1992 and 1993 seasons

[OttoMets]

I was just watching a bit of the 1993 Fiesta Bowl that someone posted in another thread. Fun - that was the first season I really followed the team, but my memory isn't clear (beyond our top-ten preseason ranking and later getting shut out ~80-0 by Miami and West Virginia):

What caused our backslide in 1993?

Did Shelby Hill leave early and leave Graves without an important skill player? Did we lose a lot of our defense? Did we switch to a 4-3 and not have the right pieces?

Fairly or not, I've always thought Graves's legacy was kind of marred by our lack of team success his senior year.

[One more tangent - I saw Marvin Harrison as a gunner in that Fiesta Bowl game; his career spanned four very different seasons that were part of two or three distinct eras of SU Football. Thought that was interesting.]

 

[OrangeXtreme]

Dan Conley missed the whole 1993 season with injuries.

 

[elimunelson]

the 93 and 94 seasons were not bad in hindsight but obviously failures b/c they didn't really match the awesome finish of 92. 93/94 also are victims of the less bowl games back then. Both those teams are absolute no brainer bowl teams now and would have been fun to watch in a bowl game as well.

I always thought Kevin Mason did a competent job in 94 and is somewhat overlooked b/c he didn't get them to a bowl game yet won 7 games.

 

[GoSU96]

I was just watching a bit of the 1993 Fiesta Bowl that someone posted in another thread. Fun - that was the first season I really followed the team, but my memory isn't clear (beyond our top-ten preseason ranking and later getting shut out ~80-0 by Miami and West Virginia):

What caused our backslide in 1993?

Did Shelby Hill leave early and leave Graves without an important skill player? Did we lose a lot of our defense? Did we switch to a 4-3 and not have the right pieces?

Fairly or not, I've always thought Graves's legacy was kind of marred by our lack of team success his senior year.

[One more tangent - I saw Marvin Harrison as a gunner in that Fiesta Bowl game; his career spanned four very different seasons that were part of two or three distinct eras of SU Football. Thought that was interesting.]

Marvin had a back injury, lost a ton on defense, in particular at LB, at a lot of senior leadership. If they had beaten UT and BC it would have been a good year.

 

[elimunelson]

Didn't Pasqualoni take the names off the back of the jerseys in 94 too? I always found that interesting and weird.

 

[OrangeXtreme]

Didn't Pasqualoni take the names off the back of the jerseys in 94 too? I always found that interesting and weird.

The whole team was in witness protection that year.

 

[javadoc]

Marvin had a back injury, lost a ton on defense, in particular at LB, at a lot of senior leadership. If they had beaten UT and BC it would have been a good year.

Isn't that the first year they switched to using lighter, faster LB like Nate Hemsley? Think there were some growing pains with that.

 

[NJCuse97]

Ahh, my sophomore year!

I think a lot of it was that their heads got too big. Shelby Hill did leave early... mentally. Problem was he was still on the field going through the motions and being targeted.

Qadry Ismail was gone. Chris Gedney was gone. Glen Young was gone, John Biskup was gone. David Walker was gone and that is huge! We did not have an established RB or run game that year. O'Neil was a fine punter, but he had a bad FG % that year. I think he missed a make-able FG at Texas and that cost us the win there. I don't think Abrams was 100% that season. If I remember, we lost some line starters on both sides (Wisdom comes to mind, but maybe James Spencer too?).

I really think the biggest issue was their egos.
I can't remember another time they were pre-season ranked that high.

 

[PhatOrange]

I believe the '93 season 3 or 4 starting linebackers were freshman. Hemsley, Ponds and the third I forget. Greg Shaw or Dana Cottrell maybe?

 

[Millhouse]

I was just watching a bit of the 1993 Fiesta Bowl that someone posted in another thread. Fun - that was the first season I really followed the team, but my memory isn't clear (beyond our top-ten preseason ranking and later getting shut out ~80-0 by Miami and West Virginia):

What caused our backslide in 1993?

Did Shelby Hill leave early and leave Graves without an important skill player? Did we lose a lot of our defense? Did we switch to a 4-3 and not have the right pieces?

Fairly or not, I've always thought Graves's legacy was kind of marred by our lack of team success his senior year.

[One more tangent - I saw Marvin Harrison as a gunner in that Fiesta Bowl game; his career spanned four very different seasons that were part of two or three distinct eras of SU Football. Thought that was interesting.]

i saw marvin harrison as a gunner at a philadelphia carwash and lived to tell about it

 

[Millhouse]

I was just watching a bit of the 1993 Fiesta Bowl that someone posted in another thread. Fun - that was the first season I really followed the team, but my memory isn't clear (beyond our top-ten preseason ranking and later getting shut out ~80-0 by Miami and West Virginia):

What caused our backslide in 1993?

Did Shelby Hill leave early and leave Graves without an important skill player? Did we lose a lot of our defense? Did we switch to a 4-3 and not have the right pieces?

Fairly or not, I've always thought Graves's legacy was kind of marred by our lack of team success his senior year.

[One more tangent - I saw Marvin Harrison as a gunner in that Fiesta Bowl game; his career spanned four very different seasons that were part of two or three distinct eras of SU Football. Thought that was interesting.]

There were some big layups in 1993, that season could've gone haywire against today's type of conference opponents. that defense stunk against decent teams. glenn foley was unbelievable.

consecutive home games of Foley then WVU running for a million yards

http://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/schools/syracuse/1993-schedule.html

marvin graves was still pretty good that year. that guy has the best qb rating ever for someone with 48 TD/45 Int ratio. that was the first year of Pasqualoni's offenses getting shutout when things didn't go right.

4 shutouts in 2 years. ridiculous.

 

[OttoMets]

Marvin had a back injury, lost a ton on defense, in particular at LB, at a lot of senior leadership. If they had beaten UT and BC it would have been a good year.

The Texas tie - that's right, I remember that too. Bad times.

 

[GoSU96]

Isn't that the first year they switched to using lighter, faster LB like Nate Hemsley? Think there were some growing pains with that.

All Frosh linebacking unit after Conley went down. It was nuts. Those guys turned out to be pretty good but the team paid a price that season, especially late when they got steamrolled.

 

[lincolncuse]

I believe the '93 season 3 or 4 starting linebackers were freshman. Hemsley, Ponds and the third I forget. Greg Shaw or Dana Cottrell maybe?

Ken Thomas who ended up at Central Florida

 

[Millhouse]

I believe the '93 season 3 or 4 starting linebackers were freshman. Hemsley, Ponds and the third I forget. Greg Shaw or Dana Cottrell maybe?

how does that happen? did guys get hurt or drop out unexpectedly

 

[OttoMets]

All Frosh linebacking unit after Conley went down. It was nuts. Those guys turned out to be pretty good but the team paid a price that season, especially late when they got steamrolled.

Did Pasqualoni switch to a 4-3 because of the attrition or had he planned to do that anyway?

 

[MSOrange]

I believe the '93 season 3 or 4 starting linebackers were freshman. Hemsley, Ponds and the third I forget. Greg Shaw or Dana Cottrell maybe?

I was almost positive it was Hemsley, Ponds and Cottrell but it looks like it was Hemsley, Shaw and Chip Todd that year. I guess Ponds came in the next year.

http://cuse.com/sports/2011/6/17/FB93Stats.aspx?id=7627

 

[KCJax03]

Marvin had a back injury, lost a ton on defense, in particular at LB, at a lot of senior leadership. If they had beaten UT and BC it would have been a good year.

I recall that while the defense was an absolute sieve, the offense was still potent. The loss to BC that year was I believe the first time in Syracuse football history they lost a game when scoring 30 or more points. By the end of the year, when WVU and Miami came to the dome the offense had seemingly worn down physically and / or mentally. Their were those then that questioned the leadership on that team and believed the team quit. They were no shows in those two games. The BC game earlier that year had been a barn burner and very entertaining despite the loss, the offense showed no signs of life at all against WVU or Miami.

 

[orange79]

I recall that while the defense was an absolute sieve, the offense was still potent. The loss to BC that year was I believe the first time in Syracuse football history they lost a game when scoring 30 or more points. By the end of the year, when WVU and Miami came to the dome the offense had seemingly worn down physically and / or mentally. Their were those then that questioned the leadership on that team and believed the team quit. They were no shows in those two games. The BC game earlier that year had been a barn burner and very entertaining despite the loss, the offense showed no signs of life at all against WVU or Miami.

We lost to BC 33-29 in 93. After a quick scan of scores, there were plenty of losses where we scored 27/28/29 points, but I couldn't find any losses where we scored 30 or more until losing to Minnesota 35-33 in 96. Then we started making it a habit - that same year we lost 38-31 to Miami. The next year, we did it twice more in games 2 and 3, losing to NC St in OT 32-31, then losing to Oklahoma 36-34. In 98, we opened the season losing 34-44 to Tennessee. In 2002, we lost to Auburn on the road 37-34 in 2 OT. In the last game of 2007, we got crushed by Cincinnati 52-31 to cap off the penultimate coaching career of He who shall not be named. In 2009, we lost by a very similar score of 56-31 to our friends in Storz.

So, unless I missed any, we have lost 8 times when scoring 30 or more points. :noidea:

 

[KCJax03]

We lost to BC 33-29 in 93. After a quick scan of scores, there were plenty of losses where we scored 27/28/29 points, but I couldn't find any losses where we scored 30 or more until losing to Minnesota 35-33 in 96. Then we started making it a habit - that same year we lost 38-31 to Miami. The next year, we did it twice more in games 2 and 3, losing to NC St in OT 32-31, then losing to Oklahoma 36-34. In 98, we opened the season losing 34-44 to Tennessee. In 2002, we lost to Auburn on the road 37-34 in 2 OT. In the last game of 2007, we got crushed by Cincinnati 52-31 to cap off the penultimate coaching career of He who shall not be named. In 2009, we lost by a very similar score of 56-31 to our friends in Storz.

So, unless I missed any, we have lost 8 times when scoring 30 or more points. :noidea:

Ok, so if I follow your post, if Syracuse had lost to BC say 33-30, it would've been the first time they scored 30+ and lost. That actually may have been the topic of conversation at the time then. I do recall it was discussed though, early on that 93 team looked as if every game was going to be an up and down battle favoring the team with the last possession. Then the offense petered out and they were a pretty bad team by the end of the year.

 

[orange79]

Ok, so if I follow your post, if Syracuse had lost to BC say 33-30, it would've been the first time they scored 30+ and lost. That actually may have been the topic of conversation at the time then. I do recall it was discussed though, early on that 93 team looked as if every game was going to be an up and down battle favoring the team with the last possession. Then the offense petered out and they were a pretty bad team by the end of the year.

As far as I can tell, yes.

 

[SWC75]

The '93 team had high expectations but a lot of injuries on defense and also suffered from a lack of leadership. They stopped West Virginia three times on their opening drive but gave them first downs with personal fouls or unsportsmanlike conduct penalties. When things went bad, the team collapsed. 0-49 and 0-43 in consectutive games. 24-45 to a new power we came to hate, the Hokies.

 

[Chip]

Did Pasqualoni switch to a 4-3 because of the attrition or had he planned to do that anyway?

Hired Orgeron who helped talk him into it.

My big frustration at the time with 1993 was how the middle linebacker position recruiting somehow led to either Dan Conley playing, or converting freshmen safeties. I get that Kevin Mitchell was recruited as ILB and then moved to DT (back to ILB for a cameo in 1993's desperation), but where was everyone else?