sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
- Joined
- Aug 15, 2011
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Let's start by talking about the pregame tailgate. Great job by Jeremy, Nell, Consigliere, Kevin, and everyone else involved in making things happen. The new mega grill, which Jeremy has dubbed the Jim Brown Grill, is a wonder. The food was great and a good time was had by all. Great to see so many old friends again. Too many to name, but suffice it to say it was a great turnout for an unattractive opponent. AirForceOrange won the unofficial award for the longest commute to the game. He drove his family all the way from Florida so they could see the home opener and the NYS Fair. Awesome. Though as I think about it, GoSU96 flew in for the game from India, arriving at 1am game day morning, so he should be mentioned as well (he highly recommends Qatar Airlines and their airport).
My group headed to the Dome about 35 minutes before kickoff. It was a beautiful day, with temperatures that were thankfully quite mild (about 72 degrees). Everyone seemed to have a smile on their face, and everyone seemed full of hope for the new era. I haven't seen this level of hope and expectation since the first game of the Doug Marrone era.
It was disappointing to see the stands so empty. By this point it should be clear. Syracuse has 30k of loyal fans that will show up pretty much no matter what. I had hoped the bandwagon, front runner types would at least come out and give Dino and company one chance. But it appears most of CNY is lacking in faith. Hope the Colgate game got some of these people interested in our little reclamation project on the hill...
The students were late arriving but very enthusiastic. They came up in big numbers. I would guess about 5000 attended, though with the move, it is harder for me to see them and make estimates, The valiant attempt by the SUMB to establish a new cheer for first downs did not appear to take catch on, but it takes time for these things and I hope they keep trying. There was also a clear attempt to get more people to sing the Syracuse fight song. The words were featured on the big scoreboards. Major timing issues hampered these efforts. I hope they get resolved over time. This is something worth pursuing. The train whistle and express references were quietly dropped. I think they stopped the white smoke team entrance as well.
Game programs are skinnier and more cheaply made than ever. They don't bother to include anything but ads, rosters, pictures of the players and depth charts. It would be good to have a write up for each game listing history against the opponent, players approaching records, players from the same high schools, etc. the stuff that appears in the media guide.
The Dome looked the same as it did last spring. They are keeping it in good shape. The sound system remains barely adequate, which is unfortunate, because a new feature was introduced where during a number of breaks in the game, an SU football player was interviewed by an unknown person. They were asked silly questions like 'what do you think Otto dreams about'? Unfortunately, while there was a caption for the questions, there was not one for the answers. With all the ambient noise in the Dome, and the poor sound system, it was often impossible to understand what the players responses were. I hope they consider providing captions for the responses as well.
Let's talk about Colgate fans. Where were they? I would estimate there were maybe 500 or 600 there. Their stadium holds 10K. Hamilton is such a short drive. Their team is strong and had a great season last year. They can afford tickets. Why weren't more in the Dome? I think it is because there was an Iambic Pentameter symposium somewhere that conflicted with game day, but maybe it is just that they knew they had no chance and couldn't stomach another humiliating beat down by their big brother,
It was hot in the Dome, especially in the first half, when temperatures were highest outside. Sitting close to the highest seats in the facility, the syracusefan.com crew got the discount of the year: a college football game and a sauna for one low price. It was good to sweat out all those toxins ingested in the per game tailgate. By the time the game started, my mind was clear and I felt renewed. Except for one problem. For the entire game, I smelled a very strong presence of diesel fuel fumes coming from the Dome air circulation system. I have been going to SU games since 1974. This was new. Not sure if buses have been positioned in new locations near where air intakes are located for the facility or if buses near the Dome were permitted to run all game long, but this was not a good development and I hope someone takes steps to ensure this does not happen again.
The seating pricing issues that have plagued the program for years were never more evident than last night. With the exception of the student section, the sections most filled with people were in the end zones. The sections between the 30 yard lines were reasonably filled in and the areas in between were largely empty. Again, I urge the powers that be to lower prices in these unpopulated areas dramatically. I would drop the prices to the same as in the end zone and give the people who have had season tickets the longest priority to move to the better seats. Based on the end zones being full, I think it is clear there is a market for more $99 season tickets. Make more available and people will buy them. At this point, the season ticket holders who pay big bucks for the tickets between the 30s don't care. We want people in the Dome, we want the most home field advantage possible. As the team gets better, prices can always be increased later. Bigger crowds will also help recruiting. This should apply to the pricing for these tickets for individual games as well, to a lesser extent.
I hate the concept of mix and match uniforms, where the concept of the traditional and much beloved SU uniform is completely ignored. I hate watching SU games and not being sure which team to root for. But most of all, I hate uniforms designed so incompetently that you can't read the uniform numbers. If Nike is not capable of designing uniforms where the numbers can be read from the upper deck of the Dome, let's bring in someone who can. This is a really important issue to me. When SU refuses to use uniforms where I can identify players from the stands, I am given strong incentive to drop my season tickets and watch the games at home. If I feel that way, and I am a diehard, I think others do too. Please address this.
On to the game.
I thought Colgate looked well coached and impressive on offense early on. Their QB threw the ball well and looked quick and athletic. When they marched down the field and scored on their first drive, I was convinced this was going to be a reasonably close game. It looked to me as though Syracuse's game plan was to take away the deep ball, try to contain the QB in the pocket and hit the crap out of every Colgate player who touched the ball. They say the Tampa 2 forces QBs to consistently make tough throws to beat it and you could see that last night. Colgate WRs would find a seam in the zone and get open briefly, and sometimes their QB could get them the ball. But not consistently, especially after their first drive, when they went after Hudson on seemingly every pass play and had great success.
When Colgate tried to run, they had little success. The SU DL dominated the Colgate OL and the SU linebackers and secondary were able to get to the ball carriers unblocked on a regular basis. Time after time a Colgate player would have no hole inside, would break the play outside, maybe just outrun a DL, perhaps outrun a LB only to get tackled by DB. The players on the SU defense were just a lot bigger, stronger and faster than the Colgate players. They showed good discipline and for an opening game, I thought the tackling by Syracuse was exceptionally good. Great overall team effort, with special kudos to Slayton, who had a couple sacks, Franklin, who had a lot of tackles, and Cordy, who flew all over the field. He is much better suited to FS than SS and I am glad he was moved there.
I also want to mention how hard hitting this unit was. There was a big hit or two every series and I think Colgate became intimidated by it. Red Raider players were alligator arming possible catches, and looking scared. Their QB must be covered in bruises today with the pounding he took. It was been a long time since I have seen a Syracuse team hit like this and it was a sight for sore eyes.
On offense, I thought Colgate's game plan was to take away the middle of the field and force Syracuse to beat them passing the ball. This made it hard for SU to run inside, but left Colgate very vulnerable to passes to the perimeter of the field, in the flats and downfield. SU relied heavily on screens to the flats with 2.WRs, where one blocked for another. They executed this play far better than previous SU offenses, and it helped set up the long pass, which was highly successful,. Dungey made some great deep throws to ATT, the Maryland transfer who showed outstanding speed and strength. He had one of the best games of any SU WR in history, getting 2 TDs and over 200 yards receiving. It was a great debut. He looks like he is going to be our best deep threat in many years. Philips had 14 catches, which I believe tied Art Monk'd record for most receptions in a game, and also looked very good. Steve Ishmael had 'only' 6 catches, which has to be close to a personal record.
Eric Dungey had a huge day, threw for close to 400 yards, and that was with the passing offense largely shut down for the second half of the game, when Syracuse called the dogs off and largely ran the ball to keep the final score respectable. As mentioned previously, he threw the ball well long, was really accurate, and looked really good. It should be noted the zip on some of his passes was noticeably lacking. Jake thought after the game that he has a bit of a dead arm. I agree. All those reps in the preseason took a toll. Hopefully this improves over time.
My favorite play of the game was in the red zone, on one of the rare times SU scored from there. ED was flushed from the pocket, ran right, saw there was no room to run and retreated back and to the left, bumping into a lineman or two in three process. Now under heavy pressure, he looked up, saw Philips open in the end zone and just got off a throw to him as he was hit. TD. Sweet.
Thought the SU OL didn't play very well. ED didn't get a lot of time to throw pretty often. Stunts were not picked up. They struggled to open holes in a surprisingly gritty Colgate defensive lineman running plays. Looked like McGloster sprained a knee and Lasker filled in. Lasker was often used as a RB in a jumbo formation, along with Kenneth Ruff. That formation led to the most success SU had running the football. Emerich's snaps from the shotgun were solid. I thought Conway did a good job in his first start.
Special teams were up and down. The coverage teams were good. The return teams not so good. Sterling did okay in his first start. He one awful, low line drive and one long, soaring, wonderful punt. Cole Murphy kicked off well and was solid kicking FGs and PATs. Perfect is very good.
A little disappointed with the success of the offense in the red zone. Custis being out probably hurt them here. A little disappointed in the performance of the OL, but there are a bunch of first time starters out there and the new scheme is a major change for them in terms of the spacing. Glad we had a relatively tough opponent early. Might give us an advantage on UL next week.
If there are any fence sitters out there racing this, please consider coming to the game Saturday. The product on the field is entertaining to watch (loved the fast temp and aggressiveness) and extra chord support will be needed to beat a tough team like the Cardinals. Hoe to see you there.
War Damn Otto!
it doesn't!t happen again anytime soon.
My group headed to the Dome about 35 minutes before kickoff. It was a beautiful day, with temperatures that were thankfully quite mild (about 72 degrees). Everyone seemed to have a smile on their face, and everyone seemed full of hope for the new era. I haven't seen this level of hope and expectation since the first game of the Doug Marrone era.
It was disappointing to see the stands so empty. By this point it should be clear. Syracuse has 30k of loyal fans that will show up pretty much no matter what. I had hoped the bandwagon, front runner types would at least come out and give Dino and company one chance. But it appears most of CNY is lacking in faith. Hope the Colgate game got some of these people interested in our little reclamation project on the hill...
The students were late arriving but very enthusiastic. They came up in big numbers. I would guess about 5000 attended, though with the move, it is harder for me to see them and make estimates, The valiant attempt by the SUMB to establish a new cheer for first downs did not appear to take catch on, but it takes time for these things and I hope they keep trying. There was also a clear attempt to get more people to sing the Syracuse fight song. The words were featured on the big scoreboards. Major timing issues hampered these efforts. I hope they get resolved over time. This is something worth pursuing. The train whistle and express references were quietly dropped. I think they stopped the white smoke team entrance as well.
Game programs are skinnier and more cheaply made than ever. They don't bother to include anything but ads, rosters, pictures of the players and depth charts. It would be good to have a write up for each game listing history against the opponent, players approaching records, players from the same high schools, etc. the stuff that appears in the media guide.
The Dome looked the same as it did last spring. They are keeping it in good shape. The sound system remains barely adequate, which is unfortunate, because a new feature was introduced where during a number of breaks in the game, an SU football player was interviewed by an unknown person. They were asked silly questions like 'what do you think Otto dreams about'? Unfortunately, while there was a caption for the questions, there was not one for the answers. With all the ambient noise in the Dome, and the poor sound system, it was often impossible to understand what the players responses were. I hope they consider providing captions for the responses as well.
Let's talk about Colgate fans. Where were they? I would estimate there were maybe 500 or 600 there. Their stadium holds 10K. Hamilton is such a short drive. Their team is strong and had a great season last year. They can afford tickets. Why weren't more in the Dome? I think it is because there was an Iambic Pentameter symposium somewhere that conflicted with game day, but maybe it is just that they knew they had no chance and couldn't stomach another humiliating beat down by their big brother,
It was hot in the Dome, especially in the first half, when temperatures were highest outside. Sitting close to the highest seats in the facility, the syracusefan.com crew got the discount of the year: a college football game and a sauna for one low price. It was good to sweat out all those toxins ingested in the per game tailgate. By the time the game started, my mind was clear and I felt renewed. Except for one problem. For the entire game, I smelled a very strong presence of diesel fuel fumes coming from the Dome air circulation system. I have been going to SU games since 1974. This was new. Not sure if buses have been positioned in new locations near where air intakes are located for the facility or if buses near the Dome were permitted to run all game long, but this was not a good development and I hope someone takes steps to ensure this does not happen again.
The seating pricing issues that have plagued the program for years were never more evident than last night. With the exception of the student section, the sections most filled with people were in the end zones. The sections between the 30 yard lines were reasonably filled in and the areas in between were largely empty. Again, I urge the powers that be to lower prices in these unpopulated areas dramatically. I would drop the prices to the same as in the end zone and give the people who have had season tickets the longest priority to move to the better seats. Based on the end zones being full, I think it is clear there is a market for more $99 season tickets. Make more available and people will buy them. At this point, the season ticket holders who pay big bucks for the tickets between the 30s don't care. We want people in the Dome, we want the most home field advantage possible. As the team gets better, prices can always be increased later. Bigger crowds will also help recruiting. This should apply to the pricing for these tickets for individual games as well, to a lesser extent.
I hate the concept of mix and match uniforms, where the concept of the traditional and much beloved SU uniform is completely ignored. I hate watching SU games and not being sure which team to root for. But most of all, I hate uniforms designed so incompetently that you can't read the uniform numbers. If Nike is not capable of designing uniforms where the numbers can be read from the upper deck of the Dome, let's bring in someone who can. This is a really important issue to me. When SU refuses to use uniforms where I can identify players from the stands, I am given strong incentive to drop my season tickets and watch the games at home. If I feel that way, and I am a diehard, I think others do too. Please address this.
On to the game.
I thought Colgate looked well coached and impressive on offense early on. Their QB threw the ball well and looked quick and athletic. When they marched down the field and scored on their first drive, I was convinced this was going to be a reasonably close game. It looked to me as though Syracuse's game plan was to take away the deep ball, try to contain the QB in the pocket and hit the crap out of every Colgate player who touched the ball. They say the Tampa 2 forces QBs to consistently make tough throws to beat it and you could see that last night. Colgate WRs would find a seam in the zone and get open briefly, and sometimes their QB could get them the ball. But not consistently, especially after their first drive, when they went after Hudson on seemingly every pass play and had great success.
When Colgate tried to run, they had little success. The SU DL dominated the Colgate OL and the SU linebackers and secondary were able to get to the ball carriers unblocked on a regular basis. Time after time a Colgate player would have no hole inside, would break the play outside, maybe just outrun a DL, perhaps outrun a LB only to get tackled by DB. The players on the SU defense were just a lot bigger, stronger and faster than the Colgate players. They showed good discipline and for an opening game, I thought the tackling by Syracuse was exceptionally good. Great overall team effort, with special kudos to Slayton, who had a couple sacks, Franklin, who had a lot of tackles, and Cordy, who flew all over the field. He is much better suited to FS than SS and I am glad he was moved there.
I also want to mention how hard hitting this unit was. There was a big hit or two every series and I think Colgate became intimidated by it. Red Raider players were alligator arming possible catches, and looking scared. Their QB must be covered in bruises today with the pounding he took. It was been a long time since I have seen a Syracuse team hit like this and it was a sight for sore eyes.
On offense, I thought Colgate's game plan was to take away the middle of the field and force Syracuse to beat them passing the ball. This made it hard for SU to run inside, but left Colgate very vulnerable to passes to the perimeter of the field, in the flats and downfield. SU relied heavily on screens to the flats with 2.WRs, where one blocked for another. They executed this play far better than previous SU offenses, and it helped set up the long pass, which was highly successful,. Dungey made some great deep throws to ATT, the Maryland transfer who showed outstanding speed and strength. He had one of the best games of any SU WR in history, getting 2 TDs and over 200 yards receiving. It was a great debut. He looks like he is going to be our best deep threat in many years. Philips had 14 catches, which I believe tied Art Monk'd record for most receptions in a game, and also looked very good. Steve Ishmael had 'only' 6 catches, which has to be close to a personal record.
Eric Dungey had a huge day, threw for close to 400 yards, and that was with the passing offense largely shut down for the second half of the game, when Syracuse called the dogs off and largely ran the ball to keep the final score respectable. As mentioned previously, he threw the ball well long, was really accurate, and looked really good. It should be noted the zip on some of his passes was noticeably lacking. Jake thought after the game that he has a bit of a dead arm. I agree. All those reps in the preseason took a toll. Hopefully this improves over time.
My favorite play of the game was in the red zone, on one of the rare times SU scored from there. ED was flushed from the pocket, ran right, saw there was no room to run and retreated back and to the left, bumping into a lineman or two in three process. Now under heavy pressure, he looked up, saw Philips open in the end zone and just got off a throw to him as he was hit. TD. Sweet.
Thought the SU OL didn't play very well. ED didn't get a lot of time to throw pretty often. Stunts were not picked up. They struggled to open holes in a surprisingly gritty Colgate defensive lineman running plays. Looked like McGloster sprained a knee and Lasker filled in. Lasker was often used as a RB in a jumbo formation, along with Kenneth Ruff. That formation led to the most success SU had running the football. Emerich's snaps from the shotgun were solid. I thought Conway did a good job in his first start.
Special teams were up and down. The coverage teams were good. The return teams not so good. Sterling did okay in his first start. He one awful, low line drive and one long, soaring, wonderful punt. Cole Murphy kicked off well and was solid kicking FGs and PATs. Perfect is very good.
A little disappointed with the success of the offense in the red zone. Custis being out probably hurt them here. A little disappointed in the performance of the OL, but there are a bunch of first time starters out there and the new scheme is a major change for them in terms of the spacing. Glad we had a relatively tough opponent early. Might give us an advantage on UL next week.
If there are any fence sitters out there racing this, please consider coming to the game Saturday. The product on the field is entertaining to watch (loved the fast temp and aggressiveness) and extra chord support will be needed to beat a tough team like the Cardinals. Hoe to see you there.
War Damn Otto!
it doesn't!t happen again anytime soon.
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