sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
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Welcome to World Food Day!
Collective action across 150 countries is what makes World Food Day one of the most celebrated days of the UN calendar. Hundreds of events and outreach activities bring together governments, businesses, NGOs, the media, and general public. They promote worldwide awareness and action for those who suffer from hunger and for the need to ensure healthy diets for all. Make #WorldFoodDay your day – share your individual action for #ZeroHunger or join the call by developing a group event or activity.
SU News
Syracuse Football: Dino Babers provided an Andre Cisco tease (itlh.com; Esden Jr)
Syracuse football head coach Dino Babers provided a weird Andre Cisco tease. Here’s why Orange fans should be confused and what it all means.
One thing is clear, Syracuse football head coach Dino Babers is not a doctor.
Prior to the bye week, he displayed optimism that multiple injured players would return to the lineup with the additional rest. Then following the bye suddenly pessimism arose from the lead man for the Orange.
Despite the emotional roller coaster, Orange fans were in for quite the surprise on Thursday night vs NC State. It was revealed on social media that Andre Cisco traveled with the team down to Raleigh and he was also listed on the team’s travel roster.
When the ESPN broadcast went live and Syracuse fans saw Andre Cisco on the sideline fully dressed, Orange fans thought they were in for a surprise. While he didn’t end up playing in the game, it at least has to be an optimistic sign that Andre is close to returning to the field right?
“I’m not even making this up, I don’t know what’s going on with that stuff (injury updates). I would imagine it’s exactly the same.”
Per Stephen Bailey of Syracuse.com, Cisco traveling with the Orange is “not an indication that he’s close to returning.”
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Syracuse football’s offensive line remains huge concern - The Juice Online (the juice; Stechschulte)
At this point of the season, pointing out of the shortcomings of the Syracuse offensive line has become tiresome. The line has played a significant part in holding back the offense and it was hoped that a game against Holy Cross and a bye week leading into the North Carolina State would help the unit fix some of their issues.
Early returns say those issues have not been resolved.
The Orange only gave up a single sack to Holy Cross and, with that sack removed, picked up 145 yards on 35 rushing attempts, good for a 4.1-yard average. If SU amassed that level of rushing success over the season with sacks included, they would be about two-thirds down in the yards per carry rankings in the nation.
And that was with a sack removed against an FCS opponent.
Things were much worse against the Wolfpack. N.C. State dropped Tommy DeVito eight times for 52 yards. Setting those aside, Syracuse got 93 yards on 29 rushing attempts for a 3.2-yard average. While the ‘Pack has one of the better defensive fronts in the nation, those stats are ugly. By the end of the night, DeVito was protecting an injury and seemed to lose his fundamentals at times, throwing off his back foot with no defenders near him, perhaps due to injury.
So, how does the back half of the schedule look for the Orange and their chances to right the ship? Below is how each team left on the SU schedule stands on the season in rushing defense with sacks removed and listed separately:
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Watch- Niko Tamurian and Matt Hauswirth preview Syracuse vs. Pitt Football (cnycentral.co; video; Tamurian & Hauswirth)
Syracuse Football faces a crucial Friday night game at home against Pittsburgh. Kickoff is set for 7:00 p.m. on ESPN.
To preview the matchup, Niko Tamurian and Matt Hauswirth talk about the key points to the game including what fans need to watch for. Click the video player to watch!
The Panthers and Orange meet for the 75th time over the last 103 years when Friday's game gets going at the Dome. Syracuse won every matchup between the schools from 1991-2001 but has only won three times since 2002.
Pittsburgh is a 2-point favorite, according to the Las Vegas oddsmakers.
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XFL Draft: Former Syracuse football player selected in 4th round (PS; Herbert)
A former Syracuse football player is among the first players selected in the XFL Draft.
Offensive guard Andrew Tiller was picked in the fourth round, 29th overall in the offensive line draft, by the Tampa Bay Vipers. The Vipers are one of eight teams in the new professional football league that will launch in February 2020.
Tiller started every game of his senior and redshirt senior seasons for the Orange, helping pave the way for 1,00-yard rushers both years in Antwon Bailey and Delone Carter. He was drafted by the New Orleans Saints in the sixth round of the 2012 NFL Draft and spent time with several teams, including the San Diego Chargers, Green Bay Packers, San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs.
Tiller was the only Syracuse alumnus picked among 240 players in the first day of the XFL Draft.
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Pitt Football | 2019 Syracuse Week Interviews | Dane Jackson
Pitt Football | 2019 Syracuse Week Interviews | Todd Sibley Jr.
Subscribe to Pitt LiveWire for more Pitt coverage youtube.com/pittlivewire | www.pittsburghpanthers.com | @Pitt_ATHLETICS
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Pitt Football | 2019 Syracuse Week Interviews | Todd Sibley Jr.
Pitt Football | 2019 Syracuse Week Interviews | Patrick Jones II
Subscribe to Pitt LiveWire for more Pitt coverage youtube.com/pittlivewire | www.pittsburghpanthers.com | @Pitt_ATHLETICS
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Pitt Football | 2019 Syracuse Week Interviews | Patrick Jones II
Five Takeaways from Pat Narduzzi's Syracuse Week Press Conference (pittsburghnow.com; Bell)
On Monday, Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi met with the media for his weekly press conference. This Friday, the Panthers will travel to Syracuse to play the 3-3, 0-2 Orangemen at 7 p.m.
Below, are five takeaways from what Narduzzi had to say on Monday.
Injury Questions
Pitt heads into Syracuse week with some injury questions. The Panthers were without some crucial pieces once again, last weekend at Duke.
Running backs A.J. Davis and Vincent Davis and defensive back Jason Pinnock were all out for the second straight game. Linebackers Chase Pine and Elias Reynolds have missed the last three games for the Panthers.
Narduzzi would not comment on the status of the Davis’ or Pinnock at his press conference on Monday.
Regarding whether Pine and Reynolds would be available Friday, “We hope and pray,” Narduzzi said.
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How Syracuse Should Counter Pittsburgh’s Defense – Orange Fizz – Free Syracuse Recruiting News (orangefizz.net; Gross)
“They blitz and blitz and blitz… And they’re crazy about it.”
That’s a cut from Dino Babers scouting report on Pittsburgh, provided in his Monday presser. The Panthers have brought pressure to great effect this season. They are 7th in the country in sack percentage.
That stat should have alarm bells going off in your head like crazy, because Syracuse is just as bad at preventing the sack. The Orange are 121st in QB sacks against percentage. Yes, only nine D1 teams are worse than SU at protecting against the sack. They represent 11.82% of Syracuse dropbacks. The Orange have struggled very noticably against the heavy blitz.
Pittsburgh is like NC State on defense, only better. The Wolfpack had NFL caliber defensive tackle Larell Murchison, who blew up SU’s protections last Thursday. Pitt has a star DT in Jaylen Twyman, who, like Murchison, is averaging a sack per game. This is a very bad matchup.
Pittsburgh is also a top-20 run-stopper, so don’t expect Moe Neal or Abdul Adams to provide relief for the passing game. Syracuse needs to operate on a steady diet of quick passes. The Orange must rely on their athletic receivers to pick up yards after catch.
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Amanda Filipcic-Godsey | Pitt football | Chaos reigns in ACC Coastal )tribdem.com; Fili[cic-Godsey)
Pitt may have had the week off, but the Panthers (4-2, 1-1) now have an easier road to repeating as Coastal Division champions. Following a wild weekend of ACC games that saw two of the ACC’s three ranked teams lose and fall out of the Top 25, the Panthers received help in the form of Miami beating Virginia on Friday night. It was the first conference loss for the Hoos, dropping them to a 2-1 ACC record and 4-2 overall, and out of their spot at No. 20.
While the Panthers do not control their own destiny – the Cavaliers own the head-to-head tiebreaker over Pitt, by virtue of their opening week win at Heinz Field – Virginia’s loss to Miami was a significant help.
So even if the Panthers win out, they’ll need Virginia to lose another conference game.
Virginia’s offense has looked lackluster in recent weeks, and the defense was dealt a blow when star cornerback Bryce Hall was injured against the Hurricanes. Coach Bronco Mendenhall announced this week that Hall had ankle surgery on Sunday and will miss the rest of the 2019 season, a huge loss for the Cavaliers as Hall led the nation in pass breakups last year and was expected to be a first-round pick in next April’s NFL Draft.
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Pitt’s history after bye weeks has been a mixed one under Pat Narduzzi (cardiachill.com; Whaley)
With Pitt coming off a bye week, I wanted to take a look at the team’s performances historically under Pat Narduzzi in such situations. As with most things during his tenure so far, it’s kind of been a mixed bag.
Narduzzi is 2-2 coming off of bye weeks. That’s a relatively small sample size but here are the results of those contests:
2018 - beat Duke, 54-45
2017 - lost to UNC at home, 34-31
2016 - lost to No. 25 VT at home, 39-36
2015 - beat VT, 17-13
One thing of note here are the performances by the offense and defense after the bye week. The 2015 game was an exception but these have mostly been higher-scoring contests. Pitt’s defense looks sharp this season and, with a Top 20 ranking, could change that. Conversely, though, the offense has had trouble scoring points at times this year and that could mean for more of a 2015-like game.
To keep these games in context, we have to look at the quality of opponents. In particular, let’s look at the two losses. I mean, should Pitt have lost those games?
In 2016, Pitt lost to a legitimately good Virginia Tech team that went 10-4. That’s hardly a loss you can blame on the abnormalities of coming off a bye week. North Carolina in 2017, though, was not a good team. The Tar Heels were only 3-9 that year and Pitt laid an egg there. But Pitt, of course, has historically had trouble with North Carolina for whatever reason since joining the ACC. Blaming the bye week there seems harder to do since the Panthers are a ‘perfect’ 0-6 against the Tar Heels overall since joining the conference in 2013.
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ACC football: Trying to make sense of it (the-dispatch.com; Sutton)
Another strange week brings new questions
Football in the Atlantic Coast Conference this season has proved unpredictable, if nothing else.
And perhaps we’re just getting started.
Many teams have three-fourths of their conference games still to play.
Just how strange has it been? Let’s take a look.
‒ Just last week ...
North Carolina State scored one touchdown and won.
Wake Forest scored eight touchdowns and lost.
(The Syracuse / N.C. State and Louisville / Wake Forest games were comprised of members of the Atlantic Division. It makes you ask: Why it is so easy for some to poke fun at the Coastal Division?)
‒ And then there’s defending national champion Clemson. What has happened to the Tigers after their past two games might say more about the ACC than anything else.
Clemson won those two ACC games. The next day, it dropped in the polls.
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Scouting the opponent: Duke football and Virginia set for ACC Coastal clash (dukechronicle.com; Kolin)
Here comes the heart of Duke’s conference schedule.
After beating up on Georgia Tech this past weekend, the Blue Devils will head to Charlottesville, Va., to take on Virginia at Scott Stadium Saturday at 3:30 p.m. The contest begins the team’s run of three road games against ACC Coastal rivals over the next five weeks. The matchup with the Cavaliers may be the toughest of those road games, however, with Virginia entering the season as ACC Coastal favorites and reaching as high as No. 20 in the AP Top 25 Poll just a few weeks ago.
Two consecutive losses—including a brutal offensive showing at Miami last week—have forced the Cavaliers out of the Top 25, but that doesn’t mean this weekend’s game is any less crucial for Duke.
“Big challenge this week for our team,” Blue Devil head coach David Cutcliffe said. “Obviously [we're] going on the road, but we’re going on the road against a team that may be as balanced as any team I’ve ever seen, and it’s kind of become their culture. Offensively, defensively and in the kicking game, in all elements of playing football we always talk about the blend here. They’re as good as you get at doing it.”
Let's take a look at five key questions for Duke as it prepares for its matchup with the Cavaliers.
Can the Blue Devils contain Bryce Perkins?
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Ed Hardin: It's Clemson and the rest of y'all in the ACC (greensboro.com; Hardin)
for gbo
We’ve reached the midpoint of the ACC football season, and we’ve discovered what we knew all along.
Clemson is leading a one-team league into another 10-team bowl season, and the only thing left to determine is who goes where.
But for the first time since Dabo Swinney turned the Tigers into a national-title program, the league itself is casting a shadow. Clemson’s College Football Playoff hopes aren’t just in its hands now. The lack of a second or third ACC power, or any semblance thereof, could ultimately hurt the Tigers when the playoff selection committee announces the four semifinal teams on Dec. 8.
The voters who rank the teams in polls that are basically fodder for sportswriters and little else these days have already decided that the SEC, the Big 10 and the Big 12 are all better than the ACC. Thus despite Clemson doing everything it’s supposed to do in a 45-14 dismantling of once-proud Florida State, the Tigers somehow dropped in the AP poll.
The attention now is on the eye candy in LSU, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Wisconsin and Penn State, and even Baylor, which moved up four spots as the second-best team in the Big 12.
That’s really the problem in the ACC. There’s no second-best team. A season that began with Syracuse being the only other team in the league ranked in the AP poll now shows no other ACC team ranked.
Wake Forest and Virginia both fell out this week, throwing the league into an odd stretch of the season in which any number of ACC teams could claim to be the second-best.
The Deacons still hold the inside edge, but the rest of the schedule is filled with schools with their own claim to the dubious distinction.
Virginia, Pitt, Carolina, State, Duke. Heck, Louisville, Miami?
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Clemson Football: 5 Tigers to watch vs. Louisville 2019 (rubbingtherock.com; Spencer)
for gbo
The Clemson football team will travel up to Louisville this weekend. Here’s a look at five Tigers to keep your eyes on during the ACC matchup.
The Clemson football team is coming off an impressive 45-14 win over Florida State this past Saturday in Death Valley.
Now, the Tigers will hit the road for the third time this season to take on yet another ACC opponent: The Louisville Cardinals.
Coming into this season, Louisville was expected to be at the bottom of the ACC Atlantic Division and many wondered if the Cardinals would come away with many wins at all. Through the first six games of the year, Louisville has certainly been a surprise. The Cardinals are currently 4-2 with their only losses coming to Notre Dame and Florida State.
According to many metrics, Louisville has one of the top offenses in the country. The Cardinals beat Wake Forest 62-59 this past weekend.
With that amount of firepower, we could see Louisville give the Clemson football defense a bit of trouble if the Tigers don’t come out prepared and ready to go.
The Clemson football team should have plenty of motivation to remain focused, though. The Tigers dropped another spot in the AP Poll down to No. 3 and are now behind both Alabama and LSU.
Many analysts are making the case that Clemson doesn’t even deserve to be in the top-four, so there’s plenty of reason to believe that the Tigers will continue to try and make statements in the coming weeks.
Here are five Clemson football players to watch as we head into the matchup with Louisville.
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Tale of the tape: Where Louisville, Clemson rank statistically midway through the season (courier-journal.com; Robinson)
for gbo
The Louisville football team is set to host defending champion Clemson on Saturday.
The game is a noon kickoff at Cardinal Stadium where the Cardinals (4-2, 2-1) will look to end a five-game losing streak to Clemson (6-0, 4-0). Louisville has never beat Clemson in the history of the matchup.
Last year Clemson beat Louisville 77-16. Jawon Pass started that game but has been ruled out for the season and is planning to have season-ending surgery on his toe. Pass suffered from turf toe on his right foot since the season-opening loss to Notre Dame.
Sitting just two wins from bowl eligibility, Louisville has improved immensely from last season. The Cardinals rank among the best in the ACC in some statistics and among the worst in others.
At the midway point of the season, let’s look at those stats and how they compare to Clemson. Each stat is an average, unless stated otherwise.
The postseason: Where could Louisville land in bowl season? We break it down
Scoring offense
Louisville: 37.3 points, third in the ACC, 24th nationally.
Clemson: 39.2 points, second in the ACC, tied for 14th nationally
Total offense
Louisville: 489 yards, third in the ACC, 16th nationally
Clemson: 497.0 yards, second in the ACC, 12th nationally
Total defense
Louisville: 434.7 yards, 12th in the ACC, 102nd nationally
Clemson: 254.8 yards, first in the ACC, third nationally
Passing offense
Louisville: 261.3 yards, seventh in the ACC, tied for 47th nationally
Clemson: 258.2 yards, eighth in the ACC, 52nd nationally
Passing defense
Louisville: 264.8 yards, 11th in the ACC, 104th nationally
Clemson: 150.3 yards, first in the ACC, second nationall
Passing efficiency
Louisville: 176.02, first in the ACC, ninth nationally
Clemson: 141.51, seventh in the ACC, 58th nationally,
Rushing offense
Louisville: 227.7 yards, third in the ACC, 22nd nationally
Clemson: 238.8, second in the ACC, 15th nationally
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Notre Dame Projected To Play In The Orange Bowl (SI; Driskell)
The Irish are expected to take on Pittsburgh from the ACC
Notre Dame enters its halfway point of the season ranked No. 8 in the national polls and poised for a New Years Six bowl game. According to Sports Illustrated college football writer Michael Shapiro, Notre Dame is projected to play Pittsburgh in the Orange Bowl.
The Orange Bowl pits the top ACC team against a Big Ten opponent, a SEC opponent or Notre Dame. With Clemson projected to be a College Football Playoff contestant, Shapiro went with Pittsburgh as the next best ACC team.
Pittsburgh began the season 1-2 with losses to Virginia (30-14) and Penn State (17-10), but it has won three straight games and now sits at 4-2. The Panthers own a home win over UCF (35-34) and a road win at Duke (33-30), and they head to Syracuse for a Friday night matchup.
The Panthers are currently 1-1 in the ACC Coastal Division and trail Virginia, Duke and North Carolina by a half-game.
Last week, Shapiro had the Irish projected to play Wake Forest in the Orange Bowl, but the Deacons lost to Louisville (62-59) on Saturday night.
Shapiro’s current Playoff projection is Alabama against Ohio State in the Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl and Clemson against Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl.
ESPN’s Mark Schlabach still has the Irish taking on Wake Forest in the Orange Bowl while Kyle Bonagura has Notre Dame in the Cotton Bowl against Boise State.
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JHowell's Picks - 10/15/19 (RX; HM)
JHowell's Picks - 10/15/19
Here are the computer's predictions:
Friday, October 18, 2019
#39-Pittsburgh (-1.5) @ #58-Syracuse (TP=52 Odds=.524)
Saturday, October 19, 2019
#3-Clemson (-29) @ #44-Louisville (TP=62 Odds=.830)
#29-Wake Forest (-7) vs. #41-Florida State (TP=64 Odds=.586)
#40-Virginia (-2) vs. #35-Duke (TP=51 Odds=.528)
#42-NC State (-4) @ #78-Boston College (TP=55 Odds=.559)
#46-North Carolina (-0.5) @ #65-Virginia Tech (TP=56 Odds=.507)
#47-Miami (FL) (-14.5) vs. #106-Georgia Tech (TP=49 Odds=.725)
source: http://www.jhowell.net/cf/cfpred.txt
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Any Conferences Eliminated from 2019-20 Playoffs Yet? (RX; HM)
Any Conferences Eliminated from 2019-20 Playoffs Yet?
You read about this conference or that being already eliminated from playoff contention or on the verge of it, but SBNation/BannerSociety has put together a chart of when conferences were actually eliminated and - well - none have ever been truly out of it before week 11:
When conferences have been knocked out of the Playoff race
| Year | Pac-12 | Big Ten | Big 12 | ACC | SEC | Other |
| 2014 | Oregon | Ohio State | Champs Weekend | Florida State | Alabama | None |
| 2015 | Week 11 | Team In | Oklahoma | Clemson | Alabama | None |
| 2016 | Washington | Team In | Week 12 | Clemson | Alabama | None |
| 2017 | Week 11 | Champs Weekend | Oklahoma | Clemson | Alabama Georgia | None |
| 2018 | Week 13 | Champs Weekend | Oklahoma | Clemson | Alabama | Notre Dame |
A history of conferences being (probably) out of the CFP in October
The four-team era introduced a new early-season pastime: circling like vultures over the likeliest power conference to miss out.
www.bannersociety.com
Most-watched games through 2019 Week 7 (RX; HM)
Here are the Top 12 through week 7:
| Rank | Visitor | Home Team | Week | Network | Viewers | Time |
| 1 | Notre Dame | @Georgia | w4 | CBS | 9.29M | 8:00 PM |
| 2 | LSU | @Texas | w2 | ABC | 8.63M | 7:30 PM |
| 3 | Oklahoma | vs Texas | w7 | Fox | 7.25M | noon |
| 4 | Oregon | vs Auburn | w1 | ABC | 6.86M | 7:30 PM |
| 5 | Michigan St | @Ohio St | w6 | ABC | 6.68M | 7:30 PM |
| 6 | Texas A&M | Clemson | w2 | ABC | 6.46M | 3:30 PM |
| 7 | Florida | @LSU | w7 | ESPN | 6.45M | 8:00 PM |
| 8 | Auburn | @Florida | w6 | CBS | 6.43M | 3:30 PM |
| 9 | Ohio St | @Nebraska | w5 | ABC | 6.14M | 7:30 PM |
| 10 | Alabama | @Texas A&M | w7 | CBS | 6.11M | 3:30 PM |
| 11 | Florida | vs Miami | w0 | ESPN | 5.97M | 7:00 PM |
| 12 | Notre Dame | @Louisville | w1 | ESPN | 5.60M | 8:00 pm Mon |
by network (games):
ABC 5
CBS 3
Fox 1
ESPN 3
by conference (teams, not games):
SEC: 11 (3 conference games)
Big XII: 3 (1 conference game)
Big Ten: 4 (2 conference games)
ACC: 3 (all OOC)
Notre Dame: 2
Pac-12: 1
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Another UNC Cheating Scandal? (RX; HM)
Another UNC Cheating Scandal?
I didn't want to comment on this until I had read over the information, so it's not necessarily the newest news you've ever read here, but many of you who live outside of North Carolina still haven't heard about this, so...
You think UNC put their issues behind them after the whole African-American Studies scandal? Apparently not. The article "Failure to Disclose: The mysterious absence of critical data from UNC’s renowned concussion research" by The Athletic documents another scandal with possible academic fraud implications at UNC-Chapel Hill involving the Tar Heels athletic department...
[DISCLAIMER: I realize that some of the UNC people who were named in the article have already proclaimed it to be false, but there is one bit of undeniable evidence - well, read on]
An auditor found that "about 180 UNC athletes [were] tested between 2004 and 2012 – including 137 scholarship football players... there was a 39% incidence of LD and or ADHD”. This is highly unusual since most cases of ADD or ADHD are diagnosed in early childhood - not at the age of 17 or 18! Besides, only about 7 or 8% of the general student population suffers from these disorders, so UNC would need to be specifically recruiting kids with ADD/ADHD to get 39%!
[This is the evidence: 39% of athletes diagnosed with ADD/ADHD for the first time in their lives after they set foot on the UNC campus. Whatever else you may think, this part appears solid.]
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Other
Meet Napolean Dynamite, Black Masquerade: 19 things to do in CNY (PS; Hernandez)
October is charging ahead with its spectacular fall colors and chilly evenings.
This weekend’s spooky season events include Zoo Boo, Enchanted Beaver Lake, Run of the Dead, and more. Check out our Halloween events list for more information or find yourself at one of these autumn offerings:
'Assisted Living' the musical will run Oct. 17-19, 2019 at the Oncenter Carrier Theater. Provided photo | syracuse.com
Assisted Living: The Musical
With songs like “Help! I’ve Fallen (For You) and I Can’t Get Up”, “WalkerDude@Facebook.Com” and “The Uplifting Viagra Medley," “Assisted Living the Musical” takes a look back at a newly departed couple’s “best years of their lives." Performed by its authors Rick Compton and Betsy Bennett, the show promises “The Tales Granny Will Never Tell."
Where: The Oncenter Carrier Theater, 800 S State St, Syracuse, NY 13202
When: Oct. 17-20 with shows at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.
How much: $52 via Ticketmaster
Yonder Mountain String Band
Yonder Mountain String Band has performed bluegrass music for the past 20 years, expanding the traditional acoustic genre beyond its previously established boundaries by steadily pushing the envelope into the realms of rock n’ roll and improvisation. Special guests for the night include The Drunken Hearts.
Where: Center for the Arts of Homer, 72 S Main St., Homer, NY 13077
When: Oct. 17 from 8-11 p.m.
How much: $20-$28
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