sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
- Joined
- Aug 15, 2011
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Welcome to National Crème Brûlée Day!
The French, British and Spanish all claim they invented creme brulee. One thing's certain, though: Cracking the top is always fun.
SU News
BC OL Harris Williams
ACC Football Analysis: Media Tends to Overrate Miami, Underrate BC in Preseason Vote (PS; Stevens)
The Atlantic Coast Conference will release its annual guessing game/preseason media poll Tuesday morning.
Expect Florida State and Clemson at the top of the Atlantic Division.
Anticipate a scrum in the Coastal Division.
And if history holds, bank on Boston College and Georgia Tech being underrated and Miami being overrated on the eve of the season.
Those are definite trends in the 10 years of divisional play in the conference when a decade of predictions are boiled down into one chart — the average pick, the average finish (with a two-way tie for second counted as 2.5, a three-way tie for second being counted as a third-place result) and average difference included below.
A few stray observations ...
- There is very little to take from Syracuse's two-year sample size. It was picked sixth in 2013 and tied for third. Last year, the Orange was picked fourth and tied for sixth.
- After going through the Frank Spaziani wilderness years when it struggled to meet modest external expectations, Boston College is back to surpassing preseason predictions under Steve Addazio. The Eagles were picked last in the Atlantic in 2013 and tied for third, then finished fourth after earning a sixth-place preseason pick last year.
Terrel Hunt
8 Best Quotes From SU Football's Terrel Hunt and Zaire Franklin at ACC Media Days (PS; Mink)
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Terrel Hunt assures you it won't be a struggle to score
"It won't be. I can promise that. It won't be a big struggle because guys know we what we have to do.
"There were a lot of times last year we didn't feel comfortable because we didn't have an identity. Nobody knew exactly what was going to happen. Now we have an identity. We know who we are."
H-back could be X-factor, but Hunt is shouldering responsibility for offense
"It took (the defense) probably two weeks to learn how to stop it, and for a team that's never seen it before, all you have is a week to try to stop it.
"But it goes back to it's going to all be on my shoulders, and I'm OK with that. I'll take the success and I'll take the failures."
Hunt doesn't feel he lost momentum after suffering season-ending injury
"I really don't care what anybody says. The media can write what they write. The fans can say what they say, but my team believes in me. And I believe in them. I'm working for them. I don't feel like I lost momentum. If anything I feel like I got way better. I got smarter. I know the playbook. I know coverages. It's just going out there and playing."
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At ACC Football Media Days, Terrel Hunt Plots Comeback Season (thejuice; Bierman)
Terrel Hunt is optimistic, and why not?
After missing most of his second-to-last season of eligibility following 2014’s fifth game with a broken leg, and subsequently watching three other fellow quarterbacks take their turn at unsuccessfully figuring out how to score points against ACC opponents in a 3-9 injury-plagued finish, Hunt, a fifth year senior, realizes that after an off season of getting in the best shape of his life, losing weight and gaining speed, there’s nowhere to go but forward as he prepares to carry the Orange offensive load in his Syracuse finale.
“(It’s all about) winning, the right mind set,” Hunt said confidently as he fulfilled his media obligations Monday afternoon representing not only the meagerly potent Orange offense, but a program that’s still finding its way against a step up in weekly ACC competition.
“Literally, when you win you get better recruits. When you win you get more money (revenue), you get more publicity. Losers don’t get anything. A lot of times (last year) we would shoot ourselves in the foot. We’d be on the 20 (yard line) and get a 15 yard penalty. Now it’s third and 15. We don’t need that, I’d rather get touchdowns.”
Besides the arduous and repetitive workouts to not only strengthen his leg but add a burst of speed in and around the pocket he hopes to stay within a little bit more this season, Hunt has also gotten the Orange up to speed with the latest in virtual reality, in-game simulation software embedded into a helmet, allowing him to replicate scenarios he might come upon in various live game sequences.
“In training the helmet that you put on has a video game (like Madden) built in with all of our plays and defenses. Wherever we move (on the field) the motion sensors kick in, so wherever you want to throw the ball you throw it. It’s really slick.”
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Whoops. NSFW Phrase in ACC Football Guide Steal the Show at Media Day (PS; Bailey)
A murmur began to spread across tables of media members seated in the Carolina Hall at Pinehurst Resort around 5:30 p.m. on Monday. Writers rifled through their backpacks in search of their ACC media guides.
Laughs bellowed. Fingers pointed. Radio hosts in the adjacent sections began shouting boisterously.
The root of the amusement? A profane three-word phrase on Page 145 of the guide that somehow made it through the editing process.
Mike Finn, the ACC's associate commissioner for communications and editor of the media guide, said that the mistake was an honest one.
"It was an inadvertent error that somehow got into the media guide and we did not catch it," Finn said. "It was not intentional in any way."
Finn said that the ACC will release an official statement later on Monday. The phrase has already been edited out of the online edition.
College Athletes Working OT (courier-journal.com; Sullivan)
ames Burgess was off the clock, but still on the case. Seven weeks from the start of his season, his evening free at a resort hotel, Louisville's senior linebacker spent about two hours Sunday night studying video of upcoming opponents.
There is no offseason for ambitious football players and no realistic limit to the hours they will invest in improvement. NCAA rules designed to limit the time a student devotes to athletically related activities are widely flouted, infrequently enforced and possibly detrimental to career development.
"I'm not satisfied by being average," Burgess said Monday afternoon. "I'm not satisfied by just getting by. I want to be great. I want to be the greatest player I can be. ... This year can change the life of my family. There are even times I dream about football. It's rare that I get away from it. It's been football all year for me, and it will be football for the remainder of the year as well."
Shortly after Commissioner John Swofford opened the Atlantic Coast Conference's preseason football media extravaganza by expressing concerns about the challenges posed to the "college model" by the amount of time athletes spend on their sport, several of the participating players described formal restrictions as impractical.
Wake Forest linebacker Brandon Chubb said college football was "definitely" a full-time job. Syracuse quarterback Terrell Hunt said he "can't count the hours" he spends on his sport. "Pretty much the whole summer has been nothing but school and a lot of football," said Virginia Tech quarterback Michael Brewer.
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Get to Know Your Orange Man - #31 LB Kyle Kleinberg (TNIAAM; Keeley)
Name: Kyle Kleinberg
Position: Linebacker
Year: Freshman
Height: 6'0"
Weight: 223
Hometown: Armonk, NY
High School: Don Bosco Prep
2015 Projections: Kleinberg doesn't show up on any of the depth chart spots, so probably not too much action on the field.
How'd He Get Here: Kyle chose the preferred walk-on role at SU over scholarship offers from Maine, Dartmouth and Yale.
What'd Recruiting Sites Say: Not too much.
Money Quote: "I wanted to go play big-time football and I felt Syracuse gave me an opportunity I could not turn down. Syracuse has a trust in me. They know what they can do with me. That’s why they gave me this spot. Once I get there, I want to come in and show everybody who I am."
Links Of Wonder: Even on Don Bosco defensive line, Kyle Kleinberg standing out
Twitterfeed: @kyle11berg
Tweets Of Wonder: So much to learn.
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Plant's Culpepper to Miss Senior Season (tbo.com; Williams)
Senior quarterback Rex Culpepper was coming into his own, not only as one of the state’s elite quarterbacks, but as a leader on Plant High’s football team.
The effort he put forth to become both, says head coach Rob Weiner, is what made Sunday’s news that Culpepper suffered a torn ACL and will miss his entire senior season all the more devastating.
“You’re talking about a kid who has worked extraordinarily beyond the call of duty and without reservation,” Weiner said. “He doesn’t deserve this.”
Weiner said Culpepper was playing receiver versus Daytona Mainland during the USF Sling N’ Shoot on Saturday when during a simple route, a defender from Mainland rolled onto the back of Culpepper’s leg when trying to make a tag. Fortunately, Weiner said it was a clear ACL tear and Culpepper will completely heal, though it will take six months.
“Emotionally, to an athlete it’s the most debilitating injury,” Weiner said. “It attacks you emotionally.”
In June, Culpepper verbally committed to Syracuse. He plans to graduate from Plant in December and enroll at Syracuse in January. In his first full season as a starting quarterback, Culpepper, the son of former Buccaneers defensive lineman Brad Culpepper, threw for 2,016 yards, 20 touchdowns and eight interceptions in 2014 for a 108.2 quarterback rating.
Standing 6-foot-4, Culpepper also rushed for 279 yards and six touchdowns to lead the Panthers to an 11–2 record and the program’s 10th district title. Plant lost to Orlando Dr. Phillips in the region semifinals.
“You don’t say you can replace him with one guy and move on,” Weiner said. “Several guys will move in that spot and we’ll see as time goes on.”
Three quarterbacks will be in camp once the season officially begins Aug. 3: junior Dane Frantzen, who played running back last season, Culpepper’s younger brother, Judge, who was projected to be a tight end this season, and Kyle Trina, the starting quarterback on Plant’s JV team last season.
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