sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
- Joined
- Aug 15, 2011
- Messages
- 27,183
- Like
- 119,610
Welcome to The Start of Passover!
The first day of Passover is marked with the Passover Seder, a feast eaten with close family and friends. At the feast, the story of the Jew's release is retold from the Haggadah, and at specific times during the story, participants drink a cup of wine. ... Along with matzo, the Seder Plate includes: Mazor and chazeret.
SU News
Alton Robinson
What are NFL Draft experts saying about former SU football stars? (PS; Burrows)
Syracuse football will likely have at least two former players selected in the 2020 NFL Draft in April, and could see as many as four taken if things fall the right way.
Defensive ends Alton Robinson and Kendall Coleman are the most likely candidates to be selected. Robinson was a fringe first-round pick after a great junior season, but could fall into the middle rounds after struggling to put up similar pass-rush numbers as a senior.
Coleman lacks the high-level athleticism some teams want, but his work ethic and character could land him on a team.
Wide receiver Trishton Jackson decided to leave the Orange early, and appears to be on the fringe of being selected. Punter Sterling Hofrichter may go unselected as a kicker, though chances are very high he quickly finds a team as a free agent.
Here’s what the experts and mock drafts are saying about former Syracuse football stars in the NFL Draft:
Alton Robinson, EDGE
NFL.com’s Lance Zierlein says Robinson has the raw traits to thrive in the NFL, but needs to clean up his technique to stick. Here’s more from Zierlein:
...
Trishton Jackson, left, and Alton Robinson are two Syracuse football NFL draft prospects in 2020. Photos by Dennis Nett.
Where do SU's NFL prospects rank in Dane Brugler’s draft guide? (PS; Mink)
The NFL draft is two weeks away, and, like everything else, the novel coronavirus crisis has altered football’s marquee offseason event.
The 2020 NFL Draft will be done in a virtual format, with personnel for all 32 teams conducting business while being separately sequestered away from team headquarters.
While there will be no handshakes with the commissioner, the draft will be a welcome change for a sports world that has gone weeks without any sort of live TV event.
The draft is scheduled to run April 23-25. ESPN and NFL Network will televise.
In advance, The Athletic’s Dane Brugler released his massive, 245-page guide to the NFL draft, complete with stats, measurements, analysis and input from pro scouts on the top prospects. To get access to the full guide, you need a subscription to the sports journalism website.
Syracuse has two projected draft picks this year, according to Brugler, and both are considered Day 3 selections.
Defensive end Alton Robinson, considered SU’s best draft prospect in the 2020 class, is projected as a fifth-round pick.
Wide receiver Trishton Jackson is slated as a fifth- or sixth-round pick, according to Brugler’s guide.
...
4 factors that could determine whether SU makes bowl in 2020 (PS; Bailey)
Caesars set the early line for Syracuse football’s 2020 win total at 5.5 on Monday.
While it’s still uncertain whether there will be a season, and if so whether any changes will be made to its format, let’s take a few minutes to break down the variables that would affect SU’s record most significantly.
No. 1: Health
If there’s one aspect of the Orange’s 10-3 campaign two years ago that shouldn’t be lost to time, it’s this: the team suffered few significant injuries. A veteran offensive line remained healthy, allowing Eric Dungey (and, when called on, Tommy DeVito) to orchestrate a productive offense. On the other side of the ball, SU’s defense dealt with a handful of minor injuries while dominating in takeaways and third-down percentage.
Every year, for teams like Syracuse, so much of success is a numbers game. The loss of Sam Heckel turned an unproven offensive line into a liability last year. The absence of McKinley Williams for most of the season stung the Orange’s run defense and forced inexperienced reserves to learn on the fly.
It only takes a couple hits at weak spots for a season to unravel. That was the case for the first three years of Dungey’s Orange career. In 2020, players like DeVito, left tackle Airon Servais and Williams, whose medical redshirt allowed him to return for a fifth year, are among that indispensable group.
And depending on how the calendar shakes out, it’s unclear what condition players will be in when organized team activities resume. It’s reasonable to think that there could be an uptick in injuries this season nationwide.
No. 2: Preparation
That makes for a good transition. The uncerta
...
Boston College Eagles — 2020 Syracuse Football preview - The Juice Online (the juice; Cheng)
As we countdown to kickoff in September, we’re going to be doing a team-by-team preview each week over the summer. SU will open its 2020 season on September 4th against Boston College, one of only two teams who have worse odds to win the ACC than the Orange.
NEW ERA AT BOSTON COLLEGE
Boston College shut the door on the Steve Addazio era following the 2019 football season. Sure, Addazio led the Eagles to five bowl games in his seven years at Chestnut Hill, but it was clear that the Eagles would continue to be mired in mediocrity as long as he was the head coach.
He never won more than seven games in any season, and his tenure concluded with a listless 38-6 demolition at the hands of Cincinnati in the Birmingham Bowl.
The Eagles are pinning their hops on replacement head coach Jeff Hafley to change their fortunes and to seize momentum in an ACC Atlantic Division that has been pedestrian outside of perennial powerhouse Clemson.
While Hafley has never been a head coach before, he can draw plenty from his collegiate and professional stops, all of which have produced impressive results. The 40 year old has had college assistant coaching positions at Pittsburgh, Rutgers and Ohio State, and in the pros with Tampa Bay, Cleveland and San Francisco.
It was his most recent stop with the Buckeyes that catapulted him to be one of college football’s most prized head coaching prospects. In his one season at Ohio State, he turned a program that finished 72nd nationally in defense in 2018 in yards per play, and shot them up to No. 1 in 2019.
He also co-coordinated a defense that didn’t allow more than 27 points in a game, while ranking as the ninth best recruiter in the class of 2020 by 247Sports.com.
...
Virginia Tech football: NCAA ruling allows ACC teams to have virtual position meetings, film review (roanoke.com; Nikiolek)
Football teams in the ACC are now allowed up to four hours of virtual team meetings or film reviews thanks to a recent rule change from the NCAA.
As of April 2, the organization made all sports "out of season" for the remainder of the 2019-20 academic year." Football teams would normally be allowed up to four hours of instruction during that part of the calendar.
"It changes every day, which is understandable," Virginia Tech coach Justin Fuente said on Wednesday. "I don’t say that to be snarky. It’s just, every day we sit down and get a new email for a new interpretation or a new decision about what we can and can’t do and we just take them every single day."
The team can check in separately with each athlete — Fuente said he and his staff are checking in with student-athletes at least twice a day — but must avoid any instructions during those conversations.
Most football teams in the conference had to cancel the majority of spring camp in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. Virginia Tech was one of three teams not to have a single spring practice along with Virginia and North Carolina.
None of the teams in the ACC held a spring exhibition game.
Student-athletes won’t be returning to campus anytime soon either with most states extending shelter in place orders through the end of May. Tech announced it was even moving summer courses online earlier this week.
At the onset of the outbreak, all the power five conferences put rules in ban prohibiting virtual instruction. The SEC, Big 12 and Pac 12 were the first to reverse course.
The SEC was first out the gate in allowing coaching staffs in all sports to conduct virtual film review sessions or position meetings for up to two hours a week. The Big 12 allowed virtual “group activities” starting on March 30 for up to four hours per week for all sports.
“Only countable coaches may conduct virtual film study, technical discussions, tactical sessions and other non-physical activities,” the guidelines state. “These policies will be revisited and adjusted at regular intervals and as circumstances dictate.”
The Pac 12 rules are very similar with one key distinction - football is allowed two hours of instruction a week while all other sports are allowed four hours a week. The policies are in effect until May 31.
...
ADs on Playoff Expansion (RX; HM)
ADs on Playoff Expansion
Brett McMurphy and Stadium conducted a survey of all 130 FBS athletic directors, asking questions about their preferences for the future of the College Football Playoffs. 112 of them responded; this is what the P5 ADs said...
| How many teams should there be? | How should playoff teams be selected? | |
| other (3%) | ||
| 16 teams (4%) | ||
| All P5 champs + top G5 champ | ||
| +2 at-large teams (59%) | ||
| 8 teams (69%) | ||
| 6 teams (7%) | P5 champs + 3 at-large teams (35%) | |
| 4 teams (17%) | ||
| Top 8 highest-ranked teams (6%) | ||
BOTTOM LINE: The overwhelming majority of P5 athletic directors favor an 8-team playoff with guaranteed auto-bids for the champions of the five power conferences and for the top champion of the G5 conferences. This still leaves two spots for at-large teams who do not win their conference championship.
This is exactly the format that I've been advocating for some time on this blog.
...
Links - VT/Clemson edition - 4/9/20 (
Links - VT/Clemson edition - 4/9/20
This links edition is divided into Virginia Tech and Clemson parts.
First, the Virginia Tech parts...
End of an era for Virginia Tech’s iconic lunch pail
So the 2 permanent lunch pails awarded by Bud Foster are in the hands of the previous and current defensive line coaches. Nice continuity! At the same time, it's important for the new coaches to establish something of their own...
Meanwhile, the Athletic Director at Virginia Tech has bigger fish to fry...
Virginia Tech AD: ‘We would be open to shifting the (CFB) season’
...
ACC vs SEC, 2000-19 (RX; HM)
ACC vs SEC, 2000-19
What is the ACC's win% vs. each SEC team since 2000? The twitter account "Average Conference Content" gives us the raw numbers here:
Here's the same data in a table, with one row added: average of the win percentages*:
See the disparity? The average win% is better than 50% in favor of the ACC, but the actual win% (total wins divided by total games) is less than 50%. What does that mean. Simply put, it means that the SEC is protecting its weakest teams by not letting them play the ACC as often - while its strongest teams play the ACC as often as possible!
...
Other
Merv White runs Luigi's in the Syracuse Valley.Charlie Miller | cmiller@syracuse.com
CNY Fish Fry Tour, Stop 13: I finally found ‘THE place where other fish fryers go for great fish’ (PS; Miller)
Every city has a bar where bartenders go for a drink after their shift. Well, I just stumbled upon a restaurant where cooks go for a fish dinner after cooking fish all day.
Ginny Norberg, who grew up on Valley Drive, was one of many readers urging me to put Luigi’s on my fish fry tour. These readers said the fish here is the tastiest they’ve had, and it’s the largest portions in Central New York. Ginny now spends her winters in Las Vegas, but when she’s here in the summer, she gets fish at Luigi’s and then walks across street for a scoop at Gannon’s Ice Cream.
Luigi’s has been known for its generous helpings at a reasonable price since Louis Savastino opened up shop in 1954. It hasn’t changed.
Louis is 89 now and lives in Florida, but he still owns Luigi’s. Merv White has taken over the day-to-day operation.
They’ve been buying their haddock from the Channel Fish Processing Co. since the beginning. It arrives from the Boston Pier three times a week. They get 100 pounds on Tuesday, 100 pounds on Thursday and 400 pounds on Friday. And they usually sell out.
...
