SWC75
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Offensive Line
Seniors: Patrick Davis 6-5 311, Airon Servais 6-6 309, (from 273: he had been 292 in 2018)
Juniors: Austin Chandler 6-4 312; Dakota Davis 6-5 327; Darius Tisdale 6-4 342 (up from 295)
Sophomores: Matthew Bergeron 6-4 312, Chris Bleich 6-6 332, Wil Froumy 6-6 307; Ryan Kisselstein 6-6 331; Josh Kosciol 6-1 308 (up from 275); Mark Petry 6-4 265, Anthony Red 6-5 297; Carlos Vettorello 6-4 289: Qadir White 6-7 343
Freshmen: Garth Barclay 6-7 270, Josh Ilaoa 6-3 295,
Gone: Evan Adams, Ryan Alexander, Mike Clark, Andrejas Duerig, Sam Heckel. Adams and Duerrig graduated. Alexander left last year’s team after he lost his starting positon. Clark and Heckel retired from football because of injuries.
It’s fun to look at high school films of running backs and receivers bolting past defenders to make big plays but football is still and will always be about the line of scrimmage. All those big plays were made possible by the players who protect the quarterback and open the holes for the running backs. Syracuse is a classic case of a non-football powerhouse who has to compete with powerhouses and recruits exciting players in what I call the ‘speed’ positons but struggles to recruit at the same level in the ‘strength‘ positions that really determine who is a powerhouse and who isn’t. I hate the term ‘skill positons’ because every position requires skill. They say the offensive line is the hardest positon to learn. So I divide the team into the ‘speed positons: the running backs and receivers plus the quarterbacks that get them the ball on offense and defensive backfield on defense. Throw in the kickers and kick returners and you’ve got the positons where a school like Syracuse has the best chance to compete with the powerhouses like Clemson and Florida State. Where we come up short is in the ‘strength’ positons: the interior offensive line, the tight end and the fullback on offense, (smoke ‘em if you got ‘em), and the front seven, (or now, for SU, the front 6). We can sometimes assemble a decent starting unit in those areas but we have little depth and have a lot of trouble replacing people, trouble Clemson and Florida State never seem to have.
The greatest offensive line we’ve had in the two platoon era is the “Cherry Bowl Group” that Coach Mac and his staff recruited after going to the Cherry Bowl in 1985 gave us “bowl credibility”: Blake Bednarz, John Flannery, Turnell Sims, Mike Bernard and Gary McCummings. That group moved in on the offensive line in 1987, after a redshirt year, and were the big reason we went from 5-6 to 11-0. Suddenly the plays worked like they were diagramed on the blackboard. Running backs weren’t hit until they got past the line of scrimmage and they were the ones that initiated the contact. Don McPherson could stand in the pocket and check off his receivers until he found the open one. We sustained drives and completed them. We build leads and turned the ball over to a rested defense in favorable field positon with the freedom to play aggressively because of those leads. The O-Line is the most important unit on the team.
While we continued to be a successful program for years after that, we didn’t have O-lines that were quite on the same level as the Cherry Bowl Group. We had trouble sustaining drives and often had to be rescued by great plays from dynamic quarterbacks and receivers. Then we had trouble recruiting them and the program began its decline. In the notoriously inept G-Rob era, our lines were famously bad. There were pictures in the paper of out-shape plyers with their bellies spilling over their belts. The nadir was the 2006 Iowa game where, due to penalties, we had 7 plays at the Hawkeye goal line and couldn’t score.
When Doug Marrone, who had been an All-East tackle for SU back in the 80’s, became head coach here, he made sure to build up the offensive line and we had our best lines since the Cherry Bowl Group, even if we were deficient in other areas. It allowed us to have our best seasons between the 10-3 years of 2001 and 2018. There always seemed to be 3-4 guys coming back from the previous line to bring the new guys up to snuff and anchor the offense. This carried over into Scott Shafer’s first year when we went 7-6 and won the Texas Bowl. Then the line got wiped out by injuries in 2014 and we had the first of four straight losing seasons. Babers managed to put together a decent line in 2018 and it gave our ‘speed’ stars a chance to show what they could do. Having a multi-threat quarterback who could keep the defense honest with his runs helped.
Last year it seemed possible we’d have another decent line. Our best lineman, Airon Servais, was switching from center to tackle. Sam Heckel, with plenty of experience at both center and guard would replace him in the middle. Massive Evan Adams, (6-6 352) would hold down one guard spot and the massive and massively ambitious Dakota Davis would be the other guard. The one open positon was the other tackle spot and that was to be filled by Ryan Alexander, a grad transfer from South Alabama. We’d had good luck with a grad transfer tackle the year before, Koda Martin from Texas A&M.
Then the cards started falling, one by one. Servais, for some reason showed up at 273, 19 pounds lighter than in 2018. Heckle got hurt in the opener and never played again, necessitating Servais moving back to center and the insertion of redshirt freshman Carlos Vetterello at tackle. It seemed a curious choice as we had a 4 star prospect at that spot in Qadir White, who at 6-7 336 was much bigger than the 6-4 283 Vetterello, who had been a 3 star prospect. But those things can happen. Both Vetterello and Alexander were terrible, giving us a weakness at both tackle spots. Servais got pushed around more than he had the previous year at his lighter weight. Davis did OK but Adams seemed to be a statue at his colossal weight.
There was also a general atmosphere of confusion. One sequence in the newspaper showed a situation where we had 7 blockers for a four man rush. All four defenders got through to the quarterback. Five of the blockers were either knocked over or avoided and two of them were still standing at the line, looking at air and wondering who they were supposed to block. Dino didn’t fire his veteran offensive line coach, Mike Cavanaugh. Instead he demoted Alexander who then left the program. Vetterello and Servais switched positions, which, amazingly worked. Reserve Patrick Davis, (no relation to Dakota), got to play more and played well. Then there was Matthew Bergeron, a true freshman from Canada who had been wowing the coaches in practice and started pancaking defenders when he got into games. The offense began to improve and we averaged 41 points in our last three games after averaging 24 in the first nine games.
Servais, Veterrello, the Davises and Bergeron are back. Another huge guy, Chris Bleich, a 6-6 332 transfer who started for Florida has arrived. What has not arrived is an NCAA waiver based on ‘family hardship’ that would allow him to play immediately. It’s suggested he could replace Adams at guard. Dakota Davis was not on the March 7 spring depth chart but is still on the roster and a June 22 article from NunesMagician.com describes him as “One of the four “penned in” starters at this point, Davis should be an even more impressive contribution to the line with an offseason of knowing who he’ll be working next to, in Matthew Bergeron and Carlos Vetterello. The trio showed a good bit of chemistry toward the end of last year and can hopefully turn that into a strength this season.” That gives us a likely starting line-up, without Bleich of Matthew Bergeron (6-4 312), Dakota Davis (6-5 327), Carlos Vettorello (6-4 289) Pat Davis (6-5 311) and Airon Servais, who has now built himself up to (6-6) 309 after being 291 in the spring, an apparent attempt to correct the mistake of slimming down too much last year. I continue to marvel at the size of players these days. That would give us a line that averages 310 pounds per man and Belich, if he replaces Pat Davis, would up that to 314. The Cherry Bowl Group in 1987 averaged 275 pounds per man and that was considered impressive at that time. I’ve always been a “Git there firstest with the mostest” guy and felt that mobility was more important than heft in the line but if the ultimate plan is to have a big back pound away between the tackles against a defense spread out to cover the passing game, maybe heft is the more important quality. I just hope that these weights are optimum for these players, rather than just what they showed up at.
Airon Servais was a key figure in Dino Babers’ first recruiting class and has been the anchor of the line, to the extent that we had one, ever since. Dino got him away from Wisconsin, his home state powerhouse. He’s been a center most of his career here but it’s felt tackle should be his natural position and he’s finally getting to play there. He’s started all 37 games of his career here after redshirting his first year. He has had 120 ‘knockdown’ blocks in that time. At left tackle he’s Tommy DeVito’s “blind side” protector and there couldn’t be a better man there.
Chris Bleich got 4 stars from ESPN coming out of high school, three from everyone else. Per Cuse.com, he “Played in nine games, starting eight at right guard … Helped the Gators to an 11-2 record and the No. 6 ranking in the final Associated Press Top 25 poll … Blocked for a Florida offense that averaged 33.2 points and 430.5 total yards per game, including 300.7 passing yards per contest … The Gators topped 400 yards of offense in five of Bleich’s appearances and passed for 300+ yards four times.” I’ll take that.
Pat Davis has waited his turn and took advantage of it when called on last season, helping to stabilize the O-line down the stretch last year. He’s played in 24 games but only 84 offensive snaps. Nunes: “The Canadian brings quality maple syrup for his pancake blocks.” Ugh. (He’s had 9 ‘knockdowns.) More: “He should once again be a starter on the punt protection and FG/XP units, and if he doesn’t crack the starting group on offense, he’ll be one of the top reserves. The versatility Davis offers should provide him an opportunity to see the field more this season.”
Carlos Vettorello finally found the right spot late in the season. He was trained to be a right tackle, the was switched to left tackle in the reshuffling when Sam Heckel went down. He wasn’t very good at either but blossomed when moved to center. That moved seemed to solve the Rubik’s Cube the line had been all year. Cuse.com: “Syracuse averaged 242.3 yards rushing in the final three games when Vettorello switched permanently to center, 88.3 yards more than its season average (154.0) ... Additionally, the team’s sacks allowed went from 4.9 per game to 1.7 over that same span.”
Dakota Davis has always had the right attitude for an O-lineman: “It’s fun to pancake people and break other people’s will play after play.” Syracuse.com calls him “a road grader who teammates say sometimes run-blocks defensive players 25 yards downfield” in practice. He had 50 knockdown blocks last year. He’s the kind of guy you keep the binoculars on. Nunes: One of the four “penned in” starters at this point, Davis should be an even more impressive contribution to the line with an offseason of knowing who he’ll be working next to, in Matthew Bergeron and Carlos Vetterello. The trio showed a good bit of chemistry toward the end of last year and can hopefully turn that into a strength this season.”
They say that offensive line is the hardest positon to learn but that didn’t deter Matthew Bergeron from making the starting line-up by the end of his true freshman year and making a big difference in the results. He appeared in all 12 games and started the last 5, getting 20 knockdowns on his way to earning freshman All-America honors from Pro Football Focus. He was the first true freshman to start at OT for SU in 17 years. “Matthew is not a normal freshman,” Babers said. “He’s stronger and bigger than what you think he is. He’s not full-grown because he can be a lot stronger and he will be a lot stronger.” Prodigies become stars and Matthew should be the key to our line over the next three seasons.
It’s not just the quality of the starting line-up that is the difference between the powerhouses and the non-powerhouses: it’s the depth. In modern football, where everybody but the quarterback alternates, it’s not your starting line-up against theirs. It’s your two-deep against theirs. Clemson can replace guys we wish we had with other guys we wish we had. Too often our replacements aren’t of ACC quality and that makes all those exciting highlight film plays hard to come by. Here’s what I was able to find out about our back-ups. I want to know if they are the starters of the future or just…back-ups.
Darius Tisdale was listed as a starting guard in the spring with Dakota Davis not available and Chris Bleich being held up by the NCAA. He’d previously played mostly on special teams but did see some action at guard last year. He was a 2 or 3 star recruit, depending on the service, coming out of junior college. He was listed at 295 last year, 314 in the spring and now is 342. Is that good news or bad? Nunes: “In order for Tisdale to contend for the starting right guard spot, he would need the Orange coaching staff to move Dakota Davis to left guard to cover Evan Adams’s graduation. And he would need Chris Bleich to get his waiver to play denied. No matter what the case, Tisdale is probably fighting Patrick Davis and Anthony Red for position on the depth chart. We won’t know how much either of these guys play until the first game of the season.”
Wil Froumy a redshirt sophomore who has yet to appear in a game. But in the spring depth chart, he’s listed as the backup at right guard. He also got a combination of three star and two star ratings. He was seen practicing snaps in the spring. Nunes: “Froumy will be competing for time on special teams and trying to make the two-deep at tackle.”
Anthony Red: SUJuiceonline: “During spring practices in 2019, Red was listed atop the depth chart and spent most of his early enrollee time struggling to contain All-ACC caliber defensive linemen Alton Robinson and Kendall Coleman. Still, outside of a cameo appearance against Duke late in the year, Red was relegated to a redshirt role.” Nunes describes him as a ‘late bloomer’: he played at 220-230 in high school but was 270 by the time he showed up at Syracuse. He was given 3 stars by all the services. “Red is going to push Matthew Bergeron at the right tackle spot and if he can’t unseat the returning starter he’s likely to see more time this season.” Red is going to have play very well to push Bergeron, who seemed like an immediate star in the line as a true freshman.
The guy we are waiting to hear from is Qadir White. SUJuiceonline: “White, like Froumy, is now in his third year and is hoping to play his first collegiate snaps in 2020. He entered Syracuse as a four-star recruit from the Bronx, and has shifted from tackle to guard. He didn’t appear in the depth chart in the spring.” At 6-7 343, he seems more like a tackle to me. He was a 4 star recruit, rated the #16 offensive tackle in his class. He was our highest rated recruit at any positon in 2018. Last year Syracuse.com said: “One of the most highly touted recruits of the Babers era, White has quietly been developing behind the scenes. He's gradually losing weight and gaining endurance.” Nunes this year: “White should be fighting for a backup spot on the line this year. However, a slight concern is that he wasn’t listed on the spring depth chart before practices stopped. Whether that was due to an injury or other circumstances is unknown. Barring those issues, his name not appearing on the two-deep is concerning given the apparent talent he had coming out of high school.”
Syracuse.com last year: “Linemen, they take a while,” Babers said when asked about White during spring ball. "The hardest thing about offensive linemen is their whole life, they’ve been bigger than everybody else and people have always told them, ‘Don’t hurt that person. You’re bigger than them, don’t hurt them.’….“Then they get in high school and they’re just bigger than everyone. And then they get here and everyone’s big. There’s a change. They have to figure it out -- it just takes them longer.”… Cardinal Hayes head coach CJ O’Neil described White as a two-year project after he signed with the Orange. He compared him to Willie Colon, another big-bodied offensive lineman who came through Cardinal Hayes in the early 2000s. After playing in one game over his first two seasons at Hofstra, Colon went on to become a fourth-round pick in the 2006 NFL Draft, 10-year professional and Super Bowl champion with the Pittsburgh Steelers.” The two years should be up by now. I’m concerned that that 2019 article lauded White for ‘trimming down from 330 pounds to 319” after going through Sean Edinger’s tough strength and conditioning progam. This year he’s listed at 343 and is not on the two deep.
Austin Chandler, Ryan Kisselstein and Josh Kosciol are walk-ons. Chandler, a 2 star, participated in 7 games last year, Kisselstein in 1 and Kosciol in none. Kisselstein is a local kid from Corcoran. The recruiting services ignored him. Nunes: “Initially, he was going to play tight end for Alfred University at the D3 level.“ He played center for 5 snaps against Western Michigan. That was our fourth game and he didn’t play again, which might tell us something. Kosciol is from the Rochester area and was also ignored by the scouting services. Nunes: “You never know when you could use another interior lineman, and Kosciol was slated as the Orange’s backup center behind Carlos Vettorello in March’s depth chart.” Last year’s guard, Evan Adams: ““Everybody sleeps on Josh because of his size. He has a huge heart. He plays like he has a chip on his shoulder, too. I think he’s going to be something else in his own right.” UPDATE: Chandler has been dropped from the roster on Cuse.com.
Newcomers include freshmen and Garth Barclay and Josh Ilaoa, whose father is from Hawaii, (like Dino Babers), but who was born in Washington state and played his high school ball in North Carolina. Barclay is 6-7 270 and will probably have to build himself up to get playing time. He played at 270 in high school, so that process has already begun. He’s a 3 star from Pennsylvania, (which means…). Nunes: “The way the offensive line is shaking out, there’s not a lot of minutes to be had, especially at tackle. Barclay can take advantage of a redshirt year, and put on some muscle on his 6-foot-7 frame.” Ilaoa on himself: ““I am going to be playing guard, but don’t be surprised if I’m playing anything else,” Ilaoa said. “What makes me different is that I am very athletic and versatile.”(Syracuse.com) He’s also a three star recruit. (Isn’t everybody?). Nunes: Likely, Ilaoa will be moved to the interior of the line, with his size. He’s also a great candidate for a redshirt, with the depth that the Orange currently have at offensive line. That’s a welcome statement if I’ve ever heard one.” I agree, to say the least.
Mark Petry is a native of Germany who attended junior college here and transferred to SU for this season with three years of eligibility left. He’s undersized at 6-4 265 but was rated 3 stars and the #34 offensive tackle in the JUCO ranks. We flipped his commit from Eastern Michigan. I hope he’s more a Syracuse type player than an Eastern Michigan type player. Nunes: “Petry is probably a depth piece at tackle while he learns the ropes. That said, coming in during the January window, he has a bit of a jump on the rest of the incoming class. He has a large and relatively lean frame that seems to be what Babers and Cavanaugh are looking for at the tackle spot.” Really?
I think that if we can avoid having too many injuries in this unit, it can hold together. I can’t say that I see another Cherry Bowl group waiting in the wings. Servais and Pat Davis are seniors. Looking at out football recruiting board, I see four O-linemen have committed for next season: Kalan Ellis, from Dino’s home state of Hawaii, Wes Hoeh from Illinois, Austyn Kauhi, also from Hawaii and Tyler Magnuson from Minnesota. Guess what? They’re all 3 stars! I’d like to hear more about some big-time O-line recruits coming to Syracuse in the future. But we are Syracuse, not Clemson…
Seniors: Patrick Davis 6-5 311, Airon Servais 6-6 309, (from 273: he had been 292 in 2018)
Juniors: Austin Chandler 6-4 312; Dakota Davis 6-5 327; Darius Tisdale 6-4 342 (up from 295)
Sophomores: Matthew Bergeron 6-4 312, Chris Bleich 6-6 332, Wil Froumy 6-6 307; Ryan Kisselstein 6-6 331; Josh Kosciol 6-1 308 (up from 275); Mark Petry 6-4 265, Anthony Red 6-5 297; Carlos Vettorello 6-4 289: Qadir White 6-7 343
Freshmen: Garth Barclay 6-7 270, Josh Ilaoa 6-3 295,
Gone: Evan Adams, Ryan Alexander, Mike Clark, Andrejas Duerig, Sam Heckel. Adams and Duerrig graduated. Alexander left last year’s team after he lost his starting positon. Clark and Heckel retired from football because of injuries.
It’s fun to look at high school films of running backs and receivers bolting past defenders to make big plays but football is still and will always be about the line of scrimmage. All those big plays were made possible by the players who protect the quarterback and open the holes for the running backs. Syracuse is a classic case of a non-football powerhouse who has to compete with powerhouses and recruits exciting players in what I call the ‘speed’ positons but struggles to recruit at the same level in the ‘strength‘ positions that really determine who is a powerhouse and who isn’t. I hate the term ‘skill positons’ because every position requires skill. They say the offensive line is the hardest positon to learn. So I divide the team into the ‘speed positons: the running backs and receivers plus the quarterbacks that get them the ball on offense and defensive backfield on defense. Throw in the kickers and kick returners and you’ve got the positons where a school like Syracuse has the best chance to compete with the powerhouses like Clemson and Florida State. Where we come up short is in the ‘strength’ positons: the interior offensive line, the tight end and the fullback on offense, (smoke ‘em if you got ‘em), and the front seven, (or now, for SU, the front 6). We can sometimes assemble a decent starting unit in those areas but we have little depth and have a lot of trouble replacing people, trouble Clemson and Florida State never seem to have.
The greatest offensive line we’ve had in the two platoon era is the “Cherry Bowl Group” that Coach Mac and his staff recruited after going to the Cherry Bowl in 1985 gave us “bowl credibility”: Blake Bednarz, John Flannery, Turnell Sims, Mike Bernard and Gary McCummings. That group moved in on the offensive line in 1987, after a redshirt year, and were the big reason we went from 5-6 to 11-0. Suddenly the plays worked like they were diagramed on the blackboard. Running backs weren’t hit until they got past the line of scrimmage and they were the ones that initiated the contact. Don McPherson could stand in the pocket and check off his receivers until he found the open one. We sustained drives and completed them. We build leads and turned the ball over to a rested defense in favorable field positon with the freedom to play aggressively because of those leads. The O-Line is the most important unit on the team.
While we continued to be a successful program for years after that, we didn’t have O-lines that were quite on the same level as the Cherry Bowl Group. We had trouble sustaining drives and often had to be rescued by great plays from dynamic quarterbacks and receivers. Then we had trouble recruiting them and the program began its decline. In the notoriously inept G-Rob era, our lines were famously bad. There were pictures in the paper of out-shape plyers with their bellies spilling over their belts. The nadir was the 2006 Iowa game where, due to penalties, we had 7 plays at the Hawkeye goal line and couldn’t score.
When Doug Marrone, who had been an All-East tackle for SU back in the 80’s, became head coach here, he made sure to build up the offensive line and we had our best lines since the Cherry Bowl Group, even if we were deficient in other areas. It allowed us to have our best seasons between the 10-3 years of 2001 and 2018. There always seemed to be 3-4 guys coming back from the previous line to bring the new guys up to snuff and anchor the offense. This carried over into Scott Shafer’s first year when we went 7-6 and won the Texas Bowl. Then the line got wiped out by injuries in 2014 and we had the first of four straight losing seasons. Babers managed to put together a decent line in 2018 and it gave our ‘speed’ stars a chance to show what they could do. Having a multi-threat quarterback who could keep the defense honest with his runs helped.
Last year it seemed possible we’d have another decent line. Our best lineman, Airon Servais, was switching from center to tackle. Sam Heckel, with plenty of experience at both center and guard would replace him in the middle. Massive Evan Adams, (6-6 352) would hold down one guard spot and the massive and massively ambitious Dakota Davis would be the other guard. The one open positon was the other tackle spot and that was to be filled by Ryan Alexander, a grad transfer from South Alabama. We’d had good luck with a grad transfer tackle the year before, Koda Martin from Texas A&M.
Then the cards started falling, one by one. Servais, for some reason showed up at 273, 19 pounds lighter than in 2018. Heckle got hurt in the opener and never played again, necessitating Servais moving back to center and the insertion of redshirt freshman Carlos Vetterello at tackle. It seemed a curious choice as we had a 4 star prospect at that spot in Qadir White, who at 6-7 336 was much bigger than the 6-4 283 Vetterello, who had been a 3 star prospect. But those things can happen. Both Vetterello and Alexander were terrible, giving us a weakness at both tackle spots. Servais got pushed around more than he had the previous year at his lighter weight. Davis did OK but Adams seemed to be a statue at his colossal weight.
There was also a general atmosphere of confusion. One sequence in the newspaper showed a situation where we had 7 blockers for a four man rush. All four defenders got through to the quarterback. Five of the blockers were either knocked over or avoided and two of them were still standing at the line, looking at air and wondering who they were supposed to block. Dino didn’t fire his veteran offensive line coach, Mike Cavanaugh. Instead he demoted Alexander who then left the program. Vetterello and Servais switched positions, which, amazingly worked. Reserve Patrick Davis, (no relation to Dakota), got to play more and played well. Then there was Matthew Bergeron, a true freshman from Canada who had been wowing the coaches in practice and started pancaking defenders when he got into games. The offense began to improve and we averaged 41 points in our last three games after averaging 24 in the first nine games.
Servais, Veterrello, the Davises and Bergeron are back. Another huge guy, Chris Bleich, a 6-6 332 transfer who started for Florida has arrived. What has not arrived is an NCAA waiver based on ‘family hardship’ that would allow him to play immediately. It’s suggested he could replace Adams at guard. Dakota Davis was not on the March 7 spring depth chart but is still on the roster and a June 22 article from NunesMagician.com describes him as “One of the four “penned in” starters at this point, Davis should be an even more impressive contribution to the line with an offseason of knowing who he’ll be working next to, in Matthew Bergeron and Carlos Vetterello. The trio showed a good bit of chemistry toward the end of last year and can hopefully turn that into a strength this season.” That gives us a likely starting line-up, without Bleich of Matthew Bergeron (6-4 312), Dakota Davis (6-5 327), Carlos Vettorello (6-4 289) Pat Davis (6-5 311) and Airon Servais, who has now built himself up to (6-6) 309 after being 291 in the spring, an apparent attempt to correct the mistake of slimming down too much last year. I continue to marvel at the size of players these days. That would give us a line that averages 310 pounds per man and Belich, if he replaces Pat Davis, would up that to 314. The Cherry Bowl Group in 1987 averaged 275 pounds per man and that was considered impressive at that time. I’ve always been a “Git there firstest with the mostest” guy and felt that mobility was more important than heft in the line but if the ultimate plan is to have a big back pound away between the tackles against a defense spread out to cover the passing game, maybe heft is the more important quality. I just hope that these weights are optimum for these players, rather than just what they showed up at.
Airon Servais was a key figure in Dino Babers’ first recruiting class and has been the anchor of the line, to the extent that we had one, ever since. Dino got him away from Wisconsin, his home state powerhouse. He’s been a center most of his career here but it’s felt tackle should be his natural position and he’s finally getting to play there. He’s started all 37 games of his career here after redshirting his first year. He has had 120 ‘knockdown’ blocks in that time. At left tackle he’s Tommy DeVito’s “blind side” protector and there couldn’t be a better man there.
Chris Bleich got 4 stars from ESPN coming out of high school, three from everyone else. Per Cuse.com, he “Played in nine games, starting eight at right guard … Helped the Gators to an 11-2 record and the No. 6 ranking in the final Associated Press Top 25 poll … Blocked for a Florida offense that averaged 33.2 points and 430.5 total yards per game, including 300.7 passing yards per contest … The Gators topped 400 yards of offense in five of Bleich’s appearances and passed for 300+ yards four times.” I’ll take that.
Pat Davis has waited his turn and took advantage of it when called on last season, helping to stabilize the O-line down the stretch last year. He’s played in 24 games but only 84 offensive snaps. Nunes: “The Canadian brings quality maple syrup for his pancake blocks.” Ugh. (He’s had 9 ‘knockdowns.) More: “He should once again be a starter on the punt protection and FG/XP units, and if he doesn’t crack the starting group on offense, he’ll be one of the top reserves. The versatility Davis offers should provide him an opportunity to see the field more this season.”
Carlos Vettorello finally found the right spot late in the season. He was trained to be a right tackle, the was switched to left tackle in the reshuffling when Sam Heckel went down. He wasn’t very good at either but blossomed when moved to center. That moved seemed to solve the Rubik’s Cube the line had been all year. Cuse.com: “Syracuse averaged 242.3 yards rushing in the final three games when Vettorello switched permanently to center, 88.3 yards more than its season average (154.0) ... Additionally, the team’s sacks allowed went from 4.9 per game to 1.7 over that same span.”
Dakota Davis has always had the right attitude for an O-lineman: “It’s fun to pancake people and break other people’s will play after play.” Syracuse.com calls him “a road grader who teammates say sometimes run-blocks defensive players 25 yards downfield” in practice. He had 50 knockdown blocks last year. He’s the kind of guy you keep the binoculars on. Nunes: One of the four “penned in” starters at this point, Davis should be an even more impressive contribution to the line with an offseason of knowing who he’ll be working next to, in Matthew Bergeron and Carlos Vetterello. The trio showed a good bit of chemistry toward the end of last year and can hopefully turn that into a strength this season.”
They say that offensive line is the hardest positon to learn but that didn’t deter Matthew Bergeron from making the starting line-up by the end of his true freshman year and making a big difference in the results. He appeared in all 12 games and started the last 5, getting 20 knockdowns on his way to earning freshman All-America honors from Pro Football Focus. He was the first true freshman to start at OT for SU in 17 years. “Matthew is not a normal freshman,” Babers said. “He’s stronger and bigger than what you think he is. He’s not full-grown because he can be a lot stronger and he will be a lot stronger.” Prodigies become stars and Matthew should be the key to our line over the next three seasons.
It’s not just the quality of the starting line-up that is the difference between the powerhouses and the non-powerhouses: it’s the depth. In modern football, where everybody but the quarterback alternates, it’s not your starting line-up against theirs. It’s your two-deep against theirs. Clemson can replace guys we wish we had with other guys we wish we had. Too often our replacements aren’t of ACC quality and that makes all those exciting highlight film plays hard to come by. Here’s what I was able to find out about our back-ups. I want to know if they are the starters of the future or just…back-ups.
Darius Tisdale was listed as a starting guard in the spring with Dakota Davis not available and Chris Bleich being held up by the NCAA. He’d previously played mostly on special teams but did see some action at guard last year. He was a 2 or 3 star recruit, depending on the service, coming out of junior college. He was listed at 295 last year, 314 in the spring and now is 342. Is that good news or bad? Nunes: “In order for Tisdale to contend for the starting right guard spot, he would need the Orange coaching staff to move Dakota Davis to left guard to cover Evan Adams’s graduation. And he would need Chris Bleich to get his waiver to play denied. No matter what the case, Tisdale is probably fighting Patrick Davis and Anthony Red for position on the depth chart. We won’t know how much either of these guys play until the first game of the season.”
Wil Froumy a redshirt sophomore who has yet to appear in a game. But in the spring depth chart, he’s listed as the backup at right guard. He also got a combination of three star and two star ratings. He was seen practicing snaps in the spring. Nunes: “Froumy will be competing for time on special teams and trying to make the two-deep at tackle.”
Anthony Red: SUJuiceonline: “During spring practices in 2019, Red was listed atop the depth chart and spent most of his early enrollee time struggling to contain All-ACC caliber defensive linemen Alton Robinson and Kendall Coleman. Still, outside of a cameo appearance against Duke late in the year, Red was relegated to a redshirt role.” Nunes describes him as a ‘late bloomer’: he played at 220-230 in high school but was 270 by the time he showed up at Syracuse. He was given 3 stars by all the services. “Red is going to push Matthew Bergeron at the right tackle spot and if he can’t unseat the returning starter he’s likely to see more time this season.” Red is going to have play very well to push Bergeron, who seemed like an immediate star in the line as a true freshman.
The guy we are waiting to hear from is Qadir White. SUJuiceonline: “White, like Froumy, is now in his third year and is hoping to play his first collegiate snaps in 2020. He entered Syracuse as a four-star recruit from the Bronx, and has shifted from tackle to guard. He didn’t appear in the depth chart in the spring.” At 6-7 343, he seems more like a tackle to me. He was a 4 star recruit, rated the #16 offensive tackle in his class. He was our highest rated recruit at any positon in 2018. Last year Syracuse.com said: “One of the most highly touted recruits of the Babers era, White has quietly been developing behind the scenes. He's gradually losing weight and gaining endurance.” Nunes this year: “White should be fighting for a backup spot on the line this year. However, a slight concern is that he wasn’t listed on the spring depth chart before practices stopped. Whether that was due to an injury or other circumstances is unknown. Barring those issues, his name not appearing on the two-deep is concerning given the apparent talent he had coming out of high school.”
Syracuse.com last year: “Linemen, they take a while,” Babers said when asked about White during spring ball. "The hardest thing about offensive linemen is their whole life, they’ve been bigger than everybody else and people have always told them, ‘Don’t hurt that person. You’re bigger than them, don’t hurt them.’….“Then they get in high school and they’re just bigger than everyone. And then they get here and everyone’s big. There’s a change. They have to figure it out -- it just takes them longer.”… Cardinal Hayes head coach CJ O’Neil described White as a two-year project after he signed with the Orange. He compared him to Willie Colon, another big-bodied offensive lineman who came through Cardinal Hayes in the early 2000s. After playing in one game over his first two seasons at Hofstra, Colon went on to become a fourth-round pick in the 2006 NFL Draft, 10-year professional and Super Bowl champion with the Pittsburgh Steelers.” The two years should be up by now. I’m concerned that that 2019 article lauded White for ‘trimming down from 330 pounds to 319” after going through Sean Edinger’s tough strength and conditioning progam. This year he’s listed at 343 and is not on the two deep.
Austin Chandler, Ryan Kisselstein and Josh Kosciol are walk-ons. Chandler, a 2 star, participated in 7 games last year, Kisselstein in 1 and Kosciol in none. Kisselstein is a local kid from Corcoran. The recruiting services ignored him. Nunes: “Initially, he was going to play tight end for Alfred University at the D3 level.“ He played center for 5 snaps against Western Michigan. That was our fourth game and he didn’t play again, which might tell us something. Kosciol is from the Rochester area and was also ignored by the scouting services. Nunes: “You never know when you could use another interior lineman, and Kosciol was slated as the Orange’s backup center behind Carlos Vettorello in March’s depth chart.” Last year’s guard, Evan Adams: ““Everybody sleeps on Josh because of his size. He has a huge heart. He plays like he has a chip on his shoulder, too. I think he’s going to be something else in his own right.” UPDATE: Chandler has been dropped from the roster on Cuse.com.
Newcomers include freshmen and Garth Barclay and Josh Ilaoa, whose father is from Hawaii, (like Dino Babers), but who was born in Washington state and played his high school ball in North Carolina. Barclay is 6-7 270 and will probably have to build himself up to get playing time. He played at 270 in high school, so that process has already begun. He’s a 3 star from Pennsylvania, (which means…). Nunes: “The way the offensive line is shaking out, there’s not a lot of minutes to be had, especially at tackle. Barclay can take advantage of a redshirt year, and put on some muscle on his 6-foot-7 frame.” Ilaoa on himself: ““I am going to be playing guard, but don’t be surprised if I’m playing anything else,” Ilaoa said. “What makes me different is that I am very athletic and versatile.”(Syracuse.com) He’s also a three star recruit. (Isn’t everybody?). Nunes: Likely, Ilaoa will be moved to the interior of the line, with his size. He’s also a great candidate for a redshirt, with the depth that the Orange currently have at offensive line. That’s a welcome statement if I’ve ever heard one.” I agree, to say the least.
Mark Petry is a native of Germany who attended junior college here and transferred to SU for this season with three years of eligibility left. He’s undersized at 6-4 265 but was rated 3 stars and the #34 offensive tackle in the JUCO ranks. We flipped his commit from Eastern Michigan. I hope he’s more a Syracuse type player than an Eastern Michigan type player. Nunes: “Petry is probably a depth piece at tackle while he learns the ropes. That said, coming in during the January window, he has a bit of a jump on the rest of the incoming class. He has a large and relatively lean frame that seems to be what Babers and Cavanaugh are looking for at the tackle spot.” Really?
I think that if we can avoid having too many injuries in this unit, it can hold together. I can’t say that I see another Cherry Bowl group waiting in the wings. Servais and Pat Davis are seniors. Looking at out football recruiting board, I see four O-linemen have committed for next season: Kalan Ellis, from Dino’s home state of Hawaii, Wes Hoeh from Illinois, Austyn Kauhi, also from Hawaii and Tyler Magnuson from Minnesota. Guess what? They’re all 3 stars! I’d like to hear more about some big-time O-line recruits coming to Syracuse in the future. But we are Syracuse, not Clemson…
