Fort Drum Impressions

[ImperialOrange]

Nope

Ehhh well... Ive been wrong before :noidea:

 

[Orangetradition44]

S&c?

I'm having fun, but no one on this staff has been here more than 5 years. It would have to be someone like Floyd Little.

 

[TexanMark]

guys, no guessing games please...I am not sure he/she wanted their name blasted out...just take it as a positive.

 

[cuseguy]

Tom, you complete me.

 

[LeMoyneCuse]

Thanks to all for the recaps. I have a few questions.

1) Are we going to live and die by the success of our linebacking corps? From the recaps I've read here, I get the impression their speed and physicality is what will keep us in games.

2) Did the defense frustrate the offense? Vice versa? Was it pretty even?

3) Is there any hope for the D-Line? Or were they hampered by a lack of Sugar Bear and Crume?

 

[SUFan44]

Good summary. I agree with all of that.

My take...

Norton looks really solid at placekicker right now. He is getting his kicks off quickly and they were consistently solidly struck into a strong wind, with excellent elevation. It is going to be much harder to block his kicks if he keeps hitting them like he did last night.

Dixon looked good punting the ball. Excellent hang time. It looks like Cole Murphy is the backup punter. Huge dropoff here...he is not really a punter, but a placekicker. If we lose Riley, we are in deep trouble. Hodgkinson, the rugby player, did not get a chance to kick. Not sure if he or Murphy are the backup placekicker right now. Could be Dixon for all I know.

The first team offense played much more than expected. Not sure why, but I suspect it was because they struggled to move the ball, at least against the 1st team defense. The 1st team defense runs well and looks quick. Lots of spirit too. Kelly appears to be in complete control of the SS spot; Desir played with the 2nd team only last night.

Robinson and Welsh look like our best DEs by a large margin. Worried about the interior DL. Crume better be 100% once the season starts. Sloan is really out of shape and struggled. Harvey and Samuels got overwhelmed a lot. Coleman is the best we have right now, Williams and Johnson are okay at best.

We have a big problem with the 4th CB right now. Winfield is playing with the 2nd team now and got beat deep a couple of time badly. Looks lost out there. Of the true frosh CBs, the one that made the most plays and got the most playing time was Juwan Dowels. Cordy made a couple of good plays too.

Hunt threw it well, was not helped by some bad route running. Thought Wilson and Kimble looked confused out there but to be fair to them, they had backup OL blocking for them and rarely had time to make their reads.

The 2nd and 3rd team players played a lot. The ones that stood out to me are about the same list others have mentioned:

Rodney Williams seemed to be in the right spot at the right time almost every play he was on the field, has excellent speed and hits hard. Jon Thomas runs well, fights off blocks nicely and looks like he is close to being ready to contribute right now. Moskal and Franklin also got a lot of PT, I thought Franklin made a few more plays than Colton did.

Phillips got a lot of touches on offense and seemed to make something happen just about every time he touched the ball. Very quick and cuts really well. Hard to tackle in the open field. They used him in a variety of ways. My favorite play was a broken one where Hunt was in trouble, saw Phillips wide near the line of scrimmage and decided to drop it off to him. Phillips saw the ball was coming his way, had the presence of mind to take a glance at the defense, where someone was coming up hard at him. He looked back to the ball and as he stepped into it to catch it, he lost traction on the muddy field and almost fell. I was sure he was going to drop the pass after all this, but he didn't. He caught it, regained his balance, made a quick little hop move to get past the defender charging at him, then high stepped past another defender and cut against the grain for 8 or 9 more yards. He strikes me as a heady, smooth player who you can trust with the ball. Very similar to Brisley last year. With Brisley out, he also served as the top punt returner last night. Did drop the first punt but got it back. Kind of surprised Desir was not the backup here. I guess we are going all in on getting more yardage on punt returns this season.

Steve Ishmael quietly made a number of catches, looks like a fine route runner, really like his hands (has nice technique here, rare for a frosh). Cool customer, looks like he is a junior or a senior already. I think he has moved ahead of guys like Funderburk, Kobena, Lewis and Cornelius. Custis also looked good out there. I believe he was mostly playing TE. Good hands, showed poise when the ball was thrown his way, his blocking needs a lot of work.

West didn't get a lot of touches. Broyld did and played well, looks comfortable out there, caught everything thrown to him. He did line up wrong once...at this point, that is not good but to be fine to him, I think he was working almost exclusively at H back last night. That was his original position last year when he was moved to WR but he was moved outside during the season. There has been an epidemic of issues with out H backs recently (Brisley is hurt, Vant is hurt, Winfield was moved to CB, Cooper decided to transfer). It will be interesting to see what happens here. Phillips would seem the natural person to move here but it looks like the staff wants to use him from the backfield.

Flemming didn't get any looks that I remember but he played and didn't get hurt, so that is a win for me.

Josh Parris has lost a lot of weight. Never thought he was fat but he looks more like a WR than a TE now. I suspect he was asked to lose weight so he could gain some speed. With this and with Custis working with the TEs, looks like they are trying to get more speed at the TE position.

Foy played, as best I could tell, with the 1st unit all the time. Lasker looks like he reformed his body over the summer, moved really well and looked much improved. McGloster is the other 2nd unit OT, he also moved well, looks to be in excellent shape and has a promising future. They are both going to have deal with Ward, who looks like a man among boys when he is out there. With Robinson out with the injury, Palmer worked at LG with the first unit all the time. Miller snaps from the shotgun were good, Emerich struggled some here.

Mitsuuchi was the long snapper on the plays were I could identify the snapper. Looks like he is going to be the top backup here to Rodgers.

It was a pretty nice setup at Fort Drum. Some stands were in place, looked like soldier's wives were manning some booths selling food. Lots of action for the hot dogs ($3 for 2), not so much for the people selling snow cones (it was cold, windy and raining, #hardnosed weather for #hardnosed fans and #hardnosed players). Good to finally see a PX, glad I didn't have any run-ins with the MPs. Thanks to TexanMark and the crew for getting a lowly civilian like me into the event.

Great recap - thank you!

One question though - what are realistic expectations for this season? Just returning to a bowl, or making a jump to 8-9 regular season wins?

 

[RICuse44]

Fantastic recap. Question for those who have seen spring ball and fanfest/drum scrimmage. In regards to the backup slot, it seems that Wilson has performed the best in terms of what has been seen- would this be accurate and the Long projections as #2 are lip service?

 

[PhatOrange]

yeah the interior dline is going to be a problem this year.

 

[sutomcat]

Great recap - thank you!

One question though - what are realistic expectations for this season? Just returning to a bowl, or making a jump to 8-9 regular season wins?

I don't know...my gut feeling is that the offense is going to be better than last year (but not as good as two years ago), the defense is going to be good (a little better than last season) and special teams will be the best they have been in some time.

So overall, the team will be better. So much depends on the schedule though and it looks like we have a tough one this year. My guess is that this is a team that is capable of winning 6 to 8 games in the regular season and will probably end up in that range.

 

[Millhouse]

TE bubble screens, yuck.
.

if i smash my head on my desk any harder, it's going to look like a GOT episode

 

[GoSU96]

if i smash my head on my desk any harder, it's going to look like a GOT episode

You are going to want to get one of those bubble helmets then, they threw two or three to Josh Parrish.

 

[Millhouse]

You are going to want to get one of those bubble helmets then, they threw two or three to Josh Parrish.

there will be a int return TD on one of those