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[QUOTE="JeremyCuse, post: 5697598, member: 43"]
They had a nice opening win vs Lafayette at home but its been all downhill since.

They lost 10-2 to Denver, played OSU tough but lost 14-9, got obliterated 21-9 by Siena, lost to Marist and just lost this past Sat 21-6 to Duke.

I will say they gave Duke a lot of problems for about a qtr and a half. It was 2-1 Duke end of 1.

Obviously SU losing would shocking but their are a few concerns in this type of game.

First is you get a repeat of the Hopkins 1st qtr, outplay them but bad turnovers, clearing issues/offsides and missed opportunities on offense lead to a close or tied game after 1. Doesn't mean SU won't do what Duke did and just slowly pull away but it means starters gotta play more team presses a bit and it just becomes a slog.

The second concern is one we haven't seen a lot under Gait against lower level teams but would happen at times under Desko. Team gets out to a fast start say 3 or 4 nothing and then we start subbing wholesale and SUs bad habits (see the Harvard game last year reg season), start creeping in and next think you know its 7-5 late 2nd qtr and now your in a battle etc.

SU has an advantage pretty much everywhere and this is a game that hopefully SU puts away clearly by midway through the 2nd qtr or at least half. You wanna see a lot of those backups who haven't played much outside of the St. Joes game get some time.

Just hope our guys are sharp early. I watched some of AF game vs Duke. They struggled with turnovers (19) and couldn't match up off the dodge defensively.

Gait teams save for year 1 have handled the overmatched teams pretty handily so you'd expect to see something similar on Thursday.
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