sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
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Welcome to Carl Sagan Day!
Carl Sagan Day celebrates the life, teachings, and legacy of Carl Sagan, who was born on this day in 1934, and who is known for his many contributions to science. The day was created in 2009 by the Center For Inquiry in Fort Lauderdale, as well Florida Atheists and Secular Humanists (FLASH), and other groups. Events have been held in Florida, but also have spread around the world. Some examples of events that have taken place are star parties—where people come together and view the sky, astronomy lectures, science fairs, and workshops.
Sagan worked in many scientific fields, such as astronomy, cosmology, astrophysics, and astrobiology. He was known for his ability to communicate scientific ideas to the general population, and to get people interested in science. This is probably most exemplified by his 1980 PBS documentary series, Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, which was the most widely viewed PBS program of its time. It won two Emmy's and a Peabody award, and has been viewed by over a billion people in sixty countries. Sagan also published a book to go along with the series. In all, Sagan wrote over 20 books, including The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence—which won a Pulitzer Prize, Contact—a novel which was made into a film, and The Demon-Haunted World. For 12 years he was the editor-in-chief of Icarus, and published 600 scientific papers and articles, in publications such as Skeptical Inquirer.
Beginning in the 1950's, Sagan was a consultant and adviser to NASA, and he briefed the Apollo astronauts before their trips to the Moon. He received countless honors and awards, and was a professor of astronomy, as well as director of the Laboratory for Planetary Studies, at Cornell University. He passed away in 1996.
SU News
SU offense hasn’t been right for 2 years (stock watch) (PS; Mink)
Syracuse football is 1-7 after a 16-13 loss to Boston College.
This week’s stock watch takes a look at the players and themes rising and falling heading into the next opponent, which will be Louisville on a Friday night, Nov. 20.
Stock up: Fixing the offense
Nothing is eating at Dino Babers more than a non-explosive, inefficient offense that is at the crux of so many secondary issues amid this 1-7 season.
It hasn’t been right for two years, and SU was just kept out of the end zone until the final minute of the game against Boston College, hardly a defensive juggernaut.
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Syracuse Football: A few bright spots in three-point loss to Boston College (itlh; Adler)
Syracuse football often has gotten blown out in its 2020 defeats, but it hung tough with the Eagles.
Syracuse football fans often tell me that there is no moral victory when the team loses, and I tend to agree with that sort of statement. However, amid a disastrous fall term for our beloved Orange, I am really trying to possess some optimism.
The ‘Cuse (1-7) is potentially heading toward a one-win season, and that’s a total bummer. The squad has three Atlantic Coast Conference contests remaining within its 2020 schedule.
After a bye week next weekend, Syracuse football is at Louisville, then hosts N.C. State and, finally, wraps up the fall stanza at Notre Dame.
Those Fighting Irish, by the way, just knocked off No. 1 Clemson in double overtime, in one of the most entertaining affairs across college football to date this season.
Speaking of the Tigers, Boston College nearly upset them a week ago, ultimately falling by a half-dozen points. So when the Eagles arrived on the Hill this past Saturday afternoon, favored by around two touchdowns, I figured that the Orange would get crushed pretty darn good.
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Game Observations (Offense): Boston College 16 Syracuse 13 (SI; Black)
Boston College had to grind out a tough win against a scrappy Syracuse program on Saturday afternoon in the Carrier Dome. The Eagles only scored one touchdown in the victory, but that was enough. Here are some observations.
* The team and coach would never say it but there seemed a bit of a Clemson hangover this week. Defense played with energy, but the offense looked a bit sluggish, and the team seemed content for long drives to kill clock.
* I had no problem with BC's offensive gameplan for this game. Clearly they watched tape and thought they could run the ball at will, which they did. There were just moments that they failed to execute that caused the gameplan to fail. I'll have to go back and tally up the moments, but there were missed passes, penalties and mishaps (Jurkovec tripping).
* The offensive line had a great game. They controlled the line of scrimmage throughout the game, minimized penalties, and looked all the unit they should be.
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Post Game Thoughts: Syracuse 13 Boston College 16 (bcinterruption.com;. Rapp)
It was hardly the most convincing of wins, but a win it was. I should think most Boston College fans would prefer to put this one in their pocket, and turn their attention to next week’s visit from the Midwestern Irish Catholics. While it never truly felt like BC was going to lose to Syracuse, this team has a nerve racking habit of playing to the level of their opponent. The Eagles dominated possession (38:49 to 21:11), easily out-gained the Orange (399 to 240), and won the turnover battle (0-2), they just weren’t really finishing off drives. Still, the Eagles moved to 5-3(4-3), and are now due to play up to their next opponent.
The Good
Zay Flowers - Here’s your weekly jaw-dropping Zay play. Full extension, get the foot down, somersault, stick the landing. Who was the last BC player with this kind of playmaking ability on offense? Will Blackmon?
Max Richardson - Richardson was all over the place, and he probably deserves more credit for anchoring this defense all season. With another 10 tackles, he continues to lead the nation in total tackles, and he also came through with 2 sacks on Saturday.
David Bailey - We knew coming in that Syracuse’s porous rush defense might finally allow the Eagles to get the ground game working, and Bailey took advantage. He finished with 25 carries for 125 yards, and Travis Levy added another 73 yards. Hafley pointed to some good offensive line play in his post-game interview, and he seemed relieved that BC was able to scratch out one last first down, rather than give Syracuse another possession.
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SU Falls Short to BC in Freshman Quarterback’s Debut (waer.org; Shulman)
The Syracuse football team lost 16-13 to Boston College yesterday, however, one storyline prevailed over the result. True freshman quarterback JaCobian Morgan made his first career start, and he was a single score away from earning his first victory.
Saturday represented Morgan’s debut as QB1, but he had experience with SU prior. The quarterback first appeared in the final seconds of the Clemson loss, but never threw a pass. In the next matchup versus Wake Forest, Morgan again got a chance to play late. That time, the quarterback had an opportunity to throw the ball, and he did it well. Morgan completed all seven of his pass attempts, including a touchdown.
Between the Wake Forest and Boston College matchups, that single scoring drive caused a lot of upheaval among fans of the Orange about who should play quarterback going forward. Throughout the week, however, Syracuse head coach Dino Babers never tipped his hand on who would start under center, Morgan or senior Rex Culpepper.
“It’s just one of those situations where you got to continue to evaluate and see exactly where [Morgan and Culpepper] are at,” Babers said Monday when asked about who would start at quarterback versus BC.
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Dabbundo: Dino Babers is too cautious on 4th down (DO; Dabbundo)
Quarterback Tommy DeVito took the snap under center and tried to jam his way in between his offensive line. He only needed a yard.
Syracuse head coach Dino Babers opted to go for it on 4th-and-1 at the Duke 13-yard-line when leading 14-10 in the second quarter. DeVito failed to get that yard.
The failure does not change the reality of the situation. By choosing to go for it, Babers improved Syracuse’s pre-snap win probability. He prioritized trying for seven points instead of settling for three.
Recently, with an even more depleted offense, he has not displayed the same aggression.
In two separate games now, the Orange have been overly conservative with fourth down decisions, and it’s hurt their chances of winning. Syracuse is 1-7, 1-6 Atlantic Coast, and it’s a lost season. Babers needs to be more aggressive on fourth down decision-making to squeeze all the points he possibly can out of his struggling offense. The Orange’s defense has already proven an ability to keep opponents’ out of the end zone, even when faced with shorter fields. They rank second best in points per scoring opportunity allowed in the ACC.
Even though the Orange haven’t been effective on the fourth down attempts they’ve tried, Babers should go for it more. He needs to give the offense an extra down to potentially find points — and wins — with three games remaining in the 2020 season.
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New faces make same old mistakes as Syracuse loses to Boston College - The Juice Online (the juice; Stechschulte)
Some of the faces were different, but the story was the same as Syracuse lost at home to Boston College on Saturday, 16-13. The Orange (1-7, 1-6 ACC) mustered just 240 yards of offense in their fourth straight loss and never really threatened the Eagles (5-2, 4-2), despite the final score.
After finishing SU’s last game, JaCobian Morgan had his first start at quarterback, as Rex Culpepper did not suit up. Morgan was fairly efficient statistically, completing 19-of-30 passes for 188 yards with a touchdown and an interception, and showed some athleticism in extending certain plays. The freshman did also show a lack of pocket awareness at times and his interception was an ill-advised decision, throwing a looping pass into triple coverage.
Third downs were a telling statistic on the day, as Syracuse converted just 3-of-11 attempts while BC converted 11-of-19 opportunities. The Eagles turned that advantage into a series of long drives, as they had six possessions of at least seven plays, each eating up a minimum of 3:15 off the game clock. Three of those drives ended in field goals and two others ended on missed field goal attempts.
All told, Boston College possessed the ball for 38:49, including 21:29 of the second half.
By comparison, the Orange had just three possessions lasting seven plays and five comprised of three or fewer, not including one snap before halftime. Prior to their last possession of the game, SU ran just two plays inside the BC 20.
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Axe: The Syracuse football bye week wishlist (Part 2) (PS; $; Axe)
Another bye week has arrived for Syracuse football and a ton has changed since SU’s first week off following a 37-20 win over Georgia Tech earlier this season.
All you have to do is check my first Syracuse football bye week wish list to confirm that.
Here is the cliff’s notes version of that list with an update on how it went:
1. Run Sean Tucker more
Check. Tucker is a featured player in the Orange offense even while battling a lower-body injury with 414 rushing yards and three touchdowns.
2. Give Tommy DeVito more time to throw the ball
Remember him? Considering Syracuse is down to freshman JaCobian Morgan under center for the final three games of the season, this didn’t go according to plan.
Having a third-string quarterback at the trigger with less than a month of work with the starters will keep any offense from making the kind of jump SU hoped to make this season. So will the rash of injuries to the offensive line and other attrition at running back endured by SU.
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JHowell's ACC Picks for 2020 Week 11 (RX; HM)
JHowell's ACC Picks for 2020 Week 11
Below are the projections through the games of 11-14-2020. The favorite is listed first with the projected margin of victory (i.e., the line) in parenthesis. HOME TEAM IN BOLD. 'TP' represents the total number of points expected to be scored in the game and 'Odds' represents the odds of the favorite winning straight-up (not against-the-spread).
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Liberty 38, Virginia Tech 35. Ugh. (RX; HM)
Liberty 38, Virginia Tech 35. Ugh.
It's never acceptable to their fans when the Virginia Tech Hokies lose to a Group of Five type team. It's especially unacceptable when that team is located in the Commonwealth of Virginia. That fact alone makes this weekend's loss to the Liberty Flames a bad loss (even if the Flames were ranked and the Hokies were not), but it gets worse...
The Virginia Tech defense couldn't get off the field.
Liberty dominated time of possession, 37.5 minutes to 22.5 minutes. How? The Flames were 6-13 on third down conversions and 4-4 on fourth down, for a combined 10-13 (77%). By contrast, the Hokies were 4-10 on third down and 2-2 on fourth for a combined 6-10 (60%). Seventeen percent is a pretty big difference!
Part of the problem remains an inability to contain opposing offenses to prevent big plays (some of those converted third downs were not short!). I will cut the VT defense some slack though; Liberty QB Malik Willis has been hard to tackle all year, and today was no different - he's a talented player.
Icing your field goal defense.
We've all seen it a thousand times: a team lines up to kick the winning field goal and the opposing team feels obligated to call time out right before they can snap the ball in an attempt to "ice" the kicker. Is this tactic ever effective? I can't remember a single time. In fact, my son pointed out that all kickers do all game long is waiting for a chance to kick, so making them wait a little longer isn't going to make any difference. However, it can affect your own team, as well as the strategy of the other team - as it did today.
Right as Liberty was about to attempt a long field goal, Virginia Tech's head coach Justin Fuente called timeout. The players didn't know, so as is often the case they ran the play. The kick was blocked and the Hokies returned it for the game-winning touchdown -- a "kick six"! Of course, it didn't count because of the time out. Instead, knowing now that they needed to be a little closer, Liberty threw a short out pass on 4th down and 6 that gained 8 yards and only took three seconds off the clock. Those 8 yards allowed the Flames to kick a shorter field goal, which they made. Game over, Hokies lose, Flames win.
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AP Poll Analysis - 11/8/20 (RX; HM)
AP Poll Analysis - 11/8/20
Here is the latest AP Poll after the games of 2020 college football week 10:
| AP Top 25 | |
| RK | TEAM |
| 1 | Alabama(59) |
| 2 | Notre Dame(2) |
| 3 | Ohio State(1) |
| 4 | Clemson |
| 5 | Texas A&M |
| 6 | Florida |
| 7 | Cincinnati |
| 8 | BYU |
| 9 | Miami |
| 10 | Indiana |
Update CFP Odds - 11/8/20 (RX; HM)
Update CFP Odds - 11/8/20
Clemson falls, Notre Dame rises and Bama leads in latest CFP odds
Notre Dame saw its College Football Playoff championship chances increase after last night's upset of Clemson. However, Clemson still has better odds than the Irish in today's updated CFP odds. The bookies assume if there is a rematch on a neutral field in the ACC title game with Trevor Lawrence under center, the Tigers will prevail.
Alabama has moved into sole possession of the favorite spot while Ohio State is a close second. Undefeated teams such as BYU, Cincinnati, Liberty, Coastal Carolina and Marshall have also jumped up the list.
The below odds are from SportsBetting.com. Fractional odds are listed first in parentheses while the +/- American odds are listed second.
Odds are subject to change and you can see current numbers here: https://co.sportsbetting.com/event/36756/ncaaf-championship-2020-21
-- SportsBetting.com is a licensed in Colorado --
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https://www.thestate.com/sports/college/acc/clemson-university/article247055652.html (thestate.com; Connolly)
for gbo
An undermanned Clemson team went on the road and battled for four quarters, plus two overtimes, before falling to Notre Dame Saturday night in South Bend.
The loss snapped Clemson’s streak of 28 consecutive wins over ACC teams, as well as Clemson’s run of 50 straight wins in games played on Saturdays, 36 regular season wins in a row and 14 straight road wins.
The defeat, which was Clemson’s first in the regular season since 2017 at Syracuse, came without Heisman hopeful Trevor Lawrence, who was out due to COVID-19 protocol. But QB play wasn’t the reason the Tigers dropped the game.
The Tigers have another open week this week. Up next is a trip to Florida State on Nov. 21.
Here are five things we learned from Clemson’s trip to South Bend.
D.J. UIAGALELEI IS GOING TO BE A STAR
If you weren’t ready to put Clemson’s freshman QB into the same category as Deshaun Watson and Lawrence, it’s OK to do that now. Uiagalelei, making his first career road start, passed for the third-most yards by a Clemson QB in a game in school history against the fourth-ranked Irish — completing 29-of-44 passes for 439 yards, with two touchdowns and a rushing score.
The California native also didn’t turn the ball over for the second consecutive game and passed for the most yards ever by any QB against the Irish. The previous record was 425 yards by Southern Cal’s Carson Palmer in 2002. Uiagalelei recognized blitzes, showed off his strong arm and never got rattled on the road against a top 5 team.
“He’s special. I mean, are you kidding me? You watch this guy play, he’s going to be awesome,” Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said. “That was a big challenge for him tonight, for sure. But he made some incredible plays. He never wavered. He never flinched. Made some big, big throws, a couple of nice runs. He did a really, really nice job. He’s just going to get better and better.”
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How Notre Dame's double-OT win against Clemson impacts ACC, College Football Playoff races (TSN, Bender)
for gbo
No. 4 Notre Dame outlasted No. 1 Clemson 47-40 in a double-overtime thriller Saturday at Notre Dame Stadium, providing a much-needed jolt to the College Football Playoff race.
The Irish (7-0, 6-0 ACC) scored a program-changing victory with the help of quarterback Ian Book, who passed for 310 yards and gave the Irish sole possession of first place in the ACC. Clemson (7-1, 6-1 ACC) now likely must win out to get back to the conference championship game for the second consecutive season.
What does this mean for the College Football Playoff race? Sporting News breaks it down:
MORE: Notre Dame vs. Clemson scores, highlights
Tigers will take that mulligan
Clemson had a streak of 39 consecutive regular-season games snapped, but don't count the Tigers out of the Playoff race for obvious reasons.
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Other
Want an in-ground swimming pool? Here’s the heartbreaker: The waiting is the hardest part (PS; Moriarty)
Demand for pools remains so strong during the coronavirus pandemic, one local dealer is taking orders for the summer of 2022.
That’s right. 2022.
Gary Graham, owner of Liverpool Pool and Spa, said he is scheduling in-ground pool installations for June 2022 because of a backlog of orders. He’s still taking orders for above-ground pools for next summer.
The coronavirus pandemic created a surge in demand for pools this summer, with people staying home rather than going away for vacation. Graham said the demand has shown no signs of easing, even when customers are told they will have to wait until 2022.
“Everyone seems to be wanting to stay home,” he said. “They’re spending a lot of money in their backyards and their homes,” he said.
Sales of in-ground pools are up 40%, while sales of above-ground pools have risen 80%, he said.
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