sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
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I have a lot going on but here is a quick post to capture my thoughts about the game,,,,
I paid the money for ESPN+. Looks like they had a free trial offer that went away shortly before the game. Well played ESPN. Well played. I am enjoying the ESPN insider content and will check out some other games for the next couple of weeks before I cancel it. Was impressed by the quality of the picture, which was top notch. Was worried with the obscure location and lack of fan interest, we would get stuck with norma, non-HC cameras. Not the case. The people involved with the broadcast on the other hand, were decidedly non-HD. The direction was not great, I don’t think they even tried to use graphics in the broadcast and their presumed best cameraman, the guy up top near mid field, could not take a pass longer than 5 yards. The whole game.
The game announcers were bad but not as bad as the studio ‘talent’. Everything, from their cheap suits, to the conversations they had, to their way of looking into the wrong camera with great consistency, pointed to the lowest quality production possible. I would say third rate, but that is an insult to the true third rate people. Also, the commercials made me appreciate the Raycom broadcasts that are apparently going to continue for football and basketball until 2026. That has to be the most disappointing news I have gotten this year. Raycom! The funny thing is that there are a lot of ACC fans who like the Raycom broadcasts. Hypnosis? I think we can’t discount this.
I digress. Let’s focus on the game.
Looked like a good turnout of Syracuse fans. Kudos to everyone who went. I doubt there are any Syracuse fans without 100 miles of the Liberty campus, which truly looks like it was located exactly in the middle of nowhere. Their stadium looked okay from TV, but what was up with the giant red Liberty sign above the upper deck? It looked exactly like it belonged above a supermarket. Interesting. I also found that group of shirtless students dressed up like what appeared to be sad clowns to be haunting, and not in a good way. First, those kids need to think about mixing a salad in once in a while (that is today’s nod to Poliquin), and second, why the tribute to Emmett Kelly? Is the unofficial mascot of Liberty a hobo? Because that would be the first really cool thing I have found about Liberty! Much respect!
On to the game. This time for real.
So Liberty used a weird defensive scheme designed to take long passes away from the SU offense. Great move by Freeze, who probably noticed on film from last year that Devito loves to throw it long. Whenever SU sent someone long, there was safety help and the CBs did a fine job covering our WRs. Not a lot of room to throw long. Keeping the safeties back meant Liberty was exposed to screens and had some weaknesses defending the run. We took advantage of this a lot. Thought Tommy threw the screens great and we executed them really well. On the other hand, he did not show good patience out there all the time and showed bad judgement a number of times. Had 2 picks, could have had 4 or 5. As Dino is fond of saying, young QBs are going to make mistakes. The thing that separates the good ones from the bad ones is how they react to mistakes. Do they learn from them and avoid repeating them? We will start finding out next week.
The OL started out with Heckel at center and Servais at RT. We struggled to run with this configuration and it looked like a lot of the problems were with interior run blocking. Around the end of the first quarter, Servais was moved to C and Ryan Alexander took over at RT. I believe that was the lineup at OL until the end of the game, and it looked like there was immediate improvement. Tisdale didn’t play until really late. I am going to guess this will be the new starting lineup. Won’t not be surprised if Heckel continues to play but is moved to OG. It appeared he played better there last year than he did at C last night.
I was surprised at how little impact Trishton had in the game, especially early. He has to play physical and use his body more to get open. Thought our WRs in general were lackluster. N Johnson had a drop, so did Riley, Harris had good moments but not very many. I think Neal was our leading receiver. Who would have thought that before the game?
Thought Hackett looked good blocking and catching the ball. Might deserve more touches down the road.
Thought Neal came out kind of tentative. In one of the early drives, he had a 4th and short and failed to get it. Looked like he misread it and ran into a dead end. I think Adams got a lot of PT after that in response. Adams looks stronger and tougher but Neal looks like like he might be more nimble and is probably a better receiver. Those two are closely matched and I have great interest in seeing how playing time and performance develop for both over time. Thought Howard did a nice adjustment to get in the end zone in a situation where he had no hole to work with. No Jordan. Not a surprise on the road early in the season. Would be surprised if he plays next week, unless we need a big play late.
Overall, this was not a great effort by the offense. That said, the Liberty defensive approach kind of limited what we could do and truth be told, I think Dino was reluctant to use much of the playbook in a game where it was clear Liberty was going to struggle to score and Syracuse was never in any real trouble winning the game.
On special teams, great jobs by Hof and Szymt. Hof had a bunch of excellent punts and kicked off high and well. Thought our coverage units were solid, though rarely needed. Don’t remember us trying any KO returns. Riley had the fumble, which I believe was his first on punt returns, and at least one very good return. Long snapping was also solid.
That leaves the defense. They had some bad moments throughout the game and were in danger of giving up points a number of times. But they shut down a good Liberty running game almost completely and when Liberty had to pass, they put great pressure on QB. Hope Buckshot is okay; he took a lot of violent hits.
Obviously, the DL dominated things. There were rarely holes to run and when they tried to pass, there were rarely any time to get the ball off. It did not appear losing Sugar Bear Williams had much of an effect on the defense. Ruff went down early, which terrified me (it didn’t bother the announcers who ignored this completely). I heard an ovation when he got up and presumably walked to the sideline and saw him back in for limited minutes, mostly in the middle rushing on passing downs. Robinson was very good, so was Jonathan, and Coleman was dominant. Josh Black had his best game inside and was also dominant. And while Harper and Grosvener didn’t put a lot of pressure on QBs, they held their position and kept OL occupied so the LBs could make the tackles. Good job guys.
Liberty’s big WR is legit. Thought he was impressive. Looked like he was matched up with Iffy a lot. Those guys might match up a bunch more times over the next decade or so. I liked their RB, #5 too. I assume he is the guy that ran for over 1000 yards last season. Too bad Josh Mack had the big fumble inside the 5. He won’t be the only RB chased down from behind by Trill this year. Great play by Trill BTW.
Cordy won the job at the nickel back. Thought he did well there. Good to see him get through a game without a broken bone. Hope he learns that a good solid tackle is more than sufficient. He doesn’t have to try and vaporize the opponent on every play. After all he has been through, he deserves some playing time and some big plays.
Thought Armstrong was good. Seemed like he was in the right place a lot. Seemed to me like Williams was all over the field and had a really strong debut at LB. We didn’t blitz much but he looks like a strong pass rusher. His speed stands out. Fastest LB we have had in a long time. Mikel Jones didn’t play that much but made plays when he was in, and served notice he is going to be special.
Thought Foster had some great plays from SS. Cisco looked a little tentative and his footing looked suspect. Is he banged up? Was he wearing the right shoes? That said, he had a great break on the ball for a pick. Thought Iffy did a solid job against a tough matchup. Trill is, IMHO, the best athlete we have had in the secondary in a very long time. That play to cause the fumble was, I think, the play of the game. Who knows what might have happened if they scored a TD there.
I think Liberty is the equivalent of a mid level MAC team. Good talent. Good size. Beating them on the road by 24 is not bad at all.
Wish we ran the ball a little better, though the long run from Neal was great to see; he has a knack of getting one of those is just about every game. Wish we passed it a little better. The WRs and Tommy didn’t seem on the same page all the time and our WRs seemed to have a genuinely hard time to get open. Wish we ran a few more plays. 79 is a lot but by our standards is kind of weak.
All that said, we were unusually solid in terms of fundamentals. No movement penalties. I think we jumped offsides just once on defense. I don’t remember a hold or a clip. I thought we tackled well. Don’t remember us making a pass interference penalty.
All in all, this was a solid start. We have to play better to win next week. Hope we are up to the task.
War Damn Otto!
I paid the money for ESPN+. Looks like they had a free trial offer that went away shortly before the game. Well played ESPN. Well played. I am enjoying the ESPN insider content and will check out some other games for the next couple of weeks before I cancel it. Was impressed by the quality of the picture, which was top notch. Was worried with the obscure location and lack of fan interest, we would get stuck with norma, non-HC cameras. Not the case. The people involved with the broadcast on the other hand, were decidedly non-HD. The direction was not great, I don’t think they even tried to use graphics in the broadcast and their presumed best cameraman, the guy up top near mid field, could not take a pass longer than 5 yards. The whole game.
The game announcers were bad but not as bad as the studio ‘talent’. Everything, from their cheap suits, to the conversations they had, to their way of looking into the wrong camera with great consistency, pointed to the lowest quality production possible. I would say third rate, but that is an insult to the true third rate people. Also, the commercials made me appreciate the Raycom broadcasts that are apparently going to continue for football and basketball until 2026. That has to be the most disappointing news I have gotten this year. Raycom! The funny thing is that there are a lot of ACC fans who like the Raycom broadcasts. Hypnosis? I think we can’t discount this.
I digress. Let’s focus on the game.
Looked like a good turnout of Syracuse fans. Kudos to everyone who went. I doubt there are any Syracuse fans without 100 miles of the Liberty campus, which truly looks like it was located exactly in the middle of nowhere. Their stadium looked okay from TV, but what was up with the giant red Liberty sign above the upper deck? It looked exactly like it belonged above a supermarket. Interesting. I also found that group of shirtless students dressed up like what appeared to be sad clowns to be haunting, and not in a good way. First, those kids need to think about mixing a salad in once in a while (that is today’s nod to Poliquin), and second, why the tribute to Emmett Kelly? Is the unofficial mascot of Liberty a hobo? Because that would be the first really cool thing I have found about Liberty! Much respect!
On to the game. This time for real.
So Liberty used a weird defensive scheme designed to take long passes away from the SU offense. Great move by Freeze, who probably noticed on film from last year that Devito loves to throw it long. Whenever SU sent someone long, there was safety help and the CBs did a fine job covering our WRs. Not a lot of room to throw long. Keeping the safeties back meant Liberty was exposed to screens and had some weaknesses defending the run. We took advantage of this a lot. Thought Tommy threw the screens great and we executed them really well. On the other hand, he did not show good patience out there all the time and showed bad judgement a number of times. Had 2 picks, could have had 4 or 5. As Dino is fond of saying, young QBs are going to make mistakes. The thing that separates the good ones from the bad ones is how they react to mistakes. Do they learn from them and avoid repeating them? We will start finding out next week.
The OL started out with Heckel at center and Servais at RT. We struggled to run with this configuration and it looked like a lot of the problems were with interior run blocking. Around the end of the first quarter, Servais was moved to C and Ryan Alexander took over at RT. I believe that was the lineup at OL until the end of the game, and it looked like there was immediate improvement. Tisdale didn’t play until really late. I am going to guess this will be the new starting lineup. Won’t not be surprised if Heckel continues to play but is moved to OG. It appeared he played better there last year than he did at C last night.
I was surprised at how little impact Trishton had in the game, especially early. He has to play physical and use his body more to get open. Thought our WRs in general were lackluster. N Johnson had a drop, so did Riley, Harris had good moments but not very many. I think Neal was our leading receiver. Who would have thought that before the game?
Thought Hackett looked good blocking and catching the ball. Might deserve more touches down the road.
Thought Neal came out kind of tentative. In one of the early drives, he had a 4th and short and failed to get it. Looked like he misread it and ran into a dead end. I think Adams got a lot of PT after that in response. Adams looks stronger and tougher but Neal looks like like he might be more nimble and is probably a better receiver. Those two are closely matched and I have great interest in seeing how playing time and performance develop for both over time. Thought Howard did a nice adjustment to get in the end zone in a situation where he had no hole to work with. No Jordan. Not a surprise on the road early in the season. Would be surprised if he plays next week, unless we need a big play late.
Overall, this was not a great effort by the offense. That said, the Liberty defensive approach kind of limited what we could do and truth be told, I think Dino was reluctant to use much of the playbook in a game where it was clear Liberty was going to struggle to score and Syracuse was never in any real trouble winning the game.
On special teams, great jobs by Hof and Szymt. Hof had a bunch of excellent punts and kicked off high and well. Thought our coverage units were solid, though rarely needed. Don’t remember us trying any KO returns. Riley had the fumble, which I believe was his first on punt returns, and at least one very good return. Long snapping was also solid.
That leaves the defense. They had some bad moments throughout the game and were in danger of giving up points a number of times. But they shut down a good Liberty running game almost completely and when Liberty had to pass, they put great pressure on QB. Hope Buckshot is okay; he took a lot of violent hits.
Obviously, the DL dominated things. There were rarely holes to run and when they tried to pass, there were rarely any time to get the ball off. It did not appear losing Sugar Bear Williams had much of an effect on the defense. Ruff went down early, which terrified me (it didn’t bother the announcers who ignored this completely). I heard an ovation when he got up and presumably walked to the sideline and saw him back in for limited minutes, mostly in the middle rushing on passing downs. Robinson was very good, so was Jonathan, and Coleman was dominant. Josh Black had his best game inside and was also dominant. And while Harper and Grosvener didn’t put a lot of pressure on QBs, they held their position and kept OL occupied so the LBs could make the tackles. Good job guys.
Liberty’s big WR is legit. Thought he was impressive. Looked like he was matched up with Iffy a lot. Those guys might match up a bunch more times over the next decade or so. I liked their RB, #5 too. I assume he is the guy that ran for over 1000 yards last season. Too bad Josh Mack had the big fumble inside the 5. He won’t be the only RB chased down from behind by Trill this year. Great play by Trill BTW.
Cordy won the job at the nickel back. Thought he did well there. Good to see him get through a game without a broken bone. Hope he learns that a good solid tackle is more than sufficient. He doesn’t have to try and vaporize the opponent on every play. After all he has been through, he deserves some playing time and some big plays.
Thought Armstrong was good. Seemed like he was in the right place a lot. Seemed to me like Williams was all over the field and had a really strong debut at LB. We didn’t blitz much but he looks like a strong pass rusher. His speed stands out. Fastest LB we have had in a long time. Mikel Jones didn’t play that much but made plays when he was in, and served notice he is going to be special.
Thought Foster had some great plays from SS. Cisco looked a little tentative and his footing looked suspect. Is he banged up? Was he wearing the right shoes? That said, he had a great break on the ball for a pick. Thought Iffy did a solid job against a tough matchup. Trill is, IMHO, the best athlete we have had in the secondary in a very long time. That play to cause the fumble was, I think, the play of the game. Who knows what might have happened if they scored a TD there.
I think Liberty is the equivalent of a mid level MAC team. Good talent. Good size. Beating them on the road by 24 is not bad at all.
Wish we ran the ball a little better, though the long run from Neal was great to see; he has a knack of getting one of those is just about every game. Wish we passed it a little better. The WRs and Tommy didn’t seem on the same page all the time and our WRs seemed to have a genuinely hard time to get open. Wish we ran a few more plays. 79 is a lot but by our standards is kind of weak.
All that said, we were unusually solid in terms of fundamentals. No movement penalties. I think we jumped offsides just once on defense. I don’t remember a hold or a clip. I thought we tackled well. Don’t remember us making a pass interference penalty.
All in all, this was a solid start. We have to play better to win next week. Hope we are up to the task.
War Damn Otto!
