sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
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- Aug 15, 2011
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Nice crowd again at the pre and post game tailgates. I would guess somewhere in the neighborhood of 55, about the same as for WF. The chicken and brisket were solid. Good talking with everyone and the cake Dan baked was delicious, even if it did have a suspicious looking label on it. Only guy I know who makes labels for homemake cakes.
It was hot in the Dome but not as hot or humid as the WF game. Crowd was loud for its size but the size was not good. IMHO, there were less than 25K there. It is tough to draw crowds for skank opponents like URI, Maine and other peer schools like Colgate. Temple and Rutgers (witness what happened at UNC today, more on that later). But we as SU fans have to show no matter how unattractive the opponent is.
The NA was sung by some country guy who wore a black cowboy hat. I am not a country guy but he had a fine voice and also sang a patriotic song about the Boys of (19)44 at halftime. It was Military Appreciation Night, or something to that effect, there were some troops from Fort Drum in attendance, the video boards showed many short videos from Fort Drum units stationed overseas in Afghanistan wishing the Orangemen well in the 2011 season. The SUMB also got in the act, playing patriotic songs like America during halftime. Thought the whole thing (done only 1 day short of the 10th anniversity of the 9/11.01 terrorists attacks) was well done and well received.
URI brought a couple of hundred fans, similar to what UConn and RU normally bring to the Dome. Their male fans had two eyebrows and the women did not have facial hair, so they differed in that respect.
Regarding the game, it was another in a long line of ugly home games that were difficult to watch. I thought URI came into the game determined to take the run away from Syracuse and to force SU to beat them via the air. I am sure the OL is going to get ripped tonight and to be sure, they did not play well, but as we have discussed in the past, it is tough to run the ball well when facing 8 or 9 men in the box almost all game.
URL saw the success WF had pressuring Nassib and was able to, with disturbing consistency, get pressure on Nassib. They got a bumber of hard hits on Ryan where no sack was recorded, and a few real sacks too. I am not that disturbed when a defense goes all out to stop the run and we struggle to run. The part that really worries me is when they are able to pressure the QB consistently cheating against the run. Not good.
Not thrilled either with our ability to get to the QB for URI. Props to Probst, who I thought played a fine game, threw it well, ran it well and made a lot of savvy decisions. But as in the WF game, we really struggled to get any decent rush on the QB unless we blitzed. And unfortunately, when we blitzed, it looked to me like we often got burned when URI threw a pass into an area vacated by the blitzer.
It has rarely happened in the DM era that I thought we were badly outcoached on both sides of the ball. I think it happened tonight. I give the URI staff a lot of credit, but with all respect to them, they can't be embarrassing our OC and DC like they did.
Really liked their offensive game plan. Good mix of passing plays and running plays, they had a lot of motion, showed us a lot of looks and really did a nice job burning our fast. young, way too aggressive defense with cutbacks and changes of direction.
We have a real issue with discipline on defense right now. Phil Thomas should be a savvy veteran by now but he continues to make awful decisions on a regular basis. Had an awful night tackling and made nice progress on his quest to get the most personal fouls in the history of college football (I believe he had 2 more today and could have been rung up for three). Worse, he dropped an easy interception thrown directly to him and late in the game decided to catch an interception on a 4th down play when he should not catch it but knock it down instead. I know aggressive players sometimes make foolish plays but Thomas is not a young players anymore and is showing me little in the way of learning from his mistakes.
He wasn't alone though. The thing that really frustrated me was the constant over pursuit, the constant over running and getting burned by a simple cutback. Almost everyone on the defensive unit appeared to be more interested in trying to knock out URI players that just to tackle them. SU has rarely had a worse game tackling. Still, all told, even with all the yards and first down they yielded, the defense only gave up 14 points, so it wasn't that awful.
All told, the failure of the offense was more disturbing. Thought Nassib, Chew and Lemon had nice games and played key roles getting the win (Lemon would be my MVP). I guess the TEs were okay. The OL? Not so much. Pass protection was barely adequate at best. Run blocking was bad all game long. Very disappointing to see.
Some random observations...
Regarding special teams, Raupers did not have a single well kicked ball. He hits a disturbing number of low line drives right down the middle. Perfect design to make it easy to get a big return. On the positive side, the short snapping was excellent. Morris apparently lost his job to Rodgers and based on what I saw today, it might stay that way for a long time.
Thought the coverage units did a good job. The return teams did do much, Kobena might have made a bad decision once or twice regarding his cuts.
Speaking of bad decisions while cutting, l thought Bailey really struggled on that front. A great back makes the right decision almost all the time. I hope Ant is really nervous, and that this is going to go away over time.
Thought Lynch had a nice game, fundamentally sound player who can really run, is one of our best blizers and best tacklers too.
Thought Googins was probably our best interior DL. The guy is inconsistent but makes a lot of plays while he is out there.
Nice job by Ross on the KOs. Definitely has more leg strength and is doing a good job getting the ball deep in a corner, which makes covering a KO much easier.
Really happy for Acchione, who not only made a nice catch near the sideline for get a good gain but got a TD too, on a broken play no less. Hope this is more of a statement on how good he has become than where the young WRs on the team stand right now.
Thought Anene did a good job at the WILL while he was in. That being said, even though Davis missed a bunch of tackles and is a wild man out there, he is one of our few legit playmakers out there and I really hope he will be back soon. Drumline from the board, an SU student at the tailgate, told me one of the players told him Davis was fine. Hope that is correct. He didn't leave the field like a player who was fine.
Really like Lyn. That kid can play.
There is a new girl on the dance team that has captured the fancy of some of the syracusefan.com tailgaters. Decorum prevents me from discussing this further.
Congratulations to Wake Forest for their excellent play in their win over NC State. I think they are going to get a couple more wins in ACC play that just one.
Bad losses for UL and RU help SU, who might end up in direct competition with them for a bowl bid late in the season. The UC loss to UT is not a bad one but that might help SU too. And might the loss UConn appears headed for against a weak Vanderbilt team, in a game that ended like too many games ended late in the Coach P era at Syracuse.
Putting aside all the problems and weaknesses with this team, it is great, really great to be 2-0 for the first time in 12 years. If we can beat Tulane, Toledo (that is going to be a holy war) and UL and RU (who both appear to be bad teams), a bowl bid is again in hand and I will be thrilled. Not givens but certainly each win makes a bowl bid more likely.
Who knows, we might find a couple more wins out there in conference. Stranger things have happened.
It was hot in the Dome but not as hot or humid as the WF game. Crowd was loud for its size but the size was not good. IMHO, there were less than 25K there. It is tough to draw crowds for skank opponents like URI, Maine and other peer schools like Colgate. Temple and Rutgers (witness what happened at UNC today, more on that later). But we as SU fans have to show no matter how unattractive the opponent is.
The NA was sung by some country guy who wore a black cowboy hat. I am not a country guy but he had a fine voice and also sang a patriotic song about the Boys of (19)44 at halftime. It was Military Appreciation Night, or something to that effect, there were some troops from Fort Drum in attendance, the video boards showed many short videos from Fort Drum units stationed overseas in Afghanistan wishing the Orangemen well in the 2011 season. The SUMB also got in the act, playing patriotic songs like America during halftime. Thought the whole thing (done only 1 day short of the 10th anniversity of the 9/11.01 terrorists attacks) was well done and well received.
URI brought a couple of hundred fans, similar to what UConn and RU normally bring to the Dome. Their male fans had two eyebrows and the women did not have facial hair, so they differed in that respect.
Regarding the game, it was another in a long line of ugly home games that were difficult to watch. I thought URI came into the game determined to take the run away from Syracuse and to force SU to beat them via the air. I am sure the OL is going to get ripped tonight and to be sure, they did not play well, but as we have discussed in the past, it is tough to run the ball well when facing 8 or 9 men in the box almost all game.
URL saw the success WF had pressuring Nassib and was able to, with disturbing consistency, get pressure on Nassib. They got a bumber of hard hits on Ryan where no sack was recorded, and a few real sacks too. I am not that disturbed when a defense goes all out to stop the run and we struggle to run. The part that really worries me is when they are able to pressure the QB consistently cheating against the run. Not good.
Not thrilled either with our ability to get to the QB for URI. Props to Probst, who I thought played a fine game, threw it well, ran it well and made a lot of savvy decisions. But as in the WF game, we really struggled to get any decent rush on the QB unless we blitzed. And unfortunately, when we blitzed, it looked to me like we often got burned when URI threw a pass into an area vacated by the blitzer.
It has rarely happened in the DM era that I thought we were badly outcoached on both sides of the ball. I think it happened tonight. I give the URI staff a lot of credit, but with all respect to them, they can't be embarrassing our OC and DC like they did.
Really liked their offensive game plan. Good mix of passing plays and running plays, they had a lot of motion, showed us a lot of looks and really did a nice job burning our fast. young, way too aggressive defense with cutbacks and changes of direction.
We have a real issue with discipline on defense right now. Phil Thomas should be a savvy veteran by now but he continues to make awful decisions on a regular basis. Had an awful night tackling and made nice progress on his quest to get the most personal fouls in the history of college football (I believe he had 2 more today and could have been rung up for three). Worse, he dropped an easy interception thrown directly to him and late in the game decided to catch an interception on a 4th down play when he should not catch it but knock it down instead. I know aggressive players sometimes make foolish plays but Thomas is not a young players anymore and is showing me little in the way of learning from his mistakes.
He wasn't alone though. The thing that really frustrated me was the constant over pursuit, the constant over running and getting burned by a simple cutback. Almost everyone on the defensive unit appeared to be more interested in trying to knock out URI players that just to tackle them. SU has rarely had a worse game tackling. Still, all told, even with all the yards and first down they yielded, the defense only gave up 14 points, so it wasn't that awful.
All told, the failure of the offense was more disturbing. Thought Nassib, Chew and Lemon had nice games and played key roles getting the win (Lemon would be my MVP). I guess the TEs were okay. The OL? Not so much. Pass protection was barely adequate at best. Run blocking was bad all game long. Very disappointing to see.
Some random observations...
Regarding special teams, Raupers did not have a single well kicked ball. He hits a disturbing number of low line drives right down the middle. Perfect design to make it easy to get a big return. On the positive side, the short snapping was excellent. Morris apparently lost his job to Rodgers and based on what I saw today, it might stay that way for a long time.
Thought the coverage units did a good job. The return teams did do much, Kobena might have made a bad decision once or twice regarding his cuts.
Speaking of bad decisions while cutting, l thought Bailey really struggled on that front. A great back makes the right decision almost all the time. I hope Ant is really nervous, and that this is going to go away over time.
Thought Lynch had a nice game, fundamentally sound player who can really run, is one of our best blizers and best tacklers too.
Thought Googins was probably our best interior DL. The guy is inconsistent but makes a lot of plays while he is out there.
Nice job by Ross on the KOs. Definitely has more leg strength and is doing a good job getting the ball deep in a corner, which makes covering a KO much easier.
Really happy for Acchione, who not only made a nice catch near the sideline for get a good gain but got a TD too, on a broken play no less. Hope this is more of a statement on how good he has become than where the young WRs on the team stand right now.
Thought Anene did a good job at the WILL while he was in. That being said, even though Davis missed a bunch of tackles and is a wild man out there, he is one of our few legit playmakers out there and I really hope he will be back soon. Drumline from the board, an SU student at the tailgate, told me one of the players told him Davis was fine. Hope that is correct. He didn't leave the field like a player who was fine.
Really like Lyn. That kid can play.
There is a new girl on the dance team that has captured the fancy of some of the syracusefan.com tailgaters. Decorum prevents me from discussing this further.
Congratulations to Wake Forest for their excellent play in their win over NC State. I think they are going to get a couple more wins in ACC play that just one.
Bad losses for UL and RU help SU, who might end up in direct competition with them for a bowl bid late in the season. The UC loss to UT is not a bad one but that might help SU too. And might the loss UConn appears headed for against a weak Vanderbilt team, in a game that ended like too many games ended late in the Coach P era at Syracuse.
Putting aside all the problems and weaknesses with this team, it is great, really great to be 2-0 for the first time in 12 years. If we can beat Tulane, Toledo (that is going to be a holy war) and UL and RU (who both appear to be bad teams), a bowl bid is again in hand and I will be thrilled. Not givens but certainly each win makes a bowl bid more likely.
Who knows, we might find a couple more wins out there in conference. Stranger things have happened.
