regarding the linebackers, he said the depth chart is wrong on Dyshawn Davis’ weight, which is now up to 224. He described Josh Kirkland as “looking like a young Dyshawn.” He’s also very impressed with Marqez Hodge.
In the secondary, Wayne Morgan will be the nickel back this year and Julian Whigham will play at both corner and safety. “You’re gonna love him.” Durell Eskridge was “invaluable” on special teams last year- he ahd the big punt block that got us going vs. South Florida. Darius Kelly, Marqez Hodge, Josh Kirkland and Luke Arciniega will be prominent on the kicking teams as well.
Matt asked about Ross Krautman who had a great freshman eyar as a kicker, 81 of 19 on field goals) but was :just slightly off the last couple of years, (30 of 42). “He has a lot of goals in front of him. He’s gotten stronger and is looking to step up his game.” Placekickers certainly do have “a lot of goals in front of them”.
They got one other caller- Larry in Syracuse, who described Coach Shafer as “a disciplinarian. We don’t have the greatest athletes but we’ll play with a lot of heart.” Shafer said “You’ve got the message. We’ve got overachievers who will represent Syracuse on and off campus and will be playing hard.”
Coach ended the show by saying “Hopefully, we can put on a good show with a hard-nosed, physical style of football we can all be proud of.”
Are we still “The Little Engine that Could?” It kind of sounded like it.
