SWC75
Bored Historian
- Joined
- Aug 26, 2011
- Messages
- 32,780
- Like
- 63,133
I paraphrased the famous political question to ask if this year's SU is better than the one USC played last year. I called into Mike Lindsley asking why we should expect this year's game with USC to be more one-sided than last year, when we hung with them for a while and wound up losing by three long TD passes. I told him I thought our secondary will be better this year and it looks like the offense will be more productive. USC may be better but so are we- and they are traveling 3000 miles to play this time.
I expressed the opinion that the team we saw vs. Northwestern would have beaten last year's SU team 11 times in 12 games, with West Virginia being the exception. Mike took exception to that, saying that last year's team started 5-2 and he couldn't see this team starting 5-2. he said this year's team has a lot of questions in the secondary and that you can't detemine this to be the better team off of one game.
I agree with the last point. That one game is all we've got to go on right now and our perceptions may change as the season progresses, as they did last year. Last year's team didn't have any questions in the secodnary. we knew it stunk. I'm not so sure we will this year. I think Wilkes, Eskeridge, Reddish, etc. will be an upgrade over Philip Thomas and Kevyn Scott.
And let's look at those five wins last year. I've conceded that the West Virginia game was performance that the SU team we saw vs. Northwestern would have lost to. That was probably the best SU performance since the 1998 Miami game. The Wake Forest game was very similar to the Northwestern game. We were playing a program that has been a bottom-feeder through most of it's history but which has become respectable in recent years. We fell far behind and put on a furious comeback to take the lead. Against Wake, we won in voertime. Vs. the Wildcats, we let them have one final drive which brought our numerous errors earlier in the game back into play and we lost. But Wake outgained SU 299-406. We out-gained Northwestern 596-337. That's quite a difference. The second win was a 21-14 embarressment in the Dome vs. Rhode Island, an FCS team that won only 3 games. The 33-30 win over Toledo team that went 9-4 was impressive but it was aided by a famously bad call. We got outgained in that one, 366-438. Then there was the Tulane game, probably our worst performance of the season, even over the losses, as we neded a last second field goal to beat a team that had just lost to Army 45-6 and lsot to UTEP 44-7 the next week. They lost their last 10 game to finish 2-11. As to the losses, the one performance that might have been competitive with what we saw on Saturday was, ironically, the USC game, where we came out throwing and Nassib completed his first 11 throws. Looking at this, I still maintain that Saturday's SU team would have beaten last year's team 11 times in 12 games.
I realize USC is likely better and better focused than last year because they are trying to win a national title. They will want to put on a show after losing the #1 spot to Alabama. I've previously said that if a mid-level team like Syracuse plays a top-level team like USC twice, the most they can probably hope for is one semi-competitive game and last year might have been it.
But all things considered I'd have to say that I see four possible outcomes: a decisive loss like last year, a humiliating blow-out like we had on our worse days vs. Miami and Virginia Tech, (and Purdue and Georgia Tech, too), a competive loss where we throw a scare into them and an off-the-wall upset. Right now my gut feeling is:
60% chance of a decisive loss
20% chance of a comeptitive loss
15% xchance of a humiliating blow-out
5% chance of an off-the wall upset.
I expressed the opinion that the team we saw vs. Northwestern would have beaten last year's SU team 11 times in 12 games, with West Virginia being the exception. Mike took exception to that, saying that last year's team started 5-2 and he couldn't see this team starting 5-2. he said this year's team has a lot of questions in the secondary and that you can't detemine this to be the better team off of one game.
I agree with the last point. That one game is all we've got to go on right now and our perceptions may change as the season progresses, as they did last year. Last year's team didn't have any questions in the secodnary. we knew it stunk. I'm not so sure we will this year. I think Wilkes, Eskeridge, Reddish, etc. will be an upgrade over Philip Thomas and Kevyn Scott.
And let's look at those five wins last year. I've conceded that the West Virginia game was performance that the SU team we saw vs. Northwestern would have lost to. That was probably the best SU performance since the 1998 Miami game. The Wake Forest game was very similar to the Northwestern game. We were playing a program that has been a bottom-feeder through most of it's history but which has become respectable in recent years. We fell far behind and put on a furious comeback to take the lead. Against Wake, we won in voertime. Vs. the Wildcats, we let them have one final drive which brought our numerous errors earlier in the game back into play and we lost. But Wake outgained SU 299-406. We out-gained Northwestern 596-337. That's quite a difference. The second win was a 21-14 embarressment in the Dome vs. Rhode Island, an FCS team that won only 3 games. The 33-30 win over Toledo team that went 9-4 was impressive but it was aided by a famously bad call. We got outgained in that one, 366-438. Then there was the Tulane game, probably our worst performance of the season, even over the losses, as we neded a last second field goal to beat a team that had just lost to Army 45-6 and lsot to UTEP 44-7 the next week. They lost their last 10 game to finish 2-11. As to the losses, the one performance that might have been competitive with what we saw on Saturday was, ironically, the USC game, where we came out throwing and Nassib completed his first 11 throws. Looking at this, I still maintain that Saturday's SU team would have beaten last year's team 11 times in 12 games.
I realize USC is likely better and better focused than last year because they are trying to win a national title. They will want to put on a show after losing the #1 spot to Alabama. I've previously said that if a mid-level team like Syracuse plays a top-level team like USC twice, the most they can probably hope for is one semi-competitive game and last year might have been it.
But all things considered I'd have to say that I see four possible outcomes: a decisive loss like last year, a humiliating blow-out like we had on our worse days vs. Miami and Virginia Tech, (and Purdue and Georgia Tech, too), a competive loss where we throw a scare into them and an off-the-wall upset. Right now my gut feeling is:
60% chance of a decisive loss
20% chance of a comeptitive loss
15% xchance of a humiliating blow-out
5% chance of an off-the wall upset.
