Fan Fest Report

[Trueblue25]

Honestly, I wasn’t blown away from the look of the interior. Trying to look up at the championship pennants and you get blinded by the lights. My son kept asking where was Gerry’s uniform , where was the Jim Brown mural etc. A lot of the banners were generally hard to read they were so small.Up top could use some spiffing up . A lot of grey around the top of the Dome interior
The center scoreboard is amazing. Crystal clear.

Hopefully they’re reviewing similar candid feedback before the home opener

 

[upperdeck]

Or, 3rd option: no one outside of the diehards noticed any of this at all and we’ll win our first two regardless

well if less than 1000 showed up then i think most didnt know it was happening or didnt care.. no one i knew who had seasons knew about it except those on this board.. does that mean most ignore the emails so they dont know about tickets and concessions either?

 

[OrangeXtreme]

well if less than 1000 showed up then i think most didnt know it was happening or didnt care.. no one i knew who had seasons knew about it except those on this board.. does that mean most ignore the emails so they dont know about tickets and concessions either?

Or they went to see Pitbull and Iggy Azalea at the Amp.

 

[dollarbill44]

Dino is either going to be seen as a genius for his lack of media coverage and marketing of the team because he’s rolling out something amazing he doesn’t want anyone to know about, or he will be seen as a fool.

Maybe he is nonplussed about fanfest and sees it more as a chore-something he has to do, and the practice reflects that. Or, perhaps he doesn't want to plan an extravagant party and very few people show up?
I agree, that these are missed opportunities to connect with and broaden the fanbase, but I don't see his lack of enthusiasm as a grand strategy.

 

[OrlandoCuse]

Or, 3rd option: no one outside of the diehards noticed any of this at all and we’ll win our first two regardless

Problem is the diehards are an ever shrinking cohort of fans. Dino shouldn’t whine when 12k fans show up for a game. That’s entirely on him for his lack of media engagement and marketing surrounding the team. Driving fan support takes work. I give Dino and the school a when it comes to media and marketing. It was much better a few years ago.

 

[OrangeinBoston]

Problem is the diehards are an ever shrinking cohort of fans. Dino shouldn’t whine when 12k fans show up for a game. That’s entirely on him for his lack of media engagement and marketing surrounding the team. Driving fan support takes work. I give Dino and the school a when it comes to media and marketing. It was much better a few years ago.

Driving fan support takes winning. The rest of the stuff is just fluff.

 

[OrlandoCuse]

Driving fan support takes winning. The rest of the stuff is just fluff.

It’s more than binary.

 

[Chris02M]

Honestly, I wasn’t blown away from the look of the interior. Trying to look up at the championship pennants and you get blinded by the lights. My son kept asking where was Gerry’s uniform , where was the Jim Brown mural etc. A lot of the banners were generally hard to read they were so small.Up top could use some spiffing up . A lot of grey around the top of the Dome interior
The center scoreboard is amazing. Crystal clear.

the gray is more in the endzones the sidelines are filled with blue and orange

 

[Newhouser]

well if less than 1000 showed up then i think most didnt know it was happening or didnt care.. no one i knew who had seasons knew about it except those on this board.. does that mean most ignore the emails so they dont know about tickets and concessions either?

I think this is a good point. I get most of my info from this board, even though I get all the emails.

 

[FloridaFan]

If winning is all that matters then why does practically every single other team do more marketing?

 

[JRHEETER]

Geez, at first I was bummed I missed this.

Now I’m thankful that I didn’t attend…….

Not a good start to the season for Dino with the fans who are already on the fence with him.

 

[OrangeinBoston]

Not a good start to the season for Dino with the fans who are already on the fence with him.

You mean the few hundred who showed up? They really matter.

Win and all is forgiven. Win and ticket sales go through the roof.

 

[JRHEETER]

You mean the few hundred who showed up? They really matter.

Win and all is forgiven. Win and ticket sales go through the roof.

Imagine if Syracuse tried to get fans even when they weren’t winning.

Imagine how loyal those fans would be?

Imagine how much more money Syracuse would get.

College football is about winning but its much more about entertaining.

Fan fest is a great opportunity to convince people that Syracuse is an exciting brand of football in a controlled setting.

Missed opportunity IMO for Dino and Syracuse.

But hey, what do I know, just an armchair qb over here

 

[OrangeinBoston]

Imagine if Syracuse tried to get fans even when they weren’t winning.

Imagine how loyal those fans would be?

Imagine how much more money Syracuse would get.

College football is about winning but its much more about entertaining.

Fan fest is a great opportunity to convince people that Syracuse is an exciting brand of football in a controlled setting.

Missed opportunity IMO for Dino and Syracuse.

But hey, what do I know, just an armchair qb over here

Football in the Northeast is entertainment. A lousy team is not entertaining. No matter how much lipstick you put on a pig, it's still a pig. You can do all the marketing stuff you want, and nobody will care if the team stinks.

 

[JRHEETER]

Football in the Northeast is entertainment. A lousy team is not entertaining. No matter how much lipstick you put on a pig, it's still a pig. You can do all the marketing stuff you want, and nobody will care if the team stinks.

And they care even less, when you don’t even try

 

[OrangeinBoston]

And they care even less, when you don’t even try

Win the first 4 games and you won't be able to buy a ticket.

 

[bigmike]

I’m just excited about potentially dropping my normal bottled water consumption from 4 bottles to 1.

 

[TheCusian]

Problem is the diehards are an ever shrinking cohort of fans. Dino shouldn’t whine when 12k fans show up for a game. That’s entirely on him for his lack of media engagement and marketing surrounding the team. Driving fan support takes work. I give Dino and the school a when it comes to media and marketing. It was much better a few years ago.

It’s totally on him in that the results on the field have made it tough the last 2 seasons. I think if you’re putting media/marketing on him, you don’t understand how athletic departments work. “Entirely on him” lol

 

[Crusty]

I went to Fan Fest. Haven’t read the board at all, so if some of this is a repeat of stuff already posted, I apologize.

My first reaction was extreme disappointment when the players came out without pads on. Would expecting to see some hitting, some blocking and some tackling.

That said, it was great to see football back in the dome. Even if it was only doing stretching and running some drills.

The air conditioning was noticeable on a hot, humid afternoon in Syracuse and was greatly appreciated. I have already seen the new scoreboards from lacrosse season but they remain impressive and the renovated dome looks bright, clean, shiny new and really good.

I tried the new cashless concessions. Went to a stand with a deep fryer in the south west corner of the dome. The setup was similar to what you see in those small kiosks at airports. You walk up, look at an assortment of food choices (just chicken tenders and fries, chicken sandwiches and fries alone), pick what you want. then go to a display case filled with beverages, grab what you want, then head to the clerk with your credit card or pay enabled phone and settle up. I scanned my soda, but could not scan my chicken tenders and fries, because there was no bar code. The girl had to manually enter the code, which took a while and wrecked the otherwise excellent setup.

View attachment 205047
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You can’t have some items without barcodes. I know this was a dress rehearsal and maybe someone just forgot this or maybe there wasn’t time to get barcodes up the boxes, but I hope it gets fixed. If things are set up right, most people should not need any assistance. It should be just like self checkout at a supermarket. Once the girl entered the code for the tenders, I gave the credit card gizmo a tap with my credit card and was good to go. The tenders and fries were warm and of good quality. Real chicken in the tenders; not the low quality ground chicken for the tenders that has been used in previous years at the dome. Those concerned about my keto diet should know I only had a couple of fries and turned the rest over to an expert fry eater who is also a moderator on the board. The tenders had some breading but not a lot. Guessing 15-20 grams all told. So all good there.

Anyway, I think the setup for the concession stand I went to is a lot better than in the past. Wish there were more food choices, but I understand this was a dress rehearsal and they probably didn’t go all out. I believe the deep fryer stands in the corners will at least have burgers as well. There were an assortment of sodas and adult beverages available for purchase. See attached pictures.

I will mention that I still think the light placement is going to have to be changed. Too many lights are directed into the sight line of fans and it makes it hard to watch the action on the field. They are going to have to have the center hung scoreboard hung really high for football, which makes it awkward to look at sitting on the lower level, and I again got a sore neck from having to crane it to look at the scoreboard at such a steep angle. I ended up stop looking at the center hung scoreboard because it wasn’t worth it.

The sound system was okay but it was hard to understand Sterlin (maybe it was his Texas twang). It was also hard to understand Nick Monroe. Maybe they used low quality microphones? Not sure but the garbled sound quality was disturbing to hear.

I would guess there were around 600 fans that came to the event. The crowd was really quiet. The practice was not exciting to watch and there frankly was nothing to cheer about. I think the biggest ovation of the day was when a player on the kicking team recovered an on sides kick and ran down the sideline toward the end zone.

Let’s talk about what the players did during Fan Fest. There was a lot of special teams work.

The punting teams practiced punting a lot. Looks like the competition for starting punter is down to Colby Barker, the walk-on former lacrosse player who transferred in from Ohio State, and frosh scholarship punter James Williams. James appears to be more flexible, has better form and on this day anyway, punted considerably better than Colby. He wasn’t great and he wasn’t awful. He looked adequate. I expect him to start against Ohio.

I think the gunners were Courtney Jackson and Garrett Williams. Bolinsky was the long snapper.

There was a long stretch where special teams practiced on side kick offs. I think the focus was actually on practicing receiving on sides kick offs. I can say James Williams did not look great at kicking on side kickoffs. This was really boring to watch. It was almost like Dino was trying to design the most boring drills possible to watch.

They practiced normal kickoffs as well. Szmyt and Williams appear to be the finalists for the KO job. Williams took most of them and appeared to have a significantly stronger leg than Andre. He got his KOs into the end zone around 75% of the time. Szmyt didn’t get any into the end zone but I think he had better hang time on his. Anyway, Williams appears to have an advantage here. Looks like he will be decent to good. Somewhere in between.

The KO returners were Pena, who I think is going to be the primary guy, Harris and Jackson.

I think Pena and Jackson lined up to return punts. Maybe Harris did too. Pena again seemed like he was the primary guy.

Szmyt took all or almost all the FG attempts. He looked really relaxed, and really good. Made like 15 in a row until I pointed this out and he hit an upright and missed one. Great form, very relaxed. He is also sporting a man bun this season.

It looks like Midkiff, a backup long snapper, is going to be the holder this season.

I believe the KO coverage team had the following players on it, besides Szmyt: Jackson, Mang, Max, Cartin-Arcu, Thompson, Barron, Carter, LaBrosse and Simmons.

After all the special teams drills, they finally did a little thud type scrimmaging. It was short, fast and furious but this is what I think I saw:

First team offense

QB Devito
RB Tucker
FB Rhino
WR Harris
WR Queeley
TE Benson
LT Servais
LG Bleich
C Vetterello
RG Ellis
RT Tisdale

Comments

Bergeron was in plain clothes. Spent a long time talking to Dino. Looked fine. My guess is that he had a heat stroke episode yesterday and sat out today as a precautionary move. Davis did not participate in OL drills and while he was dressed, it appears he is not ready to play as of today. I would have expected Ilaoa or Froumy to fill in for Davis but it was the true frosh Ellis, who I think even now is the biggest man I have ever seen in a Syracuse uniform. It was interesting Tisdale was moved to RT instead of moving a backup OT in there. To me, that says the staff likes Ellis more than any backup tackle (and is the 3rd OG on the depth guard right now).

Now I know coaches like to play around a bit in the preseason and maybe this was just an experiment. But it makes a startling rise up the depth chart early by Kelan.

If everyone is healthy, I would think Bergeron is the LT, Bleich the LG, looks like Vet is the C, with Davis the RG and Servais the RT. Tisdale and Ellis look like the first two OL off the bench.

Second team OL

LT Barclay
LG Kauai
C Ilaos
RG Froumy
RT Bradford

Hoeh looks like the 3rd team center.. Cruz appears to be in the mix for 2nd team LT. Kisstenstein is a backup OG. I think the 3rd unit only played one brief series, not sure who played there other than Hoeh at center.

Lutz got some snaps with the first team offense. Harris played in the slot and outside. I think they are going to move him around. Looks like Pena is the 2nd slot behind Jackson (unless you count Harris here too). Harris and Queeley got most of the run outside. Johnson looked like he got the next most snaps outside. Alford, Jackson, Jones and Gadsden got some PT outside too. Alford and Gadsden pass the look test. Big and strong. We haven’t had WRs like them in a while.

Tommy looked really relaxed and confident and I think played flawlessly. He had time to throw, had people open and moved the ball when he was out there. Shrader played quite a bit and I thought he looked good. Threw it well, looked relatively comfortable. I don’t think he ran the ball.

Luke Benson caught a ball in the flat and ran a long way for a TD. He still has excellent speed. Harris looked really good. Hard for the RBs to do much when the refs blew a whistle whenever anyone got near them but Tucker looked jacked and impressive.

First team defense

LT Kingsley
NT Harper
RT Black

LB Wax
LB Jones
LB Thompson

CB WIlliams
CB Chestnut
FS Hanna
Rover? Simmons
BS? Carter

Wax appears to be ahead of Cartin_Arku for the 3rd starting position at LB
McKinley was dressed but did not participate in drills. I hope that means he is close to playing again. Harper looks like he has dropped some weight and is quicker
I am not sure who played where with Simmons and Carter; didn’t have enough time to identify who played where, but they were the starters.

Second team defense

I won’t list the whole team here.
The CBs were Atkinson and Greenwood. I thought it was Greenwood anyway, but he was on the opposite side of the field from me and it might have been Sweetwood. That would make more sense. Greenwood might have been at FS the more I think about it.
Cartin-Arku was one of the LBs
I think the backup rover was Barron. Barron was playing one of the safety position on the south unit anyway. LaBrosse was another of the safeties.
I didn’t see Nunn out there. Don’t think he is ready to play yet.
Not sure who the backup DL were. I know Roscoe was one of the DEs.

Thompson looked really good. Which they let these guys play a little more.

The team looks big and strong. You can see there are a lot more players on the sidelines than in recent years. A lot of guys look bigger than they did last season. Thompson, Tucker, Alford, Tommy, Bolinsky, Wax and LaBrosse all come to mind here. Bleich looks really big. As does Davis. Like I said, Ellis is just ridiculously wide and broad. His frame is jumbo times 4. If I knew nothing, looking at the OL, I would think Froumy was the best player. He is really big, jacked and in really good shape. He looks like an OL is supposed to look.

Dino talked briefly after the practice and basically thanked us for coming and told us the team needed us to win this season. Dino by the way has a strong left arm and threw some nice spirals playing catch with a ball boy before practice started.

Based on reps in drills, JaCobian is the third string QB.

Looking forward to next week's tuba report.

 

[Bayside44]

Imagine if Syracuse tried to get fans even when they weren’t winning.

Imagine how loyal those fans would be?

Imagine how much more money Syracuse would get.

College football is about winning but its much more about entertaining.

Fan fest is a great opportunity to convince people that Syracuse is an exciting brand of football in a controlled setting.

Missed opportunity IMO for Dino and Syracuse.

But hey, what do I know, just an armchair qb over here

It's about winning IMO and that's it. That 4-8 team was pretty entertaining taking LSU, FSU and Miami to the wire, but three bland wins instead and that record won't get thrown back in Dino's face.

 

[OrlandoCuse]

It’s totally on him in that the results on the field have made it tough the last 2 seasons. I think if you’re putting media/marketing on him, you don’t understand how athletic departments work. “Entirely on him” lol

LMAO. Dino has literally shut down almost all media. But sure, it’s not on him. Media is part of marketing if done right.

 

[Orijinal]

I think lack of media access is on the athletic department. If the athletic department mandates it, it will happen. But it's not happening because Dino has an option to do as little communication as possible.

We'll get a a Spring game next year whether Dino likes it or not, because the ACC is mandating it. He can do it kicking and screaming, but at least we will get one. You wanna be big time? Act big time and stop doing the bare minimums

 

[Consigliere]

Either didn’t realize or forgot that the number of practices in full pads was cut this year. No sense spending one of the few allotted full pads practices on an event like FanFest. Still could have done more but I am a bit more understanding .

How Coaches Feel About CFB's Fall Camp Changes

Opinions vary greatly on the proposal, which will reduce the number of full-padded, contact practices in camp.

www.si.com

 

[zjscuse]

Just win that’s all that matters you want die hard fans in there twenties and teens? Then win! Majority of my friends have no recollection of the hey day of the 90’s cuz they were babies . Heck I only know cuz my grandfather was a die hard.. I can never get any of them to go to a game… after the 10 win season there was a small glimpse into the powder keg that is this program… this fan base has been starving for 2 decades … just win , we start winning we are going to constantly start blowing attendance records and you will have a new generation of die hards .. who cares about a fan fest (although i really wanted to go and see the new dome in person)

 

[dollarbill44]

Just win that’s all that matters you want die hard fans in there twenties and teens? Then win! Majority of my friends have no recollection of the hey day of the 90’s cuz they were babies . Heck I only know cuz my grandfather was a die hard.. I can never get any of them to go to a game… after the 10 win season there was a small glimpse into the powder keg that is this program… this fan base has been starving for 2 decades … just win , we start winning we are going to constantly start blowing attendance records and you will have a new generation of die hards .. who cares about a fan fest (although i really wanted to go and see the new dome in person)

I agree that winning begets fans, but we will never break any attendance records if simply due to the fact the Dome has fewer seats than it used to.