Damn...

[dollarbill44]

the 1aa thing is going a little overboard - this is still a UConn team with a very good defense - they went on the road and beat Maryland and only lost by 3 to NC State - but they are in no way as good as SU and have absolutely no business beating SU in a night game in the dome.

SU should be able to hold them to around the same point total as Rutgers (3) - so barring the usual mental and ST collapses SU should win comfortably, which is why I'm saying that to lose this game would be inexcusable.

And this is why I'm nervous about it.

 

[baggerbob]

Uconn has a better defense then Pitt, and look how bad we were in that game. If not for Pitt pulling a Syracuse ,and turning the ball over for a TD we lose.

 

[Orangello]

I don't gamble, but I think I'd be willing to put $100 on Syracuse tomorrow. I just can't envision this team losing.

I don't gamble either (plenty of other vices) and I think they should eek out a win but believe it will be much closer than many here suggest. Again, I really really hope I'm wrong. I would love to see this team have everything click for once and blow someone out.

 

[OrangePA]

Honestly don't care if you don't like it. I've had enough of "waiting until next year".

This team genuinely could have beaten USC, and should have beaten Northwestern & Rutgers. If they lose to an inferior UConn team, I'm done wasting my time.

Once again a complete failure to objectively assess our talent level and those of our opponents.

Your reaction to the reality of competition with this team is what occurs when pre-season expectations are emotional and unfounded.

The fact is that both USC and Rutgers were physically superior to the Orange - their size/speed/strength was better than ours and their superiority caused the turnovers and the losses.

Your presumption that UConn is less talented than Syracuse is probably not accurate. UConn and the Orange are probably evenly matched teams. Indeed, UConn more than likely has a superior defense and superior special teams players such as Nick Williams one of the great return men in college football.

So if you feel going into this game that it should be an easy SU victory, you're mistaken and you have once again set unrealistic expectations that will cause you and others who look at things the way you do a lot of angst.

Rutgers, USC, NW, Pitt and UConn have all come from a different place than the Orange has in the last seven years. We still have a ways to go before we can expect wins in the way you now seem to expect them.

You may have had "enough waiting for next year" (where were you for the Pinstripe Bowl season?) but frankly how you feel is meaningless. What matters is where the program is from a talent standpoint. And right now it's a work in progress.

Oh and one more thing. If the Orange loses on Friday night it was nice knowing you - good riddance.

 

[Chip]

Oh and one more thing. If the Orange loses on Friday night it was nice knowing you - good riddance.

I think you're going to be saying that to a lot of people. Losing Friday night is going to cause the wheels to come off a lot of buses here. Not saying you (or anyone else) should agree with it. But everyone should plan for it. It's going to be bad, bad, bad, bad, bad.

Let's hope we don't have to face it.

 

[dollarbill44]

I think you're going to be saying that to a lot of people. Losing Friday night is going to cause the wheels to come off a lot of buses here. Not saying you (or anyone else) should agree with it. But everyone should plan for it. It's going to be bad, bad, bad, bad, bad.

Let's hope we don't have to face it.

Yup.

 

[OrangePA]

I think you're going to be saying that to a lot of people. Losing Friday night is going to cause the wheels to come off a lot of buses here. Not saying you (or anyone else) should agree with it. But everyone should plan for it. It's going to be bad, bad, bad, bad, bad.

Let's hope we don't have to face it.

I don't disagree with that.

I think too many fans think of our program as a professional program - one that can be turned around simply with a tweak here or there.

Too many don't realize the talent differential and financial differential that the program faces - there is no parity in college football in the same way that there is parity in professional sports.

And that's why I warned folks during summer camp that too many were overestimating wins this year - that we could very well lose to every BE opponent and that our record this year would likely not accurately gauge the progress that Marrone is making.

So, when you get comments like "80% of the team's record is due to coaching" or "it's time for Hackett to put up or shut up" or "I'm done if they lose to UConn" you just have to shake your head.

 

[Pyle]

"it's time for Hackett to put up or shut up"

When you call an outside run at the goal-line with your slowest RB then you deserve the criticism you get.

 

[Pyle]

I agree talent wise we are close to UCONN. Unfortunately that usually means it's coaching, penalties, and turnovers that decide the game.

Coaching - P > DM. Until I see otherwise I will give the nod to the man who had one losing season in 17 years, with worse facilities and less administrative support. DM has been given all the things P needed to succeed but still hasn't. Advantage UCONN

Penalties - Syracuse is ranked 33 with 90 penalties for 760 yards this season. UCONN is ranked 84th having committed 68 penatlies for 509 yards. UCONN has played 7 games to our 6. Advantage UCONN

Turnovers: Syracuse TO ratio:-1.67 per game. UCONN -1.00 per game. Advantage UCONN

Add in our horrible special teams play all season and unfortunately I don't see how we win this game.

 

[dollarbill44]

I agree talent wise we are close to UCONN. Unfortunately that usually means it's coaching, penalties, and turnovers that decide the game.

Coaching - P > DM. Until I see otherwise I will give the nod to the man who had one losing season in 17 years, with worse facilities and less administrative support. DM has been given all the things P needed to succeed but still hasn't. Advantage UCONN

Penalties - Syracuse is ranked 33 with 90 penalties for 760 yards this season. UCONN is ranked 84th having committed 68 penatlies for 509 yards. UCONN has played 7 games to our 6. Advantage UCONN

Turnovers: Syracuse TO ratio:-1.67 per game. UCONN -1.00 per game. Advantage UCONN

Add in our horrible special teams play all season and unfortunately I don't see how we win this game.

Coach P may be the better coach, although I think it's a toss-up. Coach P was handed a top-15 program at SU with more than adequate facilities (they deteriorated around him). Coach M was given a bottom-15 program to rebuild with inadequate facilities that are being updated concurrent with the football team. You can't compare them on W-L at this point.

If they're both still around in 5 years we can discuss W-Ls, but right now that's not a fair method to compare them. I think it's sufficient to say both fan-bases are antsy.

 

[OrangeXtreme]

Coach P may be the better coach, although I think it's a toss-up. Coach P was handed a top-15 program at SU with more than adequate facilities (they deteriorated around him). Coach M was given a bottom-15 program to rebuild with inadequate facilities that are being updated concurrent with the football team. You can't compare them on W-L at this point.

If they're both still around in 5 years we can discuss W-Ls, but right now that's not a fair method to compare them. I think it's sufficient to say both fan-bases are antsy.

You're right, it's not a fair comparison.

P took over a program with 36 wins in its' last 4 seasons (37.5 wins if you count ties as a half).

Marrone inherited a 10 win program.

Coach Mac was handed a 21 win program from Maloney. How many seasons did it take him to show results?

 

[RMH44]

I agree talent wise we are close to UCONN. Unfortunately that usually means it's coaching, penalties, and turnovers that decide the game.

Coaching - P > DM. Until I see otherwise I will give the nod to the man who had one losing season in 17 years, with worse facilities and less administrative support. DM has been given all the things P needed to succeed but still hasn't. Advantage UCONN

Penalties - Syracuse is ranked 33 with 90 penalties for 760 yards this season. UCONN is ranked 84th having committed 68 penatlies for 509 yards. UCONN has played 7 games to our 6. Advantage UCONN

Turnovers: Syracuse TO ratio:-1.67 per game. UCONN -1.00 per game. Advantage UCONN

Add in our horrible special teams play all season and unfortunately I don't see how we win this game.

I can't wait for a few more wins. That will send the newspaper board posters scurrying back where they belong.

 

[Pyle]

I can't wait for a few more wins. That will send the newspaper board posters scurrying back where they belong.

Save the insults and address the content of the post please. If you want to act superior to Syr.com posters then at least behave in such a way that would make one believe you are actually superior. I rarely post over there anymore, maybe once or twice a week. Fact is I haven't posted much of anywhere this year. It's hard to get pumped up before a game, and it's hard not to want to just spew immature venom for days after a game. I feel like this season is slipping away and rather than get into some kind of wretched juvenile bashing sesssion I came here for some intelligent conversation.

 

[Millhouse]

We're at home and UConn offense blows. Stranger things have happened but come on.

 

[Pyle]

You're right, it's not a fair comparison.

P took over a program with 36 wins in its' last 4 seasons (37.5 wins if you count ties as a half).

Marrone inherited a 10 win program.

Coach Mac was handed a 21 win program from Maloney. How many seasons did it take him to show results?

DM is 0-1 against P and therefore P still gets the nod. The program slipped under P but he still only had 1 losing season in almost 2 decades. P was not a bad coach. A couple of busts at QB and withering facilities led to his decline. But the guy had over 100 wins. That wouldn't be the case if he was horrible. I'm not saying P is going to win the BCS in 2 year at UCONN. But DM is learning on the job, obviously, that is a hinderance.

I WANT TO POINT OUT RIGHT NOW THAT I NEVER CALLED FOR DM'S HEAD IN ANY OF MY POSTS. I like the direction of the team but I think DM is still learning. I think he's too hesitant to bench someone for a series for making a mistake, I think he's too invested in Nassib, I think he's too invested in Hackett, and for the love of all that's holy what is he doing with our special teams?

 

[OrangeXtreme]

DM is 0-1 against P and therefore P still gets the nod.

SU has home field advantage this time.

If you can call 35,000 people an advantage.

 

[Pyle]

We're at home and UConn offense blows. Stranger things have happened but come on.

We average 15 penalties per game.

We are turning the ball over almost two more times than our opponents per game.

Our special teams are a huge liability.

If we can fix any one of these things against UCONN it should give us an edge. The only time I've seen us fix all those issues at once we ended up beating a superior Pitt team. We absolutely need to do it again if we want to win tomorrow. The problem is just that we haven't really done that all year. Pitt being the exception.

 

[All4SU]

Save the insults and address the content of the post please. If you want to act superior to Syr.com posters then at least behave in such a way that would make one believe you are actually superior. I rarely post over there anymore, maybe once or twice a week. Fact is I haven't posted much of anywhere this year. It's hard to get pumped up before a game, and it's hard not to want to just spew immature venom for days after a game. I feel like this season is slipping away and rather than get into some kind of wretched juvenile bashing sesssion I came here for some intelligent conversation.

It's funny, I don't have any difficulty getting "pumped" for the games. Win or lose, I still really enjoy SU football. Of course, I MUCH prefer winning. What I don't enjoy as much at times like these is the board. It's just not as much fun. So I choose to read/post less. (Save your applause.) Go Orange!

 

[Pyle]

It's funny, I don't have any difficulty getting "pumped" for the games. Win or lose, I still really enjoy SU football. Of course, I MUCH prefer winning. What I don't enjoy as much at times like these is the board. It's just not as much fun. So I choose to read/post less. (Save your applause.) Go Orange!

You are a bigger man than me I admit, I hate losing and don't think it's fun at all.

 

[RMH44]

Save the insults and address the content of the post please. If you want to act superior to Syr.com posters then at least behave in such a way that would make one believe you are actually superior. I rarely post over there anymore, maybe once or twice a week. Fact is I haven't posted much of anywhere this year. It's hard to get pumped up before a game, and it's hard not to want to just spew immature venom for days after a game. I feel like this season is slipping away and rather than get into some kind of wretched juvenile bashing sesssion I came here for some intelligent conversation.

Nah, you came here to get attention and stir the pot.

 

[Pyle]

Nah, you came here to get attention and stir the pot.

Pot's already been stirred, 2-4 led by a QB who is top 10 in the country in interceptions. And I'm not going to defend my wanting to post here, last I checked it's still an open forum. Besides I get all the attention I need from my lady, my kids, and my dog.

 

[OrangePA]

When you call an outside run at the goal-line with your slowest RB then you deserve the criticism you get.

Do you know why that run was called and why it was part of the game plan?

I presume you listened when Marrone explained the purpose of that call?

What call would you have made in that instance? And while you're answering the question please explain the defense that we lined up against for that play.

Thank you.

 

[dollarbill44]

We average 15 penalties per game.

We are turning the ball over almost two more times than our opponents per game.

Our special teams are a huge liability.

If we can fix any one of these things against UCONN it should give us an edge. The only time I've seen us fix all those issues at once we ended up beating a superior Pitt team. We absolutely need to do it again if we want to win tomorrow. The problem is just that we haven't really done that all year. Pitt being the exception.

Where did you get the 15 penalties a game from? We have been penalized 45 times in 6 games.

Not sure Pitt is a superior team to SU. They are 0-3 in the BE and have a loss to an FCS team.

 

[OrangePA]

We're at home and UConn offense blows. Stranger things have happened but come on.

But they have a very good defense and pretty good special teams. Plus their star RB is back this week.

UConn and SU are probably evenly matched.

To suggest that this is an easy game is wrong.

 

[dollarbill44]

But they have a very good defense and pretty good special teams. Plus their star RB is back this week.

UConn and SU are probably evenly matched.

To suggest that this is an easy game is wrong.

I agree. This game is probably going to look a lot like the last 2 games.