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Message: [QUOTE="Trueblue25, post: 4943577, member: 3410"] Apologies for the delay, things have been busy and sorting through your awful, overly optimistic predictions takes time. After another numbing season of Syracuse football, I’m happy to present to you the winners of our 6th annual Cali Prediction Awards. But first - a little recap and I’m sure a welcomed reminder of where things stood before Fran swooped in. Things were looking up. We returned an offense headed by a healthy Garrett Shrader, a dynamic up and comer in LeQuint Allen and an NFL calibre receiver Oronde Gadsden. On D, we lost some important names to the portal but returned the core of what had been an exciting group including Marlowe Wax, Caleb Okechukwu, Alijah Clarke, Justin Barron among others. The Mob. Surely 8 years in, Dino had finally found his groove and we’d be able to find some stable footing. Maybe this year the injury bug wouldnt sting. But still the echos of depth concern, staff turnover and scheme echoed throughout the corridors of syracusefan.com. Once again, the pessimists got the last laugh. Or realists. What have you. We started off to a quick exciting first 3 games, building hype slowly after a horrid ending to 2022, but then real concerns begin to show vs Army. Similar to the rest of Dino’s tenure, nothing looked easy or straightforward and instead of playing down to competition it became clear that we were all that better than lower p5/mid g5 teams. I wont spend too much more time going over this season. It hurt, and its almost painful to summarize. Injuries hit again. Inept coaching plagued us again. Hype was obliterated and national perception deteriorated. But I’ll end by pointing out the positives. Oronde’s back next year 100% healthy. Allen and Wax are both back, and are studs. Villari’s back and ready to lead. Fran’s got the fanbase and city energized and hungry. Ill drop it here. And now for your Awards, based off the below thread of preseason predictions. [URL unfurl="true"]https://syracusefan.com/threads/6th-annual-cali-award-prediction-thread.177015/page-3#post-4942030[/URL] ____________________________________ Regular Season Record: 6-6 Pulling in this Cali was [USER=457]CiscoCuse[/USER] correctly guessing 6-6. Looking back, like many of you, after having watched the season I asked myself “why did I do it to myself again?” “Why did I buy into the hype?” “Wait… was there even hype?” CiscoCuse predicted a cloudy day and stagnant disappointment, and we got it. Sad!! Congratulations on your Cali. ________________________________ Bowl Game Prediction: Boca Raton Bowl Wait - you mean to tell me nobody saw us going to the illustrious Boca Raton Bowl to get absolutely plowed by USF?! Shame on me Shame on you Shame on us all No Cali! _______________________________________ Points For: 306 [USER=4689]UnknownOrange[/USER] was closest, guessing 302. Our offense was undoubtedly hampered the moment Oronde went down to injury. But I’ll use this as another moment to point out a positive. Oronde received SEC, Big 12 and Big 10 offers to leave us in the portal. Perhaps our best offensive draft prospect since Williams or earlier. He stayed. Great kid and future great pro. We did not have the high octane offense we pictured but we saw gutsy performances put some points on the board. Some expected from Shrader - but I thought what we got from Villari and Allen was unexpected and just so impressive. Grit, pride and toughness. Congrats! ______________________________________ Points Against: 330 [USER=58]Stevenson[/USER] was closest having guessed 333. That comes out to about 26 points a game, good for 70th in the country. Mediocre. Not what we expected from the mob. But yet again we found ourself constantly beaten up and fatigued. It didn’t help that this year we tended to let games really get away from us. Our defense showed how poor the team culture had gotten. Congrats on the cali! _____________________________ Average Home Attendance: 36,868 This Cali goes to [USER=169]orangenauburn[/USER] being the closest at 37,619. Our best attended game was probably the most infuriating game ive watched in some time, home vs BC. If anything made it clear how badly we needed Dino gone it was national and casual fan perception. People stopped caring, apathy seeped in. I really cant say there was one lively great crowd this year. That said, we still hit over 40k twice. Congrats! To be continued tomorrow - busy weekend with some work. [/QUOTE]

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