sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
- Joined
- Aug 15, 2011
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Welcome to National Hot Pastrami Sandwich Day!
New York is the perfect city in which to celebrate National Hot Pastrami Sandwich Day, thanks to the plethora of Jewish and Jewish-style delicatessens to be found throughout the city. The best way to celebrate any holiday devoted to a food item is, of course, to eat the thing. And, in New York, you have your choice among the historic delis such as Katz’s, Ben’s, Carnegie, etc. And remember the only proper bread on which to enjoy such a sandwich is rye!
SU News
How former SU Football Star Derrell Smith became a ‘Hustler that can Cook’ (DO; Emerman)
In his two-bedroom apartment on Jamesville Road, roughly three miles from Manley Field House, Derrell Smith finally found the breakthrough he was looking for. It was about 2 a.m., but he called his best friend Bruce Williams.
“Yo, come over,” Smith remembered telling Williams. “We got a winner.”
Judging by the tone of Smith’s voice, Williams knew it was serious. It was 2013, roughly one year since Smith retired from the NFL. Williams rushed over to Smith’s apartment, dipped a meatball into sauce, and indulged.
“I’m going to sell this one day,” Smith said as his former Syracuse teammate’s eyes lit up with delight.
Smith never writes down recipes, but he never forgot what he put in the “OG sauce” he and Williams refer to today; the sauce that propelled Smith into the culinary industry, one that’s a “sweet, spicy, creamy vodka-less vodka sauce.”
Five years later, as a viral chef for Tastemade, social justice advocate, CEO and successful meatball caterer, Smith is combining the entrepreneurial instincts and culinary imagination he developed at Syracuse.
“I’m a hustler that can cook,” he quipped.
***
Growing up in West Philadelphia, Smith always watched his mom cook. She let him lick the cake bowls when she baked, which “sparked my interest,” he said. Smith cooked his first meal for his family when he was seven years old — pork chops, which he burnt.
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Sapakoff: Clemson football run puts Chick-fil-A heat on Will Muschamp, Ray Tanner, ACC coaches (postandcourier.com; Sapakoff)
Dabo Swinney late in Clemson’s famous/infamous five-game losing streak to South Carolina looked upward in search of an explanation.
“For whatever reason,” he said, “God chose me to be the head coach at Clemson during the greatest era in the history of South Carolina football.”
Swinney ultimately survived Steve Spurrier, and after a signature 44-16 drubbing of Alabama last Monday night in Santa Clara, Calif., is 2-1 in national championship games against Nick Saban, the greatest coach in the history of college football.
Yes, the same Nicholas Lou Saban Jr. whose dominance in the mighty SEC is such that his shadow rattles job security at other schools.
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ACC Prospects 2019 NFL Draft | Clemson Players NFL Draft | Florida State Players NFL Draft | (drafttek.com)
Rnk O/A Rnk Change Player/School Ht/Wt BIO S/R
1 8 -5 Clelin Ferrell
Clemson 6'5"
250 BIO --
2 16 +4 Kelvin Harmon
NC State 6'2"
213 BIO --
3 17 +39 Juan Thornhill
Virginia 6'0"
200 BIO --
4 23 +12 Zach Allen
Boston College 6'5"
285 BIO --
5 25 +1 Christian Wilkins
Clemson 6'4"
300 BIO --
6 29 -3 Dexter Lawrence
Clemson 6'4"
340 BIO --
7 30 +16 Trayvon Mullen
Clemson 6'2"
190 BIO --
8 33 -18 Jaquan Johnson
Miami (FL) 5'11"
190 BIO --
9 39 -1 Daniel Jones
Duke 6'5"
215 BIO --
10 55 +8 Gerald Willis III
Miami (FL) 6'4"
285 BIO --
11 65 -4 Lukas Denis
Boston College 5'11"
188 BIO --
12 69 -28 Brian Burns
Florida State 6'5"
231 BIO --
13 70 +223 Tre Lamar
Clemson 6'4"
250 BIO --
14 73 +26 Chris Lindstrom
Boston College 6'3"
307 BIO --
15 76 -6 Demarcus Christmas
Florida State 6'4"
308 BIO --
16 77 -6 Michael Jackson
Miami (FL) 6'0"
200 BIO --
17 78 NEW Germaine Pratt
North Carolina St 6'2"
241 BIO --
18 79 -1 Anthony Ratliff-Williams
North Carolina 6'1"
205 BIO --
19 88 -- Sheldrick Redwine
Miami (FL) 6'1"
195 BIO --
20 95 -3 Ricky Walker
Virginia Tech 6'1"
310 BIO --
21 100 -67 Joe Jackson
Miami (FL) 6'5"
258 BIO --
22 111 -27 Austin Bryant
Clemson 6'4"
265 BIO --
23 119 +1 Hunter Renfrow
Clemson 5'10"
180 BIO --
24 124 +33 Wyatt Ray
Boston College 6'2"
255 BIO --
25 128 -9 Mark Gilbert
Duke 6'1"
175 BIO --
26 135 -61 Kendall Joseph
Clemson 6'0"
230 BIO --
27 136 NEW Garrett Bradbury
North Carolina St 6'2"
300 BIO --
28 146 -- Jacques Patrick
Florida State 6'3"
236 BIO --
29 150 +2 Reggie Floyd
Virginia Tech 6'0"
221 BIO --
30 164 NEW Chris Slayton
Syracuse 6'4"
309 BIO --
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ACC Football Rx: Links - Miami edition 1/11/19 (HM; RX)
Former USC S Bolden Commits to Miami Hurricanes
The first commitment of the Manny Diaz Era at Miami is a big one. Former USC safety Bubba Bolden announced on Twitter late Wednesday night that he has committed to play for the Hurricanes. Bolden is currently at a junior college, but not playing football.
The former All-American and consensus Top100 recruit was in line to start for the Trojans this past season after appearing in 13 games as a true freshman, but was suspended before the season opener and eventually withdrew from the Pac-12 school in October following a student conduct issue. He shared details on the suspension in the days following his exit.
"The University's office of Student Judicial Affairs and Community Standards (SJACS) believes that I am responsible for violating the student code of conduct pertaining to underage drinking at an off-campus party back in February 2018 wherein I participated in mutual trash-talking with fellow party-goes. As the vibe at the party turned unfriendly, I left with several friends. Approximately nine days afterward, the party hosts reported feeling threatened by me that night, which sparked a USC SJACS investigation."
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Dave Doeren completes NC State football staff (thestate.com; Giglio)
Dave Doeren completed his staff makeover on Sunday with the hiring of assistant coach Tony Gibson.
Gibson, who worked at West Virginia the previous six seasons, will be the safeties coach and co-defensive coordinator. He replaces Ted Roof, who left to become Appalachian State’s defensive coordinator.
“I’m excited that Tony Gibson will now be a part of our program,” Doeren said in a statement released by the team. “He brings a wealth of experience as a defensive backs coach, a defensive coordinator and as a strong recruiter and mentor. He’s known for getting his players to play hard and has a great reputation not only with his former players but with the high schools where he’s recruited.”
Gibson, who was WVU’s defensive coordinator for five seasons, has also worked at Arizona, Pittsburgh and Michigan.
Doeren had to remake nearly a third of his staff after the 2018 season. Offensive coordinator Eli Drinkwitz was hired by Appalachian State as the head coach and Roof joined Drinkwitz in Boone. Offensive line coach Dwayne Ledford was hired as Louisville’s offensive coordinator.
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ACC Football Rx: Is the ACC Network getting too many games for 2019 Week 1? (RX; HM)
I've heard and read some people giving the opinion that the ACC must be desperate or something to put so many conference football games on the ACC Network for opening weekend (so far Ga Tech @ Clemson for sure, but rumored to include Va Tech @ Boston College and Virginia @ Pitt). What if I told you I expect them to put two or three MORE games on the ACCN?
Why would I say such a thing? Because I looked up the schedule for the first weekend of the SEC Network... here it is:
Thursday, 8/28/2014
6:00 PM - Texas A&M at South Carolina
9:15 PM - Temple at Vanderbilt
Saturday 8/30/2014
12 Noon - UT-Martin at Kentucky
4:00 PM - Arkansas at Auburn
7:30 PM - Southern Miss at Miss. St.
Sunday 8/31/2014
7:00 PM - Utah St. at Tennessee
That's SIX games on the SECN, including two on Thursday and one on Sunday (TBH, I had forgotten about that Sunday game). Two of those were conference match-ups, too.
True, three of the games involved G5 opponents, and one was against an FCS team - and we may see some of that on the ACC Network as well. When the SEC Network launched in 2014 it showed 48 football games - including 6 each in the first 2 weeks. This past football season the SEC Network showed 52 football games - again, with 6 on opening weekend...
So if the ACC Network needs MORE games for opening weekend, which ones will it get? Assuming ESPN isn't going to put a big-time neutral-site game like UNC-South Carolina (@Charlotte) or Miami-Florida (@Orlando), these figure to be the primary candidates for the ACCN on opening weekend:
Friday, Aug. 30th
Utah State at Wake Forest
Saturday, Aug. 31st
East Carolina at NC State
Looking ahead to week 2 we have the following ACCN candidates:
USF at Georgia Tech
Richmond at Boston College
...
ACC Football Rx: ACC Recruiting Trends, 2016-19 (RX; HM)
According to 247Sports, here's how the 14 teams that play ACC football have ranked in terms of national college football recruiting over the last 4 years:*
Team 2016 2017 2018 2019
BC 78 67 65 55
Clemson 11 16 7 6
Duke 33 47 60 42
FSU 3 6 10 17
GT 60 48 53 54
Louisville 38 34 31 132
Miami 22 12 4 33
UNC 32 29 36 39
NC State 50 53 28 26
Pitt 30 37 49 51
Syracuse 62 54 47 59
UVA 63 58 62 35
VT 42 26 22 29
WFU 57 68 58 46
Average 41.5 39.6 38.0 44.6
* note: 2019 recruiting is not over, with quite a few good players still unsigned (see AL.com's Look at Who's Still Available)
As you can see, the average recruiting rank was trending better (lower is better), and if not for the horrible current rank for Louisville (which only has 5 players so far but hopefully will sign lots more in February), it might have continued the trend (in fact, if we remove Louisville altogether the 2019 average falls again, to 37.9).
The problem as I see it is that some traditional football schools - Florida State, Miami, even Pitt - are recruiting worse than before. In the case of the two Florida schools, turnover of the head coaches (along with a pretty good recruiter in Gainesville) has pushed the Noles and Canes down a bit. Pitt is probably suffering from a Penn State upswing.
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ACC Football Rx: Best 2019 OOC Games (SN) (RX; HM)
Sporting News has picked "College football's best non-conference games to watch in 2019"
Eight of them involve an ACC team, and a 9th involves Notre Dame vs. an SEC team...
19. Kansas at Boston College (Sept. 14)
Les Miles should have the Jayhawks at 2-0 heading into their first road game at Boston College. Imagine the buzz around the “Mad Hatter” if Kansas can pull off an upset here.
18. Washington State vs. Houston (Sept. 13)
17. Army at Michigan (Sept. 7)
16. TCU at Purdue (Sept. 14)
15. FAU vs. Ohio State (Aug. 31)
14. Arizona State at Michigan State (Sept. 14)
...
ACC Football Rx: JHowell Final 2018 Power Ratings (RX; HM)
JHowell.net computes power ratings for all college football teams, along with an aggregate power rating for the conferences. Here's how that site rates the conferences for the 2018-19 season:
Conference PR SOS Win%
SEC 0.708 0.747 0.621
ACC 0.632 0.692 0.556
Big Ten 0.602 0.654 0.542
Big 12 0.6 0.614 0.563
Pac 12 0.576 0.596 0.536
Independent 0.544 0.476 0.573
MWC 0.496 0.434 0.513
Sun Belt 0.496 0.437 0.516
American 0.494 0.45 0.497
MAC 0.443 0.414 0.447
CUSA 0.434 0.351 0.472
Despite what most would agree was a "down" year, the ACC still came in second behind the SEC and in front of the other power conferences.
More evidence from: ACC football in 2018 was better than you think. by Jfann
"...The ACC finished 6-5 in bowl games. That is only the third time since 2005 that the conference finished with a winning bowl record. While bowl games aren't a perfect measure of conference strength, they do matter. You are playing teams outside of your conference for one of the few times during a year.
Turn the clock back to the BCS era and a 6-5 bowl record with a national champion year would constitute a fantastic year in the ACC. Expectations have changed since the conference's football improvement the last several years..."
Here are the top 25 teams in terms of JHowell's power ratings:
Rank Team PR SOS Pct Conference
1 Clemson 0.985 0.899 1.000 ACC
2 Alabama 0.936 0.836 0.933 SEC
3 Notre Dame 0.879 0.777 0.923 Independent
4 Georgia 0.857 0.839 0.786 SEC
5 Ohio State 0.847 0.662 0.929 Big Ten
6 Texas AM 0.824 0.825 0.692 SEC
7 Oklahoma 0.823 0.726 0.857 Big 12
8 Syracuse 0.816 0.612 0.769 ACC
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Other
Hiroya Tsukamoto
Hiroya Tsukamoto is a singer, songwriter, composer, and guitarist from Kyoto, Japan. At the age of 13, Tsukamoto learned to play the banjo, and shortly thereafter started playing the guitar. Hiroya Tsukamoto was awarded a scholarship to the Berklee College of Music in 2000, where he was able to hone in on his natural talents. A gifted and ambitious musician, Tsukamoto has created multiple projects, both with fellow musicians and as a solo artist, to share his music with audiences across the world. On Sunday, Jan. 13, guests will be able to participate in a workshop to learn the techniques of fingerstyle guitar through Tsukamoto's own compositions.
Where: Auburn Public Theater, 8 Exchange St., Auburn
When: 11 a.m. on Sunday, Jan. 13
How much: Tickets start at $15. Details here.
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Hiroya Tsukamoto, Crystal Gayle, and Why?: 5 shows to see (Jan. 13 to 19) (PS; Carlic)
