sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
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SU News
Syracuse Defense Faces Biggest Rebuild In All of College Football Over Last 6 Seasons (PS; Carlson)
The Syracuse football team faces the biggest defensive rebuilding job that college football has seen in six years.
When Phil Steele published his list of defense's by the percent of tackles returning on Tuesday, Syracuse ranked last in the country out of 128 teams, returning just 29.3 percent of its tackles from last year.
That number is the smallest for any college football team since the University of Hawaii returned just 24.6 percent of its tackles for the 2009 season.
Syracuse.com calculated the number of tackles returning at 28.9 percent earlier this year, and noted that the Orange have fewer tackles, tackles for loss and sacks returning than at any point during Scott Shafer's career at SU. The Orange lost all five of their top tacklers from last year for the first time since the school began publishing individual defensive stats in 1992.
None of those numbers should be a complete shock to those who follow the program closely, but they emphasize the incredible scope of the challenge facing defensive coordinator Chuck Bullough and the rest of Syracuse's defensive staff, a group that has carried the Orange for the better part of two years.
The 10 teams on the bottom of Steele's list last year gave up an average of 29.9 points and only one team, San Diego State, allowed fewer points than SU's 2014 unit. Half the list gave up at least 30 points per game. All of that indicates Syracuse fans should expect more than a small step backward.
Shafer's defenses have generally succeeded despite losing key parts. In his previous six years, however, the Orange patched holes. This year, the team is rebuilding on the fly.
...
How 3-Star Tampa QB Rex Culpepper Ended Up a Syracuse Football Commit (PS; Bailey)
Rex Culpepper's decision to verbally commit to Syracuse almost never happened. Had SU offensive coordinator Tim Lester passed down a Plant (Tampa, Fla.) High School hallway five minutes earlier or five minutes later during a visit about a month ago, the Orange may not havelanded one of its most highly touted recruits in recent history.
But Lester did pass Culpepper during his trip to the school that has produced four high-level college signal callers in the last seven years, and the 6-foot-3, 225-pound Culpepper told Lester something that he didn't expect.
Culpepper, the son and grandson of two Florida football players, wasn't locked in to be a Gator.
"We talked for like an hour," Culpepper said during a phone interview on Wednesday. "He always has believed in me and he always thought — or there was a point when he thought I was above Syracuse because I had a lot of offers."
Culpepper, rated three stars and the 26th-best pro-style quarterback in his class by 247Sports.com's composite rankings, did have a UF offer from Will Muschamp's staff. But after Jim McElwain was hired in December, the new staff wasn't certain it would honor the old offer.
Culpepper, who said he also received early offers from Clemson and Ohio State, didn't want to go to a school in which the coaching staff wasn't eager to bring him in.
...
Part One: Plant Head Coach Talks Culpepper (insidethegators; Brown)
Syracuse University picked up a big commitment yesterday in three-star quarterback Rex Culpepper, Tampa (Fla.) Plant. After missing out on a slew of quarterback prospects in the past two months, Syracuse was able to finally land one of the most promising quarterbacks in the 2016 class.
Culpepper, a top 15 quarterback according to Rivals, is a great fit for the Syracuse program. CuseConfidential.com caught up with his Plant High School Football Coach, Robert Weiner and according to his coach, Syracuse is getting one heck of a prospect.
"We are really super excited because we believe that this is really a great, great fit. A lot of the things that Coach Shafer seems to value are the same things that we value in our program and Rex is a tremendous representative of what that is for us and we know that Rex will be for Syracuse as well."
With excitement in his voice, Coach Weiner explained further what Syracuse would be getting from a football stand point.
"What that is specifically is first and foremost is that he is a tremendous player. He is 6-foot-3, 225 pounds and is incredibly strong. As he has gotten stronger he has matured into his body in terms of his body control so he is equally effective as a passer and a runner. I don't know if you could necessarily call him a duel threat because that isn't what we do in our program, but he will probably get somewhere between seven and ten carries a game between actual plays that I call and scramble situations. Then there is his arm, he has a very powerful arm, he is a kid that can throw the ball seventy yards down the field but is also a kid who has grown in accuracy. I haven't come across many kids that are as coachable as he is and who wants to learn and get better. He is a tinkerer which is one of the things I love most about him as his coach. We will get in (to the film) and he will just start tinkering with the other team's defense."
...
SU News
Syracuse Defense Faces Biggest Rebuild In All of College Football Over Last 6 Seasons (PS; Carlson)
The Syracuse football team faces the biggest defensive rebuilding job that college football has seen in six years.
When Phil Steele published his list of defense's by the percent of tackles returning on Tuesday, Syracuse ranked last in the country out of 128 teams, returning just 29.3 percent of its tackles from last year.
That number is the smallest for any college football team since the University of Hawaii returned just 24.6 percent of its tackles for the 2009 season.
Syracuse.com calculated the number of tackles returning at 28.9 percent earlier this year, and noted that the Orange have fewer tackles, tackles for loss and sacks returning than at any point during Scott Shafer's career at SU. The Orange lost all five of their top tacklers from last year for the first time since the school began publishing individual defensive stats in 1992.
None of those numbers should be a complete shock to those who follow the program closely, but they emphasize the incredible scope of the challenge facing defensive coordinator Chuck Bullough and the rest of Syracuse's defensive staff, a group that has carried the Orange for the better part of two years.
The 10 teams on the bottom of Steele's list last year gave up an average of 29.9 points and only one team, San Diego State, allowed fewer points than SU's 2014 unit. Half the list gave up at least 30 points per game. All of that indicates Syracuse fans should expect more than a small step backward.
Shafer's defenses have generally succeeded despite losing key parts. In his previous six years, however, the Orange patched holes. This year, the team is rebuilding on the fly.
...
How 3-Star Tampa QB Rex Culpepper Ended Up a Syracuse Football Commit (PS; Bailey)
Rex Culpepper's decision to verbally commit to Syracuse almost never happened. Had SU offensive coordinator Tim Lester passed down a Plant (Tampa, Fla.) High School hallway five minutes earlier or five minutes later during a visit about a month ago, the Orange may not havelanded one of its most highly touted recruits in recent history.
But Lester did pass Culpepper during his trip to the school that has produced four high-level college signal callers in the last seven years, and the 6-foot-3, 225-pound Culpepper told Lester something that he didn't expect.
Culpepper, the son and grandson of two Florida football players, wasn't locked in to be a Gator.
"We talked for like an hour," Culpepper said during a phone interview on Wednesday. "He always has believed in me and he always thought — or there was a point when he thought I was above Syracuse because I had a lot of offers."
Culpepper, rated three stars and the 26th-best pro-style quarterback in his class by 247Sports.com's composite rankings, did have a UF offer from Will Muschamp's staff. But after Jim McElwain was hired in December, the new staff wasn't certain it would honor the old offer.
Culpepper, who said he also received early offers from Clemson and Ohio State, didn't want to go to a school in which the coaching staff wasn't eager to bring him in.
...
Part One: Plant Head Coach Talks Culpepper (insidethegators; Brown)
Syracuse University picked up a big commitment yesterday in three-star quarterback Rex Culpepper, Tampa (Fla.) Plant. After missing out on a slew of quarterback prospects in the past two months, Syracuse was able to finally land one of the most promising quarterbacks in the 2016 class.
Culpepper, a top 15 quarterback according to Rivals, is a great fit for the Syracuse program. CuseConfidential.com caught up with his Plant High School Football Coach, Robert Weiner and according to his coach, Syracuse is getting one heck of a prospect.
"We are really super excited because we believe that this is really a great, great fit. A lot of the things that Coach Shafer seems to value are the same things that we value in our program and Rex is a tremendous representative of what that is for us and we know that Rex will be for Syracuse as well."
With excitement in his voice, Coach Weiner explained further what Syracuse would be getting from a football stand point.
"What that is specifically is first and foremost is that he is a tremendous player. He is 6-foot-3, 225 pounds and is incredibly strong. As he has gotten stronger he has matured into his body in terms of his body control so he is equally effective as a passer and a runner. I don't know if you could necessarily call him a duel threat because that isn't what we do in our program, but he will probably get somewhere between seven and ten carries a game between actual plays that I call and scramble situations. Then there is his arm, he has a very powerful arm, he is a kid that can throw the ball seventy yards down the field but is also a kid who has grown in accuracy. I haven't come across many kids that are as coachable as he is and who wants to learn and get better. He is a tinkerer which is one of the things I love most about him as his coach. We will get in (to the film) and he will just start tinkering with the other team's defense."
...
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