You can never put the blame for a loss on two guys but if you could Cameron McPherson and #12 for the Upstate squad would be the two guys to blame. McPherson looked slow on his feet and scared just about every snap he took. The fact that he is going to be playing college football is a true credit to the CBA hype machine. #12 was the supposed to be the personal protector on the punt team. Instead on both blocked punts he literally moved out of the way and let a guy go by him to block the punt.
The SU recruits looked decent. If Barnwell can get his grades in order and get in a little better shape I can see him helping in a few years. Morgan only practiced a day and I think that impacted his play. They tried to get him involved by returning kicks in the second half but other than a huge hit that caused a turnover and may very well have won the game for downstate he didn't do much.
Compared to the first two years I was impressed with the line play on both sides of the ball for upstate. That is one of the main reasons they got crushed in years one and two.
I am also always surprised that some D1 schools don't take chances on some of these very good athletes that are a few inches too short or fifteen pounds too light. Even during the Governor's Bowl days a lot of guys going D3 always look very impressive in these games.
I hope this competitive game can help kick start the game for years to come.
Andrew King got both blocked punts...good looking 6'0 LB headed to Army, where he will be s star for them. Upstate wins with decent blocking. The upstate punter is lucky he didn't get seriously injured.
Campese coached Upstate and did a fine job with a team that clearly had less talent than the Downstate team. I hope they give Upstate the Hudson Valley kids next year...Downstate has a major advantage each year with LI, NYC and HV.
Thought Palmer was dominating blocking for Downstate. They got a lot of good gains running behind him. He was destroying people. Best OL on the field. He looked in relatively good shape and was amazingly agile for his size.
Barnwell played DE, was a factor on every passing play. I thought he was the best player on the field. Big kid with good closing speed, hits hard. I think he had 2.5 sacks and a lot of tackles and hurries. It is unfortunate he is going JUCO instead of to Milford, I think he could have helped us his redshirt frosh and soph seasons.
McGill did well for Upstate, think he scored 2 TDs. Has good speed, pretty good size. Would have helped us in past years but I like our WRs more than him, so I can see why we didn't offer him. Should help UB for sure.
The other top WR was a kid named Michael Richardson, who had a bunch of big catches to keep drives alive for Downstate.
One of Upstate's best players was a FB/LB named Chifton Bacon, who is going to Lackawanna. Played both ways, pretty athletic, very tough. He might end up playing D1 someday.
Mikal Myers (UConn) looked short and fat...5'11 and over 300 pounds. Did not impress. He has a lot of work to do if he is to play at the D1 level.
The game was marred by a lot of trash talking, chippy play, etc. The refs did a good job calling lots of personal fouls that kept it from becoming a brawl. It was not far from that a few times. It is a shame so many of the best players from NYS pulled out and did not participate.
Crowd was really small...just friends and family of the players.
