Orangeyes Daily Articles for Friday - for Football | Syracusefan.com

Orangeyes Daily Articles for Friday for Football

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Welcome to Baby Boomers Recognition Day!

Baby Boomers Recognition Day is dedicated to baby boomers, the generation that was born between roughly the years of 1946 and 1964. There was an uptick in births during this time, which was spurred by an economic boom and a longing for a return to normalcy after the Great Depression and war. Early baby boomers came of age during the Summer of Love and Woodstock, and grappled with issues such as the Vietnam War during a time of great social change. In general, early baby boomers tended to be more liberal than later baby boomers, although many early baby boomers' politics shifted towards the right in the 1980's. To date, three United States Presidents have been baby boomers: Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump. Their varying ideologies demonstrate that the views of baby boomers are not monolithic...

SU News

Syracuse football depth chart projection: where does SU stand 2 weeks before opener? (PS; Bailey)

Syracuse football is more than halfway through preseason camp and only two weeks away from its season opener at Western Michigan on Aug. 31.

With that in mind, let's revisit the depth chart and make some predictions as to how position battles will play out. SU head coach Dino Babers won't finalize his two-deep until at least after the team's second scrimmage on Saturday.

Starting QB: Eric Dungey
With three injury-shortened seasons in his rearview, Dungey has been waiting for a chance to reshape his legacy since breaking his foot late last season.

Dungey and redshirt freshman Tommy DeVito have split reps for the majority of the preseason, but based on how Babers has treated the situation thus far, it feels unlikely he'll go away from Dungey, even if DeVito outperforms the senior on Saturday.

Backup QB: Tommy DeVito
The highly touted second-year player continues to impress behind the scenes. He's done well with his first-team opportunities and is viewed by many as having the best arm in the quarterback room.

However, experience is ultimately the variable that Babers will point to in making his decision to start Dungey. DeVito hasn't played in a college game yet; that four-game NCAA redshirt rule came a year too late for him.

He'll surely get a chance to play against FCS Wagner in Week 2, but barring a Dungey injury, DeVito's wait to take over will likely stretch into Year 2.

Starting RB: Dontae Strickland

The senior's rushing statistics don't do his skill set justice. He's been forced to make due behind inexperienced offensive lines during the first two years of the Babers era, and while he may not be the most flashy playmaker, Strickland is compact and powerful (just ask safety Evan Foster, who was bowled over in an open team period last week).
Strickland's mastery of the team's protection calls also provides significant value. He's able to make the necessary checks and adjustments on the fly in Babers' hurry-up, spread offense, limiting missed assignments and preventing defenses from getting prepared before the next snap.
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Syracuse football has nowhere to go but up (AP; Kekis)

Syracuse’s Dino Babers is in uncharted territory as he prepares for his seventh season as a head coach. So far, he likes what he sees.

“This is the first time I’ve ever had a Year 3 anywhere,” said Babers, whose first two head coaching jobs were two-year stints at Eastern Illinois and Bowling Green. “I think everybody’s headed in the right direction. I think there’s more of our type of guys (here) than before and I think it’s going to pay off for us in the long run.”

Year 3 holds the promise to be different. Syracuse has finished 4-8 three straight times with Eric Dungey at quarterback, partly because he’s missed the final three games of each season with injuries. The 6-foot-3, 232-pound Dungey is back for his final year, and it’s make-or-break because he has aspirations to keep playing after college.

A dual threat and the key to Babers’ fast-paced offense — the Orange averaged a play every 21 seconds last season — Dungey is the only active FBS quarterback with 6,000 career passing yards and 1,000 rushing yards.

“I’m really trying to make the most of this last season. I’m trying to leave a legacy,” Dungey said.

What helps make this team different is Dungey’s backup, redshirt freshman Tommy DeVito. On paper, DeVito is a big upgrade from previous years — he was an Under Armour All-American in high school and passed for 3,800 yards and 35 TDs — and has benefited from Dungey’s last injury. DeVito was taking a share of the first-team reps in preseason camp, a continuation of his role in spring ball.

Although Dungey did see action in the spring as he continued to recover from a broken foot, he also focused on getting a firmer grasp of the offense and expects this year to be different health-wise. While he was in there last fall, he averaged 343.3 yards offensively per game, sixth in the nation.
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Orange Watch: 2018 Syracuse football game-by-game notes and predictions – Part I - The Juice Online (the juice; Bierman)

Syracuse opens up its 129th season of college football with a true road game for the first time since the 2010 season (at Akron) at Western Michigan on Aug. 31, in the Broncos 30,200 seat Waldo Stadium. The game will mark the first of three in which the opposing head coaches have past SU ties. WMU boss Tim Lester (2013-15) joins Connecticut’s Randy Edsall (1980-1990) and Boston College’s Steve Addazio (1995-96, 1997-98) as former Orange assistants running their own shows, albeit in just his second season following an 18 year run up the coaching ladder to finally running his own show for this successful-of-late MAC program. Lester’s returning to calling the plays this season for his excellent redshirt junior quarterback Jon Wassink coming back from missing the final four games last season with a broken collarbone. Prediction: A late Sterling Hofrichter field goal ices a 27-18 tough road victory. (1-0, 0-0)
» Related: Louisville Cardinals — 2018 Syracuse Football preview
Eight days later, fans headed to what will no doubt be a stuffy and hot “Our House” on the afternoon of Sept. 8 for the home opener against FCS foe Wagner, will also be met with new “Public Safety” guidelines. The university’s Clear Bag Policy and walkthrough metal detectors keeps the Dome up-to-speed with the NFL and most other major college program venues, requiring a clear bag of a certain size to contain select personal items and being scanned through the detector. You can still bring binoculars to watch the game, but not the case. Prediction: The last time the Seahawks came through town in 2013 they departed dropping a 54-0 blitz. This time around, we get a glimpse of the future in Tommy DeVito, and a not-quite-as humdrum 38-6 final score. (2-0, 0-0)
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Orange Watch: Part II of 2018 Syracuse football game-by-game predictions - The Juice Online (the juice; Bierman)

Back for his second season of his second tenure at Connecticut, the pressure is on Randy Edsall to better his two games under .500 cumulative record over 13 seasons on the field, but any evident progress with a ton of underclassmen starting on both sides of the ball may be another year away.

Edsall, rightfully, didn’t want to publicly comment on the preseason coaching fallout at Maryland, his prior stop, and with good reason, coming on the heels of his own awkward ouster from the school. Coming off the Seminole shocker, SU starts slow against UConn in the Dome, up only 14-10 at halftime. But a relentless fast-paced offensive takes its toll on the Huskies defensive scoring 17 third quarter points, including two DeVito scoring strikes, on route to a 38-24 victory and the best start since the 2010 team won four of its first five, and the undefeated 1987 team’s 4-0 mark. (4-0, 1-0)

Similar to its situation as an Eastern Independent in the 1960s and 70s with Penn State, and in the 1990s with Miami in the Big East, now Syracuse has Clemson in its ACC division, an annual national title contender. Why even Sports Illustrated labeled this year’s Tigers defensive line, featuring four all-ACC first team preseason selections and likely first round NFL draft picks, “The Best Ever.” Despite a national championship in 1981, Clemson’s rise as a program has been handcrafted by Dabo Swinney and staff bringing in elite talent, and a famous fan base for contributing the revenue necessary to build truly one-of-a-kind facilities to give its players every advantage. What are the odds that Swinney would drop games to Syracuse in consecutive years? We couldn’t find those among a couple of new East Coast sports books college football offerings, but suffice to say the Clemson players repeatedly watched the video of SU celebrating its Friday the 13th Dome win from last October during winter workouts, and 80,000 plus will go home happy from Memorial Stadium this time around with a 41-21 victory. (4-1, 1-1)
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Boston College hoping to take next step in ACC (espn.com; AP)

AJ Dillon ran for 1,589 yards and 14 touchdowns for Boston College as a freshman behind a patchwork offensive line that was constantly shuffling in new players because of injury.

Give Dillon a full season behind some healthy blockers, and the Eagles think they can break into the top half of the Atlantic Coast Conference.

"The quality of the unit, the cohesiveness of the unit is evident," tight end Tommy Sweeneysaid this summer. "When you have a tailback like him and when you all come together, it's a tough thing to stop."
Boston College went 7-6 last year for the fourth time in five seasons under coach Steve Addazio, turning things around after a 2-4 start with a stunning 45-42 victory at Louisville. Dillon ran for 272 yards and four touchdowns in that game and averaged nearly 180 yards per game over the second half of the season.


Heading into his sophomore season as the ACC's preseason player of the year, Dillon said he wants to remake himself as an all-purpose back who can catch passes out of the backfield. (He had zero receptions last year.) The player who carried the ball 39 times against Louisville also said he wants to work on his stamina.

"Not that I'm never going to get tired, but I'm going to give 100 percent each play I'm out there, 100 percent effort," he said. "That's what I expect of myself. That's what I'm trying to do now in camp as I'm getting those reps."

The Eagles open the season on Sept. 1 against UMass.

Here are some other things to look for in Chestnut Hill this year:
THE NEXT STEP
The Eagles had won two of their previous 17 ACC games when they went down to Louisville on Oct. 14 and beat the Cardinals. With wins in the next two conference games -- and four out of five in all -- BC players point to that game as the turning point that allowed them to finish with a 7-5 record in the regular season and a trip to the Pinstripe Bowl.

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https://primesportsnetwork.com/acc-football-report-debut-show/ (primesportsnetwork.com; podcast; Shain)

Greg DePalma and longtime ACC columnist Jerry Ratcliffe, now seen at JerryRatcliffe.com, get together to look at the top contenders to Clemson‘s reign atop the football roost – along with who’s destined to take a step back. They’re joined this week by CaneSport publisher Gary Ferman, who has chronicled Miami‘s highs and lows for more than three decades.

Clemson's pursuers have new looks in ACC's Atlantic Division ( collegefootball.ap.org)

Clemson looks ready for another year as the Atlantic Coast Conference favorite in a division that has long been the league's center of power.

It's the teams behind the three-time defending ACC champion Tigers in the Atlantic Division that are sporting a different look.

Florida State has a new coach in Willie Taggart. Louisville has lost a Heisman Trophy winner in quarterback Lamar Jackson after he spent the past two seasons terrorizing division defenses. And North Carolina State, which finished second to Clemson last year, faces significant questions after defensive player of the year Bradley Chubb was among four defensive linemen selected in the NFL draft.
So how will all that change among Clemson's top contenders affect the divisional race?


"We're about to find out," Louisville coach Bobby Petrino said Thursday during the ACC Kickoff preseason media days. "I think that's greatest thing about the game. We can do all this talking in the offseason and spring and summer, but then the season starts. And that's when you find out who's going to be where, and who's going to challenge Clemson. Obviously it has to go through Clemson. But it's time for someone to get them."
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ACC Football Rx: ACC Football: Against All Odds (accfootballrx.com; HM)

I can't see the future - none of us can - but that has never seemed to stop those who want to foretell doom and gloom for the ACC. So far there have been some pretty dismal predictions, but the outcome has not been so bad. Here's a reminder of some of those dark forecasts from the past...

2012 - "the ACC won't be included among the power conferences"*https://accfootballrx.blogspot.com/...age-91-million-new-playoff-format-sources-say
2013 - "the ACC won't stay together"*https://www.forbes.com/sites/chriss...ogspot.com/2013/04/breaking-news-acc-gor.html
2014 - "the ACC won't get a team into the playoffs"*ACC Football Rx: CFP Stats through 4 Years
2015 - "the ACC won't win a CFP championship"*ACC Football Rx: BELIEVE IT: Tigers win!
2016 - "the ACC will never get an ACC Network"*ACC Football Rx: BREAKING NEWS: ACC Network

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ACC Football Rx: My Ideal ACC (accfootballrx.com; HM)

I got this idea from Andy Bitter (formerly of the Roanoke Times but now with The Athletic). He was asked this question in his mailbag while still at the Times:
VT Mailbag question: What would be your ideal ACC in a perfect world? which teams would you like to add... and subtract that make actual geographical sense?


Andy Bitter: I'll answer this from a football sense, since the ACC basketball setup is pretty good as it is. And actually, in my ideal world the league would go back to being nine teams, so you could play a full round robin in football and not have the ridiculousness that is the ACC's current scheduling model, when Tech plays teams like Florida State and Clemson once every six years. But alas, we're not going back to those days, so I'll stick with a super conference model, as much as I dislike it.

In a perfect world, you would a bunch of top programs in states all along the Atlantic Coast, or at least in states that border the Atlantic in some way, even if the schools are inland by quite a ways. I mean, that's the name of the conference, right? So I say bring Maryland back to its proper home. The Terps shouldn't be in the Big Ten to begin with. And let's add Penn State while we're at it. It wasn't that long ago that the Nittany Lions were football independents looking for a home. That shores up the north, so we need some Southern schools. Bring Florida and South Carolina into the fold. USCe was once an ACC school anyway and provides a nice in-state rival for Clemson. The Gators just complete the Florida triangle. Let's take Georgiatoo, since we're raiding the SEC. Make that annual Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate matchup with Georgia Tech mean a little more. And because we're living in a fantasy land, let's add Notre Dame as a full member. Even though it doesn't make much geographical sense, the Irish have a very East Coast feel.

You can't add those teams without booting some others ones, so here goes. Louisville's gone. Last one in is the first one out. Wake Forest is just too small to bring all that much to the league, so it's out too. Syracuse gets the boot for a true northern power like Penn State. And, as much improvement as Duke has made in football over the years, we're talking about constructing a football-heavy league here, so the Blue Devils are out as well...

So that's six in and four out, making it a 16-team league with headliners that include Clemson, FSU, Florida, Georgia, Miami, VT, Penn State and Notre Dame. If the NCAA Football video game were still around, I think I'd actually go construct this league right now.
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Other

With season approaching, three more CNY teams drop down to 8-man football (PS; Weidner)

Suddenly there are a lot more teams playing eight-man football in Central New York.

Three more area teams - Class D schools West Canada Valley and Morrisville-Eaton, and Class C Sherburne-Earlville - have joined Weedsport in requesting a move from traditional 11-man football to field eight-man teams this year.

Section III today allowed those schools to make the change, according to several sources at a meeting to rework schedules, expanding the current Eight-Man league to 12 teams.

The new Eight-Man league will have two six-team divisions and will include a team from the North Country, Tupper Lake, which was already in this fall's lineup.

Weedsport requested the change on Tuesday, and three other schools followed suit.

Although the Warriors technically had enough players (20) to play 11-man football, Weedsport coach Jon Sgarlata said the number of young, inexperienced players and a lack of depth necessitated the move for his program.

Eight-man football is similar to the 11-man game, except three fewer players are on the field. Generally, the tackles and either a back or receiver is removed on offense, and the defense matches up accordingly.

The Section III handbook states that teams need a minimum of 16 players to field an 11-man football program but only 12 for an eight-man team.
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