sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
- Joined
- Aug 15, 2011
- Messages
- 27,263
- Like
- 120,171
Arrived around 9:20, which was a later arrival for most in the Syracusefn.com section. Was immediately introduced to Chris Carlson, who was interviewing the group about fan perceptions and expectations for the program. We had a fine turnout. lincolncuse brought the youngest new fan. He projects as a safety/OLB type in the class of 2034. Great to see everyone. I won't name anyone that didn't have a kid but you know who you are...
It was a small crowd. Didn't spend any time trying to figure out crowd size but I think it was in the 2000 range. This, coupled with the constant music on the PA system gave the event a very Rutgerian feel.
It is dangerous to make judgements based on intersquad scrimmages. But this won't be very interesting if I refrain, so here goes.,,,
The format was first team offense vs second team defense and second team offense against first team defense. We have seen this format before and it seems to me that the first team defense always dominates the second team offense. Today was no exception. The first team offense against second team defense is generally more competitive. Well today, the defense dominated, though the first team offense did finally get a TD late in the game.
Given how the offense and defense performed last season, this is a surprising result. What does it mean?
Not a lot. The defense has been playing against this scheme for 2 springs and one fall season. They are now a largely veteran group and they know how to defend against these plays. And then there is the play selection we saw today...very vanilla, not much throwing the ball downfield, That made thing a lot easier for the defense. But I think it was more than that.
The team has more depth now than last year, when there were walk-ones in the two deep on defense at a number of positions. That isn't the case anymore. The veterans have largely become bigger and or stronger. Guys like Franklin, Bennett and Slayton are noticeably stronger and heavier (and don't appear to have lost speed). We have players like Devin Butler and Carl Jones at CB, who are both 6'1 and all the safeties that played except Corey were at least 5'11 and 190 pounds. Foster played with the first team today and other than falling down in coverage once, looked good. Big hitter.
I thought Chris Frederick, who worked with the first team defense all game, was really impressive and was arguably the best player on the field. If Frederick wasn't the best player out there, it was Cordy, whose impressive athletic talents and acumen make up for his lack of size. Franklin and Bennett are stronger and better then ever and it looks like Thomas has made a big step up this spring at the other LB position. Armstrong got a lot of work in with the first team unit and looks like he is going to be a very good player. Fagan, Guthrie, Cullen and Henderson all like like legit D1 players as well.
Thought Butler, Bradshaw and Jones all looked promising. I expect Butler is eventually going to win that job but all of them appear to have a shot at it right now.
One of the big stories of the spring has been the emergence of McKinley Williams as a force at DT. He worked with the first team today, looked good and appears to have moved ahead of veteran Kayton Samuels. That might be in part because as Williams has been steadily adding good weight since he arrived at campus, Samuels appears to be the most overweight player on the team. If Steven Clark is able to overcome his bloodclot issues, I think Samuels is not going to play a lot, especially not as Kenneth Ruff continues to fill out and improve here as well. Great to see some quality depth developing at a position where SU has had depth issues for a while. Coleman and Black look like they are getting better and are pretty solid at DE. Pickard is noticeably stronger now and should help, but a strong group of incoming players should improve this unit considerably.
Let's switch to special teams. They didn't have real punts, kickoffs, FG or PATs. Hinds is the long snapper and looked really good. Watching players practice KOs, it looked to me as though Sterling has the strongest leg and should win the job. Looks like a walk-on named Nolan Clooney is the backup punter and he looked quite good. I think the competition for the placekicker job is close and Murphy could lose it to Hofrichter.
Sterling is going to be the punter and should be one of the top punters in the ACC, if not the country.
Let's talk offense. The QBs were led by Eric Dungey, who appeared considerly ahead of the others. His arm strength looks improved and his accuracy was good. Forced a couple of balls into tight coverage and I believe at least one ended up a pick. He looked stronger as advertised but his quickness was still evident. The offense looks markedly better with him in. Mahoney, Culpepper and Hosan split snaps with the second team offense. I think Culpepper is narrowing the gap and has a stronger arm, but Mahoney has more experience and appears more mobile. Hasan throws a nice deep ball.
Philips sat the practice out. It is my understanding this is nothing to be concerned about.
Ishmael looks stronger, has clearly been working in the weight room and seemed open every time the ball came his way. Looks primed to have a big senior season. Custis is that guy who wears football pants cut above the knee. Looks really jacked. Didn't get many touches today and I wonder if this was by design, as he was dominant in the private scrimmage last Saturday. Surely one of the big keys for this season is whether he can emerge as a big time weapon for this offense. I haven't ever seen him play at that level but he apparently has the ability to do so. I think Dino wants to spring him on the college football world like he did with AET last season. Hope so anyway. Enoicy is another big athletic guy who hasn't produced and will have to fight off some promising youngsters for playing time.
The third outside WR will probably be the other Devin Butler. He was the one guy duo scored on offense today. Like Custis, he has size, speed and exceptional athletic ability. In this offense, he has a chance to put up some crazy numbers.
At inside WR, their are questions regarding who will play besides Philips. Moe Neal appears well suited to the position and practiced there for most of the spring. But he was moved back to RB recently. Is he big enough to stick at RB (currently listed at 179 pounds)? Seems to me he is needed more at WR. Maybe he will play both. Sean Riley was next in line in terms of snaps. He is listed at 5'8 150 pounds. There are a couple of Johnsons coming in the fall that should help almost right away. If you want a long shot to root for, walk-on fresh Tyler Gilfus has been impressive and just might get some playing time.
At TE, walk-on Jesse Conners was pretty impressive but the guy to watch is JUCO transfer Ravian Pierce. He has size and speed and will give SU a nice option in the passing game in 2017. Expect him to be used a lot. I expect over 50 catches and close to 10 TDs. Hackett might help in the fall.
At RB, there are only 2 or 3 RBs on the roster, depending on where you count Moe Neal. Today, none were effective running the ball. We don;t have a guy on the roster that can get yards on their own and with this OL, that is a problem. Hopefully it will get solved with the arrival of a frosh this summer.
The other big story this preseason is the emergence of Airon Servais as a possible starter on the OL. Again, you can't base opinions too much on one practice' while Servais played at center with the first team, Byrne was there at the practice last week (today Colin played OG with the second team; Sam Heckel was the second team center). We know Servais has moved around this spring...he appears to be positioning himself for a lot if playing time somewhere. For today, I thought his snaps were good, his run blocking not so good. No one run blocked well and the pass blocking wasn't great either, especially with the second team offense.
Looked like Aaron Roberts might have broken an arm...if not that then maybe separated a shoulder. I thought Cody Conway looked like our best OL. I thought Patrick Davis had some good moments with the second unit too. But the concerns from last year about the ability of the OL to make holes for the running game remain, and this is perhaps the biggest area of concern on the team.
To summarize, there are indications the offense might be a little worse, but if Dungey stays healthy, the unit should still be fine. Really need to get the running game established and some talented but inexperienced WRs must step up. The defense appears as though it will be markedly improved in all areas.
There is reason to think the team will be significantly better overall but still probably won't go bowling because of a brutal schedule. There should be lots of high scoring entertaining games to enjoy. If you haven't done so already, go buy some season tickets!
It was a small crowd. Didn't spend any time trying to figure out crowd size but I think it was in the 2000 range. This, coupled with the constant music on the PA system gave the event a very Rutgerian feel.
It is dangerous to make judgements based on intersquad scrimmages. But this won't be very interesting if I refrain, so here goes.,,,
The format was first team offense vs second team defense and second team offense against first team defense. We have seen this format before and it seems to me that the first team defense always dominates the second team offense. Today was no exception. The first team offense against second team defense is generally more competitive. Well today, the defense dominated, though the first team offense did finally get a TD late in the game.
Given how the offense and defense performed last season, this is a surprising result. What does it mean?
Not a lot. The defense has been playing against this scheme for 2 springs and one fall season. They are now a largely veteran group and they know how to defend against these plays. And then there is the play selection we saw today...very vanilla, not much throwing the ball downfield, That made thing a lot easier for the defense. But I think it was more than that.
The team has more depth now than last year, when there were walk-ones in the two deep on defense at a number of positions. That isn't the case anymore. The veterans have largely become bigger and or stronger. Guys like Franklin, Bennett and Slayton are noticeably stronger and heavier (and don't appear to have lost speed). We have players like Devin Butler and Carl Jones at CB, who are both 6'1 and all the safeties that played except Corey were at least 5'11 and 190 pounds. Foster played with the first team today and other than falling down in coverage once, looked good. Big hitter.
I thought Chris Frederick, who worked with the first team defense all game, was really impressive and was arguably the best player on the field. If Frederick wasn't the best player out there, it was Cordy, whose impressive athletic talents and acumen make up for his lack of size. Franklin and Bennett are stronger and better then ever and it looks like Thomas has made a big step up this spring at the other LB position. Armstrong got a lot of work in with the first team unit and looks like he is going to be a very good player. Fagan, Guthrie, Cullen and Henderson all like like legit D1 players as well.
Thought Butler, Bradshaw and Jones all looked promising. I expect Butler is eventually going to win that job but all of them appear to have a shot at it right now.
One of the big stories of the spring has been the emergence of McKinley Williams as a force at DT. He worked with the first team today, looked good and appears to have moved ahead of veteran Kayton Samuels. That might be in part because as Williams has been steadily adding good weight since he arrived at campus, Samuels appears to be the most overweight player on the team. If Steven Clark is able to overcome his bloodclot issues, I think Samuels is not going to play a lot, especially not as Kenneth Ruff continues to fill out and improve here as well. Great to see some quality depth developing at a position where SU has had depth issues for a while. Coleman and Black look like they are getting better and are pretty solid at DE. Pickard is noticeably stronger now and should help, but a strong group of incoming players should improve this unit considerably.
Let's switch to special teams. They didn't have real punts, kickoffs, FG or PATs. Hinds is the long snapper and looked really good. Watching players practice KOs, it looked to me as though Sterling has the strongest leg and should win the job. Looks like a walk-on named Nolan Clooney is the backup punter and he looked quite good. I think the competition for the placekicker job is close and Murphy could lose it to Hofrichter.
Sterling is going to be the punter and should be one of the top punters in the ACC, if not the country.
Let's talk offense. The QBs were led by Eric Dungey, who appeared considerly ahead of the others. His arm strength looks improved and his accuracy was good. Forced a couple of balls into tight coverage and I believe at least one ended up a pick. He looked stronger as advertised but his quickness was still evident. The offense looks markedly better with him in. Mahoney, Culpepper and Hosan split snaps with the second team offense. I think Culpepper is narrowing the gap and has a stronger arm, but Mahoney has more experience and appears more mobile. Hasan throws a nice deep ball.
Philips sat the practice out. It is my understanding this is nothing to be concerned about.
Ishmael looks stronger, has clearly been working in the weight room and seemed open every time the ball came his way. Looks primed to have a big senior season. Custis is that guy who wears football pants cut above the knee. Looks really jacked. Didn't get many touches today and I wonder if this was by design, as he was dominant in the private scrimmage last Saturday. Surely one of the big keys for this season is whether he can emerge as a big time weapon for this offense. I haven't ever seen him play at that level but he apparently has the ability to do so. I think Dino wants to spring him on the college football world like he did with AET last season. Hope so anyway. Enoicy is another big athletic guy who hasn't produced and will have to fight off some promising youngsters for playing time.
The third outside WR will probably be the other Devin Butler. He was the one guy duo scored on offense today. Like Custis, he has size, speed and exceptional athletic ability. In this offense, he has a chance to put up some crazy numbers.
At inside WR, their are questions regarding who will play besides Philips. Moe Neal appears well suited to the position and practiced there for most of the spring. But he was moved back to RB recently. Is he big enough to stick at RB (currently listed at 179 pounds)? Seems to me he is needed more at WR. Maybe he will play both. Sean Riley was next in line in terms of snaps. He is listed at 5'8 150 pounds. There are a couple of Johnsons coming in the fall that should help almost right away. If you want a long shot to root for, walk-on fresh Tyler Gilfus has been impressive and just might get some playing time.
At TE, walk-on Jesse Conners was pretty impressive but the guy to watch is JUCO transfer Ravian Pierce. He has size and speed and will give SU a nice option in the passing game in 2017. Expect him to be used a lot. I expect over 50 catches and close to 10 TDs. Hackett might help in the fall.
At RB, there are only 2 or 3 RBs on the roster, depending on where you count Moe Neal. Today, none were effective running the ball. We don;t have a guy on the roster that can get yards on their own and with this OL, that is a problem. Hopefully it will get solved with the arrival of a frosh this summer.
The other big story this preseason is the emergence of Airon Servais as a possible starter on the OL. Again, you can't base opinions too much on one practice' while Servais played at center with the first team, Byrne was there at the practice last week (today Colin played OG with the second team; Sam Heckel was the second team center). We know Servais has moved around this spring...he appears to be positioning himself for a lot if playing time somewhere. For today, I thought his snaps were good, his run blocking not so good. No one run blocked well and the pass blocking wasn't great either, especially with the second team offense.
Looked like Aaron Roberts might have broken an arm...if not that then maybe separated a shoulder. I thought Cody Conway looked like our best OL. I thought Patrick Davis had some good moments with the second unit too. But the concerns from last year about the ability of the OL to make holes for the running game remain, and this is perhaps the biggest area of concern on the team.
To summarize, there are indications the offense might be a little worse, but if Dungey stays healthy, the unit should still be fine. Really need to get the running game established and some talented but inexperienced WRs must step up. The defense appears as though it will be markedly improved in all areas.
There is reason to think the team will be significantly better overall but still probably won't go bowling because of a brutal schedule. There should be lots of high scoring entertaining games to enjoy. If you haven't done so already, go buy some season tickets!
