SWC75
Bored Historian
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THE SCHEDULE
FrIday, August 29th 7:30 at the Carrier Dome VILLANOVA TV: ESPN 3 (their on-line service)
The Wildcats were once a major college team, although they were at the periphery of the big time. Syracuse played then three times and won twice. Their most famous football graduate was Howie Long. Then they gave up football in 1981 due to dwindling attendance. The students demanded its return and they came back at the Division III level in 1985 under Andy Talley, who is still their coach 29 years later, (career record at Nova: 204-125-1). The moved up to Division 1AA and have played at that level with considerable success ever since. They won the championship of that division, (by now called FCS), beating Montana 23-21, in 2009. Last year they were only 6-5 but are expected to be better this year. They were ranked 12th in the FCS pre-season poll.
Their star is their quarterback, John Robertson, a sort of FCS version of Johnny Manziel. Last year he completed 68% of his passes for 1,957 yards and 13TDS. When not doing that, he ran for 1,405 yards at 6.5 yards a crack and 20 TDs. And SU has had all kinds of trouble with mobile quarterbacks over the years, (who hasn’t?). He’s the type of guy who can elevate his team against otherwise superior competition. The top returning receiver is Poppy Livers, (Poppy Livers?!?), with 53 catches for 580 yards and 3TDs. Kenneth Monangi rushed for 1,210 yard two years ago and 643 last year. Center Ross Hall and tackle Vince Kowalski are pre-season all conference. Powerful nose guard Pat Williams anchors the D-line. The linebackers are all upper-classmen. Dillon Lucas was the conference defensive rookie of the year. Safety Joe Sarnese leads the secondary. The Wildcats are rebuilding their kicking game.
This is exactly the type of game I hate: we’ll get no credit for winning it because it’s an FCS team but we could lose this one and we’d get all the blame if that happens. We’ve had some close class against FCS teams in recent years, Maine gave us some trouble before we won 41-24. We only beat Rhode Island 21-14. We were down at halftime to Stony brook before coming back to win 28-17. We absolutely have to get this one in the W column because things will get tough in October and we need a great September.
Last Year Villanova gained 435 yards per game, 251 on the ground and 184 on the air. They scored 31 points per game. Their defense gave up 368 yards per game, 125 on the ground and 243 in the air. They surrendered 22 points per game. Their turnover margin was -2.
Saturday, September 6th Open Date
Our two off weeks occur at in opportune times: too early and too late, although I’m sure the second one will be much appreciated by the time we get to it. Gear up for 9 straight weeks of games after this.
Saturday, September 13th Noon at CENTRAL MICHIGAN TV: ESPNU/ESPN News (Channel 302)
Why do we play these games? A road game against a MAC team. Again, we could lose but would get little credit for a win and much blame for a loss. If we wanted to play a not so strong team from the Midwest, why not play Indiana or Kentucky or Kansas?
The Chippewas were 6-6 last year, losing to Michigan by 50 points and North Carolina State by 34. But that doesn’t score any points for us. CM won 5 of their last 7, including their last three and gets 18 starters back so they should be better. But the quarterback is uncertain. Redshirt freshman Cooper Rush was pressed into service after a terrible start last year but doesn’t have a lock on the job yet. Whoever wins that job Titus Davis is the leading returning receiver in the MAC with 61 for 1,109 yards and 8TDs. Saylor Lavellii in the leading retuning rusher with 807 yards and 5TDs. Andy Phillips was an all-conference guard. They have 15 players coming back on defense who made at least 10 tackles.
Last year Central Michigan gained 341 yards per game, 132 on the ground and 208 on the air. They scored 26 points per game. Their defense gave up 405 yards per game, 201 on the ground and 203 in the air. They surrendered 25 points per game. Their turnover margin was -5.
Saturday, September 20th (TBA) at the Carrier Dome MARYLAND TV: TBA
This, believe it or not, is a non-conference game. That’s because, illogically, Rutgers and Maryland are now in the Big Ten. Louisville is their replacement in the ACC. We beat them in their place last year, 20-3. I recall that they were one of the teams dealing with significant offensive injuries when we played them. Like SU, they managed to get to a bowl game and finish 7-6 but they lost their bowl game after a 4-0 start.
Wideout Stefon Diggs was one of the walking wounded last year but has averaged 156 all-purpose yards per game in his career. CJ Brown is a “dual threat” quarterback. Deon King averaged 4.7 yards per carry. Andre Monroe had 17 tackles ofr a loss and 9.5 sack form his defensive end positon. Cole Farrand had 84 tackles as a linebacker but that was topped by safety Sean Davis who had 105 tackles. Coach Randy Edsall wanted the Syracuse job back in the day and loves beating the Orange.
Last year Maryland gained 397 yards per game, 148 on the ground and 248.5 on the air. They scored 26 points per game. Their defense gave up 374 yards per game, 149 on the ground and 225 in the air. They surrendered 25 points per game. Their turnover margin was -7.
Saturday, September 27th (TBA) at MetLife Stadium NOTRE DAME TV: TBA
After a long period of being notre dame, Notre Dame became NOTRE DAME again two years ago. Coach Brian Kelly, who had won two Division II national championships at Grand Valley State and turned Central Michigan from a 3-9 team to a 9-4 bowl winner in three years. He was named to replaced Mark D’Antoni at Cincinnati when the latter got the Michigan State job. Cincy had made a bowl game and the bearcats asked him to begin his career there by coaching them in the bowl game. He left his Central Michigan staff to coach their team in their bowl game. Both of Kelly’s teams won their bowl games. In three full years at Cincinnati, he went an incredible 33-6, including 12-0 in his final year. As noted, they would have played for the national championship if Texas hadn’t gotten a second chance at a game winning field goal against Nebraska. But they did and Cincinnati didn’t and Kelly again left his team while they were preparing for a bowl game to take the Notre Dame job. In three years he turned the Irish from a 6-6 team to a 12-0 playing for the national title. The guy can flat-out coach.
But there are some red flags. His constant jumping form program to program indicates his priorities are his own, not others. Perhaps Notre Dame is his “destination school” and he intends to remain there for a generation and become aligned. Or perhaps he’ll be headed somewhere else, maybe the pros. It didn’t help that he ordered a student cameraman to remain in a scissor lift to record a practice in a storm, costing the kid his life when it fell over in the high winds. And it didn’t help when a young woman got raped, allegedly by a football player and committed suicide and the University dragged its feet in investigating it while hiring a detective agency to determine who allegedly conned another football player into thinking he had a dying girlfriend, (who turned out not to exist). It didn’t help when quarterback Everett Golson “was suspended from Notre Dame because of an academic violation and other reasons”. (Wikipedia). He then left school but came back after admitted he’d cheated on a test. And it didn’t help when four players got suspended for having someone else take their exams for them. NOTRE DAME may be back to Notre Dame or even notre dame before too long.
Actually, they were back to being Notre Dame last year, going 9-4 with the “9” being a win over Rutgers in the Pinstripe Bowl. They dropped from outscoring their opponents by 169 points, (even with the Alabama debacle), to out-scoring them by 63 points. Still, two of their losses were by a touchdown to Pittsburgh and Stanford and the other two by 11 and 14 points to Michigan and Oklahoma. Those teams were a combined 36-17, all with winning records. So this is still a formidable opponent. The game will be played at Metlife Stadium in the Meadowlands, where we lost to Penn State in last year’s opener. It might seem like a home game for Syracuse or even a neutral site game, but the New York City area adopted Notre Dame as their team long ago.
Kelly lost both of his coordinators from last year’s team to head coaching jobs so we’ll see how the coaching staff shake-up impacts the team. The four players suspended were, “senior wide receiver DaVaris Daniels and junior defensive back KeiVarae Russell, who contributed to the team’s 2012 run to the national title game, long with senior defensive lineman Ishaq Williams and linebacker Kendall Moore, a graduate student.” (Bloomberg News). Ishaq was a player Syracuse coveted as the “big time” recruit we needed to get national attention. It sounds as if we’d be getting another kind of national attention if we had got him.
What might mean as much as the talent Notre Dame puts on the field for this game is where their head is at after all this, especially if they don’t get off to a good start, (Rice, Michigan Purdue). They’ve still got plenty of players. Golson was the quarterback of that 12-1 team two years ago. He completed 187 of 318 passes for 2405 yards, 12TDs and 6 interceptions. He ran for 299 yards and 6 touchdowns. Cam McDaniel ran for 7094 yards at 4.6 yards per carry. Daniels was the leading returning receiver. Now it’s tight end Chris Brown with only 15 catches. They are rebuilding the defense but USA Today calls lineman Sheldon Day, linebacker Jaylon Smith and cornerback KeiVarae Russell All-America Candidates. When Notre Dame replaces people, it’s probably with somebody we wanted.
Last year Notre Dame gained 406 yards per game, 151 on the ground and 255 on the air. They scored 27 points per game. Their defense gave up 366 yards per game, 168 on the ground and 198 in the air. They surrendered 22 points per game. They broke even on turnovers.
Friday, October 3rd 7PM, at the Carrier Dome LOUISVILLE TV: ESPN
The Cardinals went 12-1, (crushing Miami 36-9 in a bowl game after beating Florida the previous year, 33-23), and lost by a field goal to Central Florida who was also 12-1. They were the top teams in the AAC- the American Athletic Conference. The Cardinals have now joined the ACC- the Atlantic Coast Conference- and that kind of success may be harder to come by. Their coach, Charlie Strong, left to replace Mac Brown at Texas. Their star quarterback, Teddy Bridgewater, left early for the pros and is now a Viking. And they will be competing not with Central Florida but with Florida State.
To replace Strong, they brought back Bobby Petrino, like a Brian Kelly, a guy who can flat out coach but who brings a lot of baggage. Petrino coached the Cardinals to their greatest success, going 41-9 from 2003-2006, making a basketball school into a football power as well. He then jumped to the NFL, leaving the Atlanta Falcons after only 13 games, of which they won 3. He landed at Arkansas where he went from 5-7 to 11-2 in four years. Then that blew up when he was involved in a motor cycle accident with a female employee he was having an affair with. He wound up at Western Kentucky where he went 8-4. Then Louisville rehired him. Who knows what will happen next with Petrino but if nothing off the field intervenes, you can assume his team will win a lot of games.
They have three all-conference, (all-AAC, that is) players returning to their offensive line: tackle Javon Brown and guards John Miller and Jake Smith. They have two of the top three running backs and 4 of the top five receivers coming back. Dominique Brown ran for 825 yards at 5.1 a crack and scored 8TDs. DeVante Parker caught 55 balls, Eli Rogers 44, and tight end Gerald Christian added 28 more. They had the 5th ranked defense in the country last year and have both cornerbacks and two linebackers returning to key it this year. But the other starters are gone. (Late flash: DeVante Parker injured his foot and will be out 6-8 weeks, which would make his playing against Syracuse very doubtful. But his Grandfather told a reporter: “"Petrino's offense is genius anyway," Willie Parker said. "It wasn't gonna be just DeVante. It was gonna be everybody.")
It will be interesting to see how Strong’s recruits mesh with Petrino’s schemes. Charlie was a defensive coach, Petrino an offensive genius. But the offense ahs the returnees, other than Bridgewater, (who would have thrived in Petrino’s system). Petrino has to rebuild the defense. Louisville’s athletic department makes more money than any in the conference and they are in SEC country while not being far from Ohio and Western Pennsylvania so they have great potential for success in this sport, as well as basketball. I expect them to rank with Clemson and sometime challenge Florida State in our division. But maybe not this year.
Last year Louisville gained 461 yards per game, 147 on the ground and 314 on the air. They scored 35 points per game. Their defense gave up 251.5 yards per game, 81 on the ground and 171 in the air. They surrendered 12 points per game. They were +17 on turnovers, a stat that will hard to match with a rebuilding defense, including the whole starting line.
Saturday, October 11th (TBA) at the Carrier Dome FLORIDA STATE TV: TBA
Thirty years ago, (Gosh!), Nebraska came to town, the #1 ranked team in the country. In 1983 they’d outscored their opponents 654-217, losing by a point to Miami for the national title in the Orange Bowl. Among their victims in an all-conquering regular season, was Syracuse, a team they’d blown out of Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, 7-63, (remember the c=board rule: SU’s score always comes first). The Huskers had opened ’84 with wins of 42-7, 38-7 and 42-3 over Wyoming, Minnesota and UCLA, the latter a nationally televised game over a supposed national championship contender. Syracuse had “prepared” for the Cornhuskers by upsetting Maryland 23-7, beating a bad Northwestern team 13-12 on the final play of the game and then losing 0-19. Nothing to nineteen. To Rutgers. In the Dome. The result:
I still remember the highlights of this game being played to the theme from the eyar’s most popular movie, “Ghostbusters”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9J9haehfQeg
SU was the “Husker Busters”. Someone called from Lincoln saying that the score being reported, (the game wasn’t televised nationally), was obviously a mistake and wanted to know what the real final score was. “Your team could not possibly have beaten our team.” I remember walking back to my car surrounded by dazed Husker fans. I had to help them avoid walking into telephone poles.
Last year, Syracuse travelled to Tallahassee to take on Florida State, (they were still ranked #2 to Alabama at that point). We got humiliated, 3-59. And that was the third quarter score. The Seminoles could have scored 80+ on us if they’d wanted to. They went on to win the national title after a furious comeback vs. Auburn that was very reminiscent of the Orange Bowl were Nebraska lost to Miami except the Noles pulled it out. They wound up out-scoring their opposition 723-170. This year they have home dates with Oklahoma State and Clemson before playing us but are likely to be undefeated and #1 ranked coming into the Dome. We will be coming off of tough assignments vs. Notre Dame and Louisville and may not have much momentum going. The Noles will be playing those same two teams after they play us. They may not have much respect for us and may be looking past us. Who you gonna call?
Will it happen again? Probably not. Nebraska was a bullying team. They were the first school to become famous for their weight room. They met you at the point of attack. You knew what was coming but you couldn’t stop it because they were bigger, stronger and tougher than you were. A big asset for the Syracuse team was Mike Wojcik, the team’s strength coach who later held the same positon with the Dallas Cowboys Super Bowl championship teams. Our guys were getting stronger each year. The strength of our team was our “four wheel drive” defensive line of Tim Breen, Bill Pendock, Jamie Kimmell and Blaise Winter. It was hoped that this group could give Nebraska some trouble the previous year but the team received so many motivational speeches from the coaches they forgot to maintain their assignments and ran wherever they thought the ball was on every play. Every misdirection play went the distance.
In 1984, the coaches stressed that they stay at home, secure their positon, then get aggressive. It made all the difference. That and the unfocused state of the over-confident Huskers. That game was football’s equivalent of Buster Douglas beating Mike Tyson Buster, on that night, wasn’t scared of Mike as his other opponents had been and met him at the point of attack. Tyson didn’t know what to do when an opponent was forcing him against the ropes and got knocked out. From the opening kick-off when Tom Rathman was ko’ed, we took it to the Huskers. Tim Green spent the whole day in their backfield. We hung in the game with our model T offense and it became apparent that we might actually have a chance to win this. Then came Norley, (on basically the last play of his career) to Siano and we’d pulled off the greatest upset in SU history. We didn’t become a power immediately but the recruits that would engineer the turn-around three years alter were surely watching.
Florida State is a team with NFL caliber athletes all over the field. They take advantage of that by making you cover the whole field and seeing if you can keep up with them, which you can’t. If you can’t keep up with a team, you can’t out-tough them. That will be the difference. Mental attitude will not be as big a factor in this game as the Nebraska game because the gap in physical talent will be too great. I’m hoping for better than 3-59 but I expect this will be similar to last year’s Clemson game where the Tigers, whenever they got in any kind of mild trouble, could just launch a bomb and explode our chances and our spirits.
Jameis Winston is back as the Heisman Trophy winning quarterback last year he completed 67% of his passes for 4,057 yards and 40 touchdowns with 10 interceptions. But, hey: he was just a freshman. He also ran for 407 yards and 4 scores. But the most impressive thing I saw, and maybe the most impressive thing I’ve ever seen on a football field was when he handed off to world-class sprinter Kermit Whitfield and made the block that sprang him for a 74 yard TD burst FORTY YARDS DOWNDFIELD. Maybe we can distract him by having pretty cheerleaders wave crablegs in the air. I doubt anything else will stop him.
Karlos Williams ran for 730 yards at 8 yards a crack and scored 11 times. Rashad Greene caught 76 passes for 1,128 yards and 9 scores. Tight end Nick O’Leary caught 33/557/7. All will likely play on Sunday. The entire offensive line will return and likely be the best unit in the country. Defensively they lost a couple of linebackers who will be replaced by guys we wish we had. Kicker Roberto Agauayo is the reigning Lou Groza award winner, if it matters.
You’ll hear a lot about the Nebraska game when the Noles come to town. So will they. Maybe somebody will beat them this year but you’re gonna have to call somebody other than SU to do it.
Last year Florida State gained 519 yards per game, 203 on the ground and 316 on the air. They scored 52 points per game. Their defense gave up 281 yards per game, 125 on the ground and 157 in the air. They surrendered 12 points per game. They were +17 on turnovers, a stat that they might match again with the athletes they can put on the field and the leads they build up.
Saturday, October 18th (TBA) at WAKE FOREST TV: TBA
Now comes the most important game of the season . Wake Forest? Yes, Wake Forest. When you have a strong program your most important game is against your best opponents. When you are building or rebuilding a program, it’s vital that you beat the “beatable” teams on your schedule to guarantee a minimum level of success you can build on, whatever happens in the “big” games. And, if you have a stretch of powerful opponents, the one ‘beatable’ team you play in that stretch becomes a must win. It’s very possible we will be coming into this game after three straight defeats, maybe three straight one-sided defeat with the trip to Clemson coming up the following week. We have to get this win to prevent a free-fall that could ruin the season and endanger Scott Shafer’s tenure here, (we don’t need to be starting over again anytime soon).
We beat them 13-0 in the Dome last year. They were one of those mediocre teams weakened by offensive injuries that gave us a leg up last year. The Deacons stumbled to a 4-8 record and they forced out their best ever coach, Jim Grobe, (who complained that he should have taken the Nebraska job when it was offered to him years ago). Jim had taken this perennial doormat to the Orange Bowl in 2006 as ACC champions. He’ll be replaced by Bowling Green coach Dave Clawson who believes strongly in the passing game. Grobe had more of a balanced offense and Clawson may find he doesn’t yet have the personnel he needs for what he wants to do. And he may have a hard time attracting that talent to Winston-Salem.
Wide receiver Michael Campenaro was virtually their whole offense last year: when he went down to an injury early in the SU game, they were sunk. Now he’s in the NFL with the Baltimore Ravens. They are also searching for a new quarterback and three of their top four rushers are gone. Of course they only ran for 94 yards a game, 116th in the country, so they may not miss them much. They do have a defense: their “secondary is athletic and deep enough to handle the move to a 4-2-5 alignment. Both starting cornerbacks, Kevin Johnson and Merrill Noel, are among the best in the ACC.”(SB Nation)But they lost three defensive linemen.
Last year Wake Forest gained 291 yards per game, 94 on the ground and 197 on the air. They scored 18 points per game. Their defense gave up 366 yards per game, 143 on the ground and 223 in the air. They surrendered 24 points per game. They were -2 on turnovers.
Saturday, October 25th (TBA) at CLEMSON TV: TBA
Florida State is the powerhouse program of the league but Clemson has the best fans and the hardest place for a visitor to play. They set records down there for decibel levels:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaJwiOjt9fE
They also have plenty of good football players and a long history of success. From the point where Charley Pell became their coach in 1977, their record is 300-142-6, (15th in the country:
http://football.stassen.com/cgi-bin...=1977&end=2013&rpct=30&min=5&se=on&by=Win+Pct
(I might have guessed a little higher, actually), with 32 winning seasons in 38 years. We’ve had some very good teams in that span but are 236-197-5, 41st in the country, with 23 winners. We will beat Clemson in Syracuse before we beat Florida State in Syracuse but we will be beat Florida State in Syracuse before we beat Clemson at Clemson. We might even beat Florida State at Florida State before we beat Clemson at Clemson. (Or maybe not…)
I spent last year’s game sitting next to a Clemson fan wondering whether to sheer “Let’s Go Orange!” or not- Clemson’s uniform had a lot more orange in it than ours. We got to talking about the 1995 Gator Bowl when we’d crushed them, 41-0. Now we were the “crushee”, 14-49. We both agreed that the major difference between the teams was that in 1995 we had Donovan McNabb and Marvin Harrison and this year they had Taji Boyd and Sammie Watkins. This year they don’t have Taji and Sammy but don’t expect them to go too far downhill.
Cole Stoudt, the son of former NFL QB Cliff Stoudt saw a lot of action last fall, throwing for 413 yards and 5 scores, (they actually use their back-up QWB at Clemson). He completed 80% of his passes.80%! Adam Humphries caught TD passes of 60 and 42 yards against SU last year . Running back Zac Brooks also scored against us. But the key this year may be their defense, which defensive coordinator Brent Venables has completely turned around since the Orange Bowl debacle against West Virginia three years ago. The entire defensive line is back, including all-American end Vic Beasley. “Senior LB Stephone Anthony and junior safety Travis Blanks are among the best at their positons.” (USA Today). It will be another game where we will keep saying “Boy, I wish we had that guy”.
Last year Clemson gained 508 yards per game, 175 on the ground and 333 on the air. They scored 40 points per game. Their defense gave up 357 yards per game, 156 on the ground and 201 in the air. They surrendered 24 points per game. They were +6 on turnovers.
Saturday, November 1st (TBA) at the Carrier Dome NORTH CAROLINA STATE TV: TBA
We can sink our teeth into the rest of the schedule. No bone or gristle. We beat these guys in their place last year 24-10. It ended four decades of 0-6 frustration against a program that has been no better than ours over that time. Last year the Pack was another one of those teams that suffered from some serious injuries, (and wasn’t all that good to begin with), that helped us put our season back together. They finished 3-9 and 0-8 in the conference. They are just what we need to begin the late-season surge to another bowl game.
This is Coach Dave Doeren’s second year. He’s another MAC genius, (northern Illinois0, who was hired to raise a power conference program above mediocrity. But there wasn’t that month in the cupboard when he got here and “injuries had blown up the two-deep by the end of September”. Now he’s trying to come up with the sort of plays who can run his system. Florida transfer Jacoby Brissett will be his quarterback. (But we found out that a transfer from a powerhouse program isn’t necessarily the answer last year.) Wide receiver Bryan Underwood and tackle Bob crisp are returning from injuries and could help. You gotta love running back Shadrach Thornton for name value alone. Thornton ran for 768 yards at 4.7 per carry. Underwood had 32 catches for 382 yards and 5 scores in only 6 games. They weren’t very good on defense even when healthy, giving up 5 yards a carry and recording only 20 sacks, both last in the conference. SB Nation described them as a “Red Zone sieve”. Rashad Smith, their ace return man, graduated.
Last year NC State gained 403.5 yards per game, 163 on the ground and 240 on the air. They scored 23 points per game. Their defense gave up 399 yards per game, 180 on the ground and 219 in the air. They surrendered 30 points per game. They broke even on turnovers.
Saturday, November 8th (TBA) at the Carrier Dome DUKE TV: TBA
Back in the day, Duke was a national football power and basketball was a minor sport there. When Wallace Wade was the coach there, (1931-50), the went 131-36-7, including undefeated regular season in 1938 and 1941, the previous one an undefeated, untied, unscored upon season, (they lost in the Rose Bowl both times). They also had single losing season in 19334, 1936 and 1939. They were ranked 11th in the, (first), 1936 AP poll, 20th in 1937, 3rd in 1938, 8th in 1939, 18th in 1940,2nd in 1941, 7th in 1943 11th in 1944, 13th in 1945 and 17th in 1947. Wade beat Alabama in the 1/1/45 Sugar Bowl. Florida State was a girl’s school at the time. His successor, Bill Murray went 93-51-9 from 1951-65. He never had a team with less than two losses but his teams were ranked 16th in 1952, 18th in 1953, 16th in 1955, 20th in 1956, 14th in 1957, 10th in 1960, 14th in 1961 and 14th in 1962. He lost to Oklahoma in the 1/1/58 Orange Bowl in a game closer than the final score, (it was 14-21 going into the fourth quarter, then became 21-48 due to turnovers), but beat Nebraska in the 1955 Orange Bowl and Arkansas in the 1961 Cotton Bowl. Here they are upsetting Navy with their Heisman trophy winner Joe Bellino back in 1960, the only game Navy lost in the regular season that year:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJwdxwSQD3s
Note the external padding over the crown of Duke’s helmets. Several schools, including Ohio State and Cornell, tried that in the 60’s thinking it would stop concussions. But the friction it created increased the duration of the hit and actually made things worse so the experiment was abandoned.
All told, from 1931-65, Duke was the 8th winningest team in the country, winning 69% of their games, (228-98-17). Syracuse has played Duke twice: both in this period of their great success, losing 0-21 here in 1938 and 6-33 there in 1939.
After Murray left, they declined and have had trouble fielding competitive teams in the two platoon era. Their record from 1966-2012 was 172-345-8, the 109th best record in the country. Syracuse would have been favored to beat Duke the vast majority of those years, even when we weren’t very good. But we never scheduled them once in that time. Last year Duke had their most wins ever, going 10-4. They were 10-2 and ranked #20, champions of the ACC Coastal Division before running afoul of Florida State in the ACC title game and Johnny Manziel in their bowl game. David Cutcliffe has Durham thinking about football for the first time in decades. Now we finally schedule them again! I think David Cutcliffe is their Jim Grobe and that Duke will have as much trouble sustaining this success and Grobe did at Wake Forest. But for now, Duke has to be considered a formidable opponent.
“Cutcliffe lost his offensive coordinator, two of his three running backs, two three- or four-year starters on the offensive line, two solid defensive ends, and an excellent cornerback. But he's got his quarterback, his top three receiving targets, and everybody else from a steady secondary.” (SB Nation)
Cutcliffe likes to use the short pass the way Georgia Tech uses the triple option: to spread out the defense, open up some gaps to exploit and suck their defenders up to the line of scrimmage for the occasional long pass. (We didn’t do so well vs. Georgia Tech.) Quarterback Anthony Boone is back. He passed for 2260 yard last year but had as many interceptions as TD passes, (13).The star is senior receiver Jamison Crowder, “one of the premier players in all of college football”(USA Today). He had 108 catches- yes, 108- for 1,360 yards and 8TDs. Josh Snead averaged 6.1 yards per carry and Shaquille Powell 5.5. Linebackers David Helton and Kelby Brown and safety Jeremy Cash were the top three tacklers in the ACC last year. That means two things: they were good players and there wasn’t much up front. Duke played “bend, don’t’ break” by necessity and will again this year. Duke has one of the best kicking games in the country with Ross Martin doing the place kicking, Will Monday doing the punting and Crowder and DeVon Edwards returning kicks.
Last year Duke gained 426 yards per game, 178 on the ground and 248 on the air. They scored 33 points per game. Their defense gave up 418 yards per game, 174 on the ground and 244 in the air. They surrendered 27 points per game. They were +1 on turnovers.
Saturday November 15th Open Date
It would have been nice if this had come a month before, say before the Florida State game.
Saturday, November 22nd (TBA) at PITTSBURGH TV: TBA
Historically, Pitt and Syracuse are rarely good at the same time. They recruit the same areas and the series between the schools has featured alternate periods of dominance by each team: Since 1964, Syracuse had won 7 of 9, Pitt won 11 in a row, then SU went 16-1-1, then Pitt won 9 of 10. Both teams have been trying to rebuild the last few years and they have traded one point wins in 2012-13. It will be interesting to see if they can both rebuild together or if one program will fade into the shadow of the other.
The Panthers are looking for a new quarterback but they have two outstanding running backs: James Connor, 6-2, 230 who rushed for 799 yards at 5.5 a carry and Isaac Bennett who rushed for 798 for at 4.7. They scored 15 TDs between them. They always have an outstanding receiver and presently this is Tyler Boyd, who last year caught 85 passes for 1,174 yards. Coach Paul Chryst came to Pitt from Wisconsin, the land of powerful offensive lines. He has four former 4 or 5 star recruits in his line and they should be ready to turn into a strong group. They lose the dominating Aaron Donald from the defensive line but get back four of his colleagues. Todd Thomas and Anthony Gonzalez are good and so is safety Ray Vinopal.
Last year Pittsburgh gained 362 yards per game, 126 on the ground and 236 on the air. They scored 26 points per game. Their defense gave up 367.5 yards per game, 149 on the ground and 218.5 in the air. They surrendered 27 points per game. They were -1 on turnovers.
Saturday, November 29th (TBA) at BOSTON COLLEGE TV: TBA
SU’s biggest win last year came in the season finale against Boston College when, having been nipped by a point by Pittsburgh the week before and still needing a win to get to a bowl game, we had to figure out how to beat the national’s leading rusher, Andre Williams, who had rushed for 295, 339 and 263 yards his previous three games. Against us he got 29 yards in 9 carries. We barely held on to win 34-31, after taking a 21-7 lead and went on to the Texas Bowl and wound up with a winning record.
This year the Eagles don’t have Williams or Chase Rettig their quarterback or Alex Amidon, their top receiver, (he had 77 catches: the #2 guy got 14), both offensive tackles, both defensive ends and two linebackers. But their coach, Steve Addazio, a former Syracuse assistant who had success at Temple before coming to BC, is a fine coach and very good recruiter and we will be playing them again at the end of the season and in their place this time. Addazio will have had 11 games to find replacements or build other strengths. A lot of promising SU seasons have ended dismally in the snow at Chestnut Hill.
One of the possible replacements for Williams will be Baldwinsville’s Tyler Rouse, who was a heavy-use tailback in high school: 333 carries for 2,977 yards and a nation-leading 45 touchdowns as a senior. Rouse at 5-8 194 is a lot smaller than Williams (5-11 234) and he has to prove he can be durable on the college level. He also has to beat out Myles Willis, Jon Hillman and Marcus Outlaw. Willis at 55-11, 230 is more in the Williams mode and the other two are highly touted freshmen. The one remaining starting linebacker, Steven Daniels, had 88 tackles last year and Manuel Asprilla keys a veteran secondary. Kicker-punter Nate Freeze graduated.
Last year interrupted a run where the Eagles went from 9 to 8 to 7 to 4 to 2 wins. They will almost certainly fall back this year but perhaps not all the way down the hill. And it won’t take Addazio long to make them respectable again. This would be a good year to beat them.
Last year Boston College gained 367 yards per game, 155 on the ground and 212.5 on the air. They scored 28 points per game. Their defense gave up 429 yards per game, 161 on the ground and 268 in the air. They surrendered 29 points per game. They were +3 on turnovers.
SUMMARY
I think we will be a better team than last year with a more productive passing game and offense but I don’t know if it will result in a better record. The October schedule is pretty muscular and some of the mid-range teams will be better, too.
What we need:
1) A great start
2) Survive October with team spirit in tact and reasonably good health.
3) Win at least a couple of November games so we can
4) Get back to a bowl and hopefully win it again, (we’ve won 11 of our last 14 bowl games)
5) Turn those oral commits into letters of intent
6) Go out and get another good class for 2016.
If we keep putting winning seasons together and going to bowls and recruiting well, a breakthrough is inevitable, although how big it will be in this conference remains to be seen.
FrIday, August 29th 7:30 at the Carrier Dome VILLANOVA TV: ESPN 3 (their on-line service)
The Wildcats were once a major college team, although they were at the periphery of the big time. Syracuse played then three times and won twice. Their most famous football graduate was Howie Long. Then they gave up football in 1981 due to dwindling attendance. The students demanded its return and they came back at the Division III level in 1985 under Andy Talley, who is still their coach 29 years later, (career record at Nova: 204-125-1). The moved up to Division 1AA and have played at that level with considerable success ever since. They won the championship of that division, (by now called FCS), beating Montana 23-21, in 2009. Last year they were only 6-5 but are expected to be better this year. They were ranked 12th in the FCS pre-season poll.
Their star is their quarterback, John Robertson, a sort of FCS version of Johnny Manziel. Last year he completed 68% of his passes for 1,957 yards and 13TDS. When not doing that, he ran for 1,405 yards at 6.5 yards a crack and 20 TDs. And SU has had all kinds of trouble with mobile quarterbacks over the years, (who hasn’t?). He’s the type of guy who can elevate his team against otherwise superior competition. The top returning receiver is Poppy Livers, (Poppy Livers?!?), with 53 catches for 580 yards and 3TDs. Kenneth Monangi rushed for 1,210 yard two years ago and 643 last year. Center Ross Hall and tackle Vince Kowalski are pre-season all conference. Powerful nose guard Pat Williams anchors the D-line. The linebackers are all upper-classmen. Dillon Lucas was the conference defensive rookie of the year. Safety Joe Sarnese leads the secondary. The Wildcats are rebuilding their kicking game.
This is exactly the type of game I hate: we’ll get no credit for winning it because it’s an FCS team but we could lose this one and we’d get all the blame if that happens. We’ve had some close class against FCS teams in recent years, Maine gave us some trouble before we won 41-24. We only beat Rhode Island 21-14. We were down at halftime to Stony brook before coming back to win 28-17. We absolutely have to get this one in the W column because things will get tough in October and we need a great September.
Last Year Villanova gained 435 yards per game, 251 on the ground and 184 on the air. They scored 31 points per game. Their defense gave up 368 yards per game, 125 on the ground and 243 in the air. They surrendered 22 points per game. Their turnover margin was -2.
Saturday, September 6th Open Date
Our two off weeks occur at in opportune times: too early and too late, although I’m sure the second one will be much appreciated by the time we get to it. Gear up for 9 straight weeks of games after this.
Saturday, September 13th Noon at CENTRAL MICHIGAN TV: ESPNU/ESPN News (Channel 302)
Why do we play these games? A road game against a MAC team. Again, we could lose but would get little credit for a win and much blame for a loss. If we wanted to play a not so strong team from the Midwest, why not play Indiana or Kentucky or Kansas?
The Chippewas were 6-6 last year, losing to Michigan by 50 points and North Carolina State by 34. But that doesn’t score any points for us. CM won 5 of their last 7, including their last three and gets 18 starters back so they should be better. But the quarterback is uncertain. Redshirt freshman Cooper Rush was pressed into service after a terrible start last year but doesn’t have a lock on the job yet. Whoever wins that job Titus Davis is the leading returning receiver in the MAC with 61 for 1,109 yards and 8TDs. Saylor Lavellii in the leading retuning rusher with 807 yards and 5TDs. Andy Phillips was an all-conference guard. They have 15 players coming back on defense who made at least 10 tackles.
Last year Central Michigan gained 341 yards per game, 132 on the ground and 208 on the air. They scored 26 points per game. Their defense gave up 405 yards per game, 201 on the ground and 203 in the air. They surrendered 25 points per game. Their turnover margin was -5.
Saturday, September 20th (TBA) at the Carrier Dome MARYLAND TV: TBA
This, believe it or not, is a non-conference game. That’s because, illogically, Rutgers and Maryland are now in the Big Ten. Louisville is their replacement in the ACC. We beat them in their place last year, 20-3. I recall that they were one of the teams dealing with significant offensive injuries when we played them. Like SU, they managed to get to a bowl game and finish 7-6 but they lost their bowl game after a 4-0 start.
Wideout Stefon Diggs was one of the walking wounded last year but has averaged 156 all-purpose yards per game in his career. CJ Brown is a “dual threat” quarterback. Deon King averaged 4.7 yards per carry. Andre Monroe had 17 tackles ofr a loss and 9.5 sack form his defensive end positon. Cole Farrand had 84 tackles as a linebacker but that was topped by safety Sean Davis who had 105 tackles. Coach Randy Edsall wanted the Syracuse job back in the day and loves beating the Orange.
Last year Maryland gained 397 yards per game, 148 on the ground and 248.5 on the air. They scored 26 points per game. Their defense gave up 374 yards per game, 149 on the ground and 225 in the air. They surrendered 25 points per game. Their turnover margin was -7.
Saturday, September 27th (TBA) at MetLife Stadium NOTRE DAME TV: TBA
After a long period of being notre dame, Notre Dame became NOTRE DAME again two years ago. Coach Brian Kelly, who had won two Division II national championships at Grand Valley State and turned Central Michigan from a 3-9 team to a 9-4 bowl winner in three years. He was named to replaced Mark D’Antoni at Cincinnati when the latter got the Michigan State job. Cincy had made a bowl game and the bearcats asked him to begin his career there by coaching them in the bowl game. He left his Central Michigan staff to coach their team in their bowl game. Both of Kelly’s teams won their bowl games. In three full years at Cincinnati, he went an incredible 33-6, including 12-0 in his final year. As noted, they would have played for the national championship if Texas hadn’t gotten a second chance at a game winning field goal against Nebraska. But they did and Cincinnati didn’t and Kelly again left his team while they were preparing for a bowl game to take the Notre Dame job. In three years he turned the Irish from a 6-6 team to a 12-0 playing for the national title. The guy can flat-out coach.
But there are some red flags. His constant jumping form program to program indicates his priorities are his own, not others. Perhaps Notre Dame is his “destination school” and he intends to remain there for a generation and become aligned. Or perhaps he’ll be headed somewhere else, maybe the pros. It didn’t help that he ordered a student cameraman to remain in a scissor lift to record a practice in a storm, costing the kid his life when it fell over in the high winds. And it didn’t help when a young woman got raped, allegedly by a football player and committed suicide and the University dragged its feet in investigating it while hiring a detective agency to determine who allegedly conned another football player into thinking he had a dying girlfriend, (who turned out not to exist). It didn’t help when quarterback Everett Golson “was suspended from Notre Dame because of an academic violation and other reasons”. (Wikipedia). He then left school but came back after admitted he’d cheated on a test. And it didn’t help when four players got suspended for having someone else take their exams for them. NOTRE DAME may be back to Notre Dame or even notre dame before too long.
Actually, they were back to being Notre Dame last year, going 9-4 with the “9” being a win over Rutgers in the Pinstripe Bowl. They dropped from outscoring their opponents by 169 points, (even with the Alabama debacle), to out-scoring them by 63 points. Still, two of their losses were by a touchdown to Pittsburgh and Stanford and the other two by 11 and 14 points to Michigan and Oklahoma. Those teams were a combined 36-17, all with winning records. So this is still a formidable opponent. The game will be played at Metlife Stadium in the Meadowlands, where we lost to Penn State in last year’s opener. It might seem like a home game for Syracuse or even a neutral site game, but the New York City area adopted Notre Dame as their team long ago.
Kelly lost both of his coordinators from last year’s team to head coaching jobs so we’ll see how the coaching staff shake-up impacts the team. The four players suspended were, “senior wide receiver DaVaris Daniels and junior defensive back KeiVarae Russell, who contributed to the team’s 2012 run to the national title game, long with senior defensive lineman Ishaq Williams and linebacker Kendall Moore, a graduate student.” (Bloomberg News). Ishaq was a player Syracuse coveted as the “big time” recruit we needed to get national attention. It sounds as if we’d be getting another kind of national attention if we had got him.
What might mean as much as the talent Notre Dame puts on the field for this game is where their head is at after all this, especially if they don’t get off to a good start, (Rice, Michigan Purdue). They’ve still got plenty of players. Golson was the quarterback of that 12-1 team two years ago. He completed 187 of 318 passes for 2405 yards, 12TDs and 6 interceptions. He ran for 299 yards and 6 touchdowns. Cam McDaniel ran for 7094 yards at 4.6 yards per carry. Daniels was the leading returning receiver. Now it’s tight end Chris Brown with only 15 catches. They are rebuilding the defense but USA Today calls lineman Sheldon Day, linebacker Jaylon Smith and cornerback KeiVarae Russell All-America Candidates. When Notre Dame replaces people, it’s probably with somebody we wanted.
Last year Notre Dame gained 406 yards per game, 151 on the ground and 255 on the air. They scored 27 points per game. Their defense gave up 366 yards per game, 168 on the ground and 198 in the air. They surrendered 22 points per game. They broke even on turnovers.
Friday, October 3rd 7PM, at the Carrier Dome LOUISVILLE TV: ESPN
The Cardinals went 12-1, (crushing Miami 36-9 in a bowl game after beating Florida the previous year, 33-23), and lost by a field goal to Central Florida who was also 12-1. They were the top teams in the AAC- the American Athletic Conference. The Cardinals have now joined the ACC- the Atlantic Coast Conference- and that kind of success may be harder to come by. Their coach, Charlie Strong, left to replace Mac Brown at Texas. Their star quarterback, Teddy Bridgewater, left early for the pros and is now a Viking. And they will be competing not with Central Florida but with Florida State.
To replace Strong, they brought back Bobby Petrino, like a Brian Kelly, a guy who can flat out coach but who brings a lot of baggage. Petrino coached the Cardinals to their greatest success, going 41-9 from 2003-2006, making a basketball school into a football power as well. He then jumped to the NFL, leaving the Atlanta Falcons after only 13 games, of which they won 3. He landed at Arkansas where he went from 5-7 to 11-2 in four years. Then that blew up when he was involved in a motor cycle accident with a female employee he was having an affair with. He wound up at Western Kentucky where he went 8-4. Then Louisville rehired him. Who knows what will happen next with Petrino but if nothing off the field intervenes, you can assume his team will win a lot of games.
They have three all-conference, (all-AAC, that is) players returning to their offensive line: tackle Javon Brown and guards John Miller and Jake Smith. They have two of the top three running backs and 4 of the top five receivers coming back. Dominique Brown ran for 825 yards at 5.1 a crack and scored 8TDs. DeVante Parker caught 55 balls, Eli Rogers 44, and tight end Gerald Christian added 28 more. They had the 5th ranked defense in the country last year and have both cornerbacks and two linebackers returning to key it this year. But the other starters are gone. (Late flash: DeVante Parker injured his foot and will be out 6-8 weeks, which would make his playing against Syracuse very doubtful. But his Grandfather told a reporter: “"Petrino's offense is genius anyway," Willie Parker said. "It wasn't gonna be just DeVante. It was gonna be everybody.")
It will be interesting to see how Strong’s recruits mesh with Petrino’s schemes. Charlie was a defensive coach, Petrino an offensive genius. But the offense ahs the returnees, other than Bridgewater, (who would have thrived in Petrino’s system). Petrino has to rebuild the defense. Louisville’s athletic department makes more money than any in the conference and they are in SEC country while not being far from Ohio and Western Pennsylvania so they have great potential for success in this sport, as well as basketball. I expect them to rank with Clemson and sometime challenge Florida State in our division. But maybe not this year.
Last year Louisville gained 461 yards per game, 147 on the ground and 314 on the air. They scored 35 points per game. Their defense gave up 251.5 yards per game, 81 on the ground and 171 in the air. They surrendered 12 points per game. They were +17 on turnovers, a stat that will hard to match with a rebuilding defense, including the whole starting line.
Saturday, October 11th (TBA) at the Carrier Dome FLORIDA STATE TV: TBA
Thirty years ago, (Gosh!), Nebraska came to town, the #1 ranked team in the country. In 1983 they’d outscored their opponents 654-217, losing by a point to Miami for the national title in the Orange Bowl. Among their victims in an all-conquering regular season, was Syracuse, a team they’d blown out of Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, 7-63, (remember the c=board rule: SU’s score always comes first). The Huskers had opened ’84 with wins of 42-7, 38-7 and 42-3 over Wyoming, Minnesota and UCLA, the latter a nationally televised game over a supposed national championship contender. Syracuse had “prepared” for the Cornhuskers by upsetting Maryland 23-7, beating a bad Northwestern team 13-12 on the final play of the game and then losing 0-19. Nothing to nineteen. To Rutgers. In the Dome. The result:
I still remember the highlights of this game being played to the theme from the eyar’s most popular movie, “Ghostbusters”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9J9haehfQeg
SU was the “Husker Busters”. Someone called from Lincoln saying that the score being reported, (the game wasn’t televised nationally), was obviously a mistake and wanted to know what the real final score was. “Your team could not possibly have beaten our team.” I remember walking back to my car surrounded by dazed Husker fans. I had to help them avoid walking into telephone poles.
Last year, Syracuse travelled to Tallahassee to take on Florida State, (they were still ranked #2 to Alabama at that point). We got humiliated, 3-59. And that was the third quarter score. The Seminoles could have scored 80+ on us if they’d wanted to. They went on to win the national title after a furious comeback vs. Auburn that was very reminiscent of the Orange Bowl were Nebraska lost to Miami except the Noles pulled it out. They wound up out-scoring their opposition 723-170. This year they have home dates with Oklahoma State and Clemson before playing us but are likely to be undefeated and #1 ranked coming into the Dome. We will be coming off of tough assignments vs. Notre Dame and Louisville and may not have much momentum going. The Noles will be playing those same two teams after they play us. They may not have much respect for us and may be looking past us. Who you gonna call?
Will it happen again? Probably not. Nebraska was a bullying team. They were the first school to become famous for their weight room. They met you at the point of attack. You knew what was coming but you couldn’t stop it because they were bigger, stronger and tougher than you were. A big asset for the Syracuse team was Mike Wojcik, the team’s strength coach who later held the same positon with the Dallas Cowboys Super Bowl championship teams. Our guys were getting stronger each year. The strength of our team was our “four wheel drive” defensive line of Tim Breen, Bill Pendock, Jamie Kimmell and Blaise Winter. It was hoped that this group could give Nebraska some trouble the previous year but the team received so many motivational speeches from the coaches they forgot to maintain their assignments and ran wherever they thought the ball was on every play. Every misdirection play went the distance.
In 1984, the coaches stressed that they stay at home, secure their positon, then get aggressive. It made all the difference. That and the unfocused state of the over-confident Huskers. That game was football’s equivalent of Buster Douglas beating Mike Tyson Buster, on that night, wasn’t scared of Mike as his other opponents had been and met him at the point of attack. Tyson didn’t know what to do when an opponent was forcing him against the ropes and got knocked out. From the opening kick-off when Tom Rathman was ko’ed, we took it to the Huskers. Tim Green spent the whole day in their backfield. We hung in the game with our model T offense and it became apparent that we might actually have a chance to win this. Then came Norley, (on basically the last play of his career) to Siano and we’d pulled off the greatest upset in SU history. We didn’t become a power immediately but the recruits that would engineer the turn-around three years alter were surely watching.
Florida State is a team with NFL caliber athletes all over the field. They take advantage of that by making you cover the whole field and seeing if you can keep up with them, which you can’t. If you can’t keep up with a team, you can’t out-tough them. That will be the difference. Mental attitude will not be as big a factor in this game as the Nebraska game because the gap in physical talent will be too great. I’m hoping for better than 3-59 but I expect this will be similar to last year’s Clemson game where the Tigers, whenever they got in any kind of mild trouble, could just launch a bomb and explode our chances and our spirits.
Jameis Winston is back as the Heisman Trophy winning quarterback last year he completed 67% of his passes for 4,057 yards and 40 touchdowns with 10 interceptions. But, hey: he was just a freshman. He also ran for 407 yards and 4 scores. But the most impressive thing I saw, and maybe the most impressive thing I’ve ever seen on a football field was when he handed off to world-class sprinter Kermit Whitfield and made the block that sprang him for a 74 yard TD burst FORTY YARDS DOWNDFIELD. Maybe we can distract him by having pretty cheerleaders wave crablegs in the air. I doubt anything else will stop him.
Karlos Williams ran for 730 yards at 8 yards a crack and scored 11 times. Rashad Greene caught 76 passes for 1,128 yards and 9 scores. Tight end Nick O’Leary caught 33/557/7. All will likely play on Sunday. The entire offensive line will return and likely be the best unit in the country. Defensively they lost a couple of linebackers who will be replaced by guys we wish we had. Kicker Roberto Agauayo is the reigning Lou Groza award winner, if it matters.
You’ll hear a lot about the Nebraska game when the Noles come to town. So will they. Maybe somebody will beat them this year but you’re gonna have to call somebody other than SU to do it.
Last year Florida State gained 519 yards per game, 203 on the ground and 316 on the air. They scored 52 points per game. Their defense gave up 281 yards per game, 125 on the ground and 157 in the air. They surrendered 12 points per game. They were +17 on turnovers, a stat that they might match again with the athletes they can put on the field and the leads they build up.
Saturday, October 18th (TBA) at WAKE FOREST TV: TBA
Now comes the most important game of the season . Wake Forest? Yes, Wake Forest. When you have a strong program your most important game is against your best opponents. When you are building or rebuilding a program, it’s vital that you beat the “beatable” teams on your schedule to guarantee a minimum level of success you can build on, whatever happens in the “big” games. And, if you have a stretch of powerful opponents, the one ‘beatable’ team you play in that stretch becomes a must win. It’s very possible we will be coming into this game after three straight defeats, maybe three straight one-sided defeat with the trip to Clemson coming up the following week. We have to get this win to prevent a free-fall that could ruin the season and endanger Scott Shafer’s tenure here, (we don’t need to be starting over again anytime soon).
We beat them 13-0 in the Dome last year. They were one of those mediocre teams weakened by offensive injuries that gave us a leg up last year. The Deacons stumbled to a 4-8 record and they forced out their best ever coach, Jim Grobe, (who complained that he should have taken the Nebraska job when it was offered to him years ago). Jim had taken this perennial doormat to the Orange Bowl in 2006 as ACC champions. He’ll be replaced by Bowling Green coach Dave Clawson who believes strongly in the passing game. Grobe had more of a balanced offense and Clawson may find he doesn’t yet have the personnel he needs for what he wants to do. And he may have a hard time attracting that talent to Winston-Salem.
Wide receiver Michael Campenaro was virtually their whole offense last year: when he went down to an injury early in the SU game, they were sunk. Now he’s in the NFL with the Baltimore Ravens. They are also searching for a new quarterback and three of their top four rushers are gone. Of course they only ran for 94 yards a game, 116th in the country, so they may not miss them much. They do have a defense: their “secondary is athletic and deep enough to handle the move to a 4-2-5 alignment. Both starting cornerbacks, Kevin Johnson and Merrill Noel, are among the best in the ACC.”(SB Nation)But they lost three defensive linemen.
Last year Wake Forest gained 291 yards per game, 94 on the ground and 197 on the air. They scored 18 points per game. Their defense gave up 366 yards per game, 143 on the ground and 223 in the air. They surrendered 24 points per game. They were -2 on turnovers.
Saturday, October 25th (TBA) at CLEMSON TV: TBA
Florida State is the powerhouse program of the league but Clemson has the best fans and the hardest place for a visitor to play. They set records down there for decibel levels:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaJwiOjt9fE
They also have plenty of good football players and a long history of success. From the point where Charley Pell became their coach in 1977, their record is 300-142-6, (15th in the country:
http://football.stassen.com/cgi-bin...=1977&end=2013&rpct=30&min=5&se=on&by=Win+Pct
(I might have guessed a little higher, actually), with 32 winning seasons in 38 years. We’ve had some very good teams in that span but are 236-197-5, 41st in the country, with 23 winners. We will beat Clemson in Syracuse before we beat Florida State in Syracuse but we will be beat Florida State in Syracuse before we beat Clemson at Clemson. We might even beat Florida State at Florida State before we beat Clemson at Clemson. (Or maybe not…)
I spent last year’s game sitting next to a Clemson fan wondering whether to sheer “Let’s Go Orange!” or not- Clemson’s uniform had a lot more orange in it than ours. We got to talking about the 1995 Gator Bowl when we’d crushed them, 41-0. Now we were the “crushee”, 14-49. We both agreed that the major difference between the teams was that in 1995 we had Donovan McNabb and Marvin Harrison and this year they had Taji Boyd and Sammie Watkins. This year they don’t have Taji and Sammy but don’t expect them to go too far downhill.
Cole Stoudt, the son of former NFL QB Cliff Stoudt saw a lot of action last fall, throwing for 413 yards and 5 scores, (they actually use their back-up QWB at Clemson). He completed 80% of his passes.80%! Adam Humphries caught TD passes of 60 and 42 yards against SU last year . Running back Zac Brooks also scored against us. But the key this year may be their defense, which defensive coordinator Brent Venables has completely turned around since the Orange Bowl debacle against West Virginia three years ago. The entire defensive line is back, including all-American end Vic Beasley. “Senior LB Stephone Anthony and junior safety Travis Blanks are among the best at their positons.” (USA Today). It will be another game where we will keep saying “Boy, I wish we had that guy”.
Last year Clemson gained 508 yards per game, 175 on the ground and 333 on the air. They scored 40 points per game. Their defense gave up 357 yards per game, 156 on the ground and 201 in the air. They surrendered 24 points per game. They were +6 on turnovers.
Saturday, November 1st (TBA) at the Carrier Dome NORTH CAROLINA STATE TV: TBA
We can sink our teeth into the rest of the schedule. No bone or gristle. We beat these guys in their place last year 24-10. It ended four decades of 0-6 frustration against a program that has been no better than ours over that time. Last year the Pack was another one of those teams that suffered from some serious injuries, (and wasn’t all that good to begin with), that helped us put our season back together. They finished 3-9 and 0-8 in the conference. They are just what we need to begin the late-season surge to another bowl game.
This is Coach Dave Doeren’s second year. He’s another MAC genius, (northern Illinois0, who was hired to raise a power conference program above mediocrity. But there wasn’t that month in the cupboard when he got here and “injuries had blown up the two-deep by the end of September”. Now he’s trying to come up with the sort of plays who can run his system. Florida transfer Jacoby Brissett will be his quarterback. (But we found out that a transfer from a powerhouse program isn’t necessarily the answer last year.) Wide receiver Bryan Underwood and tackle Bob crisp are returning from injuries and could help. You gotta love running back Shadrach Thornton for name value alone. Thornton ran for 768 yards at 4.7 per carry. Underwood had 32 catches for 382 yards and 5 scores in only 6 games. They weren’t very good on defense even when healthy, giving up 5 yards a carry and recording only 20 sacks, both last in the conference. SB Nation described them as a “Red Zone sieve”. Rashad Smith, their ace return man, graduated.
Last year NC State gained 403.5 yards per game, 163 on the ground and 240 on the air. They scored 23 points per game. Their defense gave up 399 yards per game, 180 on the ground and 219 in the air. They surrendered 30 points per game. They broke even on turnovers.
Saturday, November 8th (TBA) at the Carrier Dome DUKE TV: TBA
Back in the day, Duke was a national football power and basketball was a minor sport there. When Wallace Wade was the coach there, (1931-50), the went 131-36-7, including undefeated regular season in 1938 and 1941, the previous one an undefeated, untied, unscored upon season, (they lost in the Rose Bowl both times). They also had single losing season in 19334, 1936 and 1939. They were ranked 11th in the, (first), 1936 AP poll, 20th in 1937, 3rd in 1938, 8th in 1939, 18th in 1940,2nd in 1941, 7th in 1943 11th in 1944, 13th in 1945 and 17th in 1947. Wade beat Alabama in the 1/1/45 Sugar Bowl. Florida State was a girl’s school at the time. His successor, Bill Murray went 93-51-9 from 1951-65. He never had a team with less than two losses but his teams were ranked 16th in 1952, 18th in 1953, 16th in 1955, 20th in 1956, 14th in 1957, 10th in 1960, 14th in 1961 and 14th in 1962. He lost to Oklahoma in the 1/1/58 Orange Bowl in a game closer than the final score, (it was 14-21 going into the fourth quarter, then became 21-48 due to turnovers), but beat Nebraska in the 1955 Orange Bowl and Arkansas in the 1961 Cotton Bowl. Here they are upsetting Navy with their Heisman trophy winner Joe Bellino back in 1960, the only game Navy lost in the regular season that year:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJwdxwSQD3s
Note the external padding over the crown of Duke’s helmets. Several schools, including Ohio State and Cornell, tried that in the 60’s thinking it would stop concussions. But the friction it created increased the duration of the hit and actually made things worse so the experiment was abandoned.
All told, from 1931-65, Duke was the 8th winningest team in the country, winning 69% of their games, (228-98-17). Syracuse has played Duke twice: both in this period of their great success, losing 0-21 here in 1938 and 6-33 there in 1939.
After Murray left, they declined and have had trouble fielding competitive teams in the two platoon era. Their record from 1966-2012 was 172-345-8, the 109th best record in the country. Syracuse would have been favored to beat Duke the vast majority of those years, even when we weren’t very good. But we never scheduled them once in that time. Last year Duke had their most wins ever, going 10-4. They were 10-2 and ranked #20, champions of the ACC Coastal Division before running afoul of Florida State in the ACC title game and Johnny Manziel in their bowl game. David Cutcliffe has Durham thinking about football for the first time in decades. Now we finally schedule them again! I think David Cutcliffe is their Jim Grobe and that Duke will have as much trouble sustaining this success and Grobe did at Wake Forest. But for now, Duke has to be considered a formidable opponent.
“Cutcliffe lost his offensive coordinator, two of his three running backs, two three- or four-year starters on the offensive line, two solid defensive ends, and an excellent cornerback. But he's got his quarterback, his top three receiving targets, and everybody else from a steady secondary.” (SB Nation)
Cutcliffe likes to use the short pass the way Georgia Tech uses the triple option: to spread out the defense, open up some gaps to exploit and suck their defenders up to the line of scrimmage for the occasional long pass. (We didn’t do so well vs. Georgia Tech.) Quarterback Anthony Boone is back. He passed for 2260 yard last year but had as many interceptions as TD passes, (13).The star is senior receiver Jamison Crowder, “one of the premier players in all of college football”(USA Today). He had 108 catches- yes, 108- for 1,360 yards and 8TDs. Josh Snead averaged 6.1 yards per carry and Shaquille Powell 5.5. Linebackers David Helton and Kelby Brown and safety Jeremy Cash were the top three tacklers in the ACC last year. That means two things: they were good players and there wasn’t much up front. Duke played “bend, don’t’ break” by necessity and will again this year. Duke has one of the best kicking games in the country with Ross Martin doing the place kicking, Will Monday doing the punting and Crowder and DeVon Edwards returning kicks.
Last year Duke gained 426 yards per game, 178 on the ground and 248 on the air. They scored 33 points per game. Their defense gave up 418 yards per game, 174 on the ground and 244 in the air. They surrendered 27 points per game. They were +1 on turnovers.
Saturday November 15th Open Date
It would have been nice if this had come a month before, say before the Florida State game.
Saturday, November 22nd (TBA) at PITTSBURGH TV: TBA
Historically, Pitt and Syracuse are rarely good at the same time. They recruit the same areas and the series between the schools has featured alternate periods of dominance by each team: Since 1964, Syracuse had won 7 of 9, Pitt won 11 in a row, then SU went 16-1-1, then Pitt won 9 of 10. Both teams have been trying to rebuild the last few years and they have traded one point wins in 2012-13. It will be interesting to see if they can both rebuild together or if one program will fade into the shadow of the other.
The Panthers are looking for a new quarterback but they have two outstanding running backs: James Connor, 6-2, 230 who rushed for 799 yards at 5.5 a carry and Isaac Bennett who rushed for 798 for at 4.7. They scored 15 TDs between them. They always have an outstanding receiver and presently this is Tyler Boyd, who last year caught 85 passes for 1,174 yards. Coach Paul Chryst came to Pitt from Wisconsin, the land of powerful offensive lines. He has four former 4 or 5 star recruits in his line and they should be ready to turn into a strong group. They lose the dominating Aaron Donald from the defensive line but get back four of his colleagues. Todd Thomas and Anthony Gonzalez are good and so is safety Ray Vinopal.
Last year Pittsburgh gained 362 yards per game, 126 on the ground and 236 on the air. They scored 26 points per game. Their defense gave up 367.5 yards per game, 149 on the ground and 218.5 in the air. They surrendered 27 points per game. They were -1 on turnovers.
Saturday, November 29th (TBA) at BOSTON COLLEGE TV: TBA
SU’s biggest win last year came in the season finale against Boston College when, having been nipped by a point by Pittsburgh the week before and still needing a win to get to a bowl game, we had to figure out how to beat the national’s leading rusher, Andre Williams, who had rushed for 295, 339 and 263 yards his previous three games. Against us he got 29 yards in 9 carries. We barely held on to win 34-31, after taking a 21-7 lead and went on to the Texas Bowl and wound up with a winning record.
This year the Eagles don’t have Williams or Chase Rettig their quarterback or Alex Amidon, their top receiver, (he had 77 catches: the #2 guy got 14), both offensive tackles, both defensive ends and two linebackers. But their coach, Steve Addazio, a former Syracuse assistant who had success at Temple before coming to BC, is a fine coach and very good recruiter and we will be playing them again at the end of the season and in their place this time. Addazio will have had 11 games to find replacements or build other strengths. A lot of promising SU seasons have ended dismally in the snow at Chestnut Hill.
One of the possible replacements for Williams will be Baldwinsville’s Tyler Rouse, who was a heavy-use tailback in high school: 333 carries for 2,977 yards and a nation-leading 45 touchdowns as a senior. Rouse at 5-8 194 is a lot smaller than Williams (5-11 234) and he has to prove he can be durable on the college level. He also has to beat out Myles Willis, Jon Hillman and Marcus Outlaw. Willis at 55-11, 230 is more in the Williams mode and the other two are highly touted freshmen. The one remaining starting linebacker, Steven Daniels, had 88 tackles last year and Manuel Asprilla keys a veteran secondary. Kicker-punter Nate Freeze graduated.
Last year interrupted a run where the Eagles went from 9 to 8 to 7 to 4 to 2 wins. They will almost certainly fall back this year but perhaps not all the way down the hill. And it won’t take Addazio long to make them respectable again. This would be a good year to beat them.
Last year Boston College gained 367 yards per game, 155 on the ground and 212.5 on the air. They scored 28 points per game. Their defense gave up 429 yards per game, 161 on the ground and 268 in the air. They surrendered 29 points per game. They were +3 on turnovers.
SUMMARY
I think we will be a better team than last year with a more productive passing game and offense but I don’t know if it will result in a better record. The October schedule is pretty muscular and some of the mid-range teams will be better, too.
What we need:
1) A great start
2) Survive October with team spirit in tact and reasonably good health.
3) Win at least a couple of November games so we can
4) Get back to a bowl and hopefully win it again, (we’ve won 11 of our last 14 bowl games)
5) Turn those oral commits into letters of intent
6) Go out and get another good class for 2016.
If we keep putting winning seasons together and going to bowls and recruiting well, a breakthrough is inevitable, although how big it will be in this conference remains to be seen.
