My Take | Syracusefan.com

My Take

sutomcat

No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
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It was pretty hot in the Dome, especially in the second half, but I didn’t get my clothes soaked in sweat and have sweat dripping into my eyes, so conditions were not bad for a September game.

I didn’t do a My Take last week. Too busy, too many things going on. So let me start by noting how pleased I was to see us with 15 tubas in the SUMB for Clemson. We had 9 sometimes 8 last year. What.a momentous improvement! I know the size of the band and the number of tubas was higher when the program was going to bowls regularly (the primary reward for members of the SUMB is a free trip to the bowl game, if there is one). But I am not sure we ever had 15 tubas. Awesome. Thanks to the students who took up the sousaphone.


Anyway, I was worried that big number would drop for game 2. It didn’t. Awesome. Want to note that it appears to me that the marching the band is doing is far more ambitious this season and the band sounds clearly more cohesive, louder and just plain better. The new band director is doing a hell of a job, as are the kids in it.

WMU did not bring a large contingent. Maybe 50 people. But they were loud very early, when they did a chant, I believe as WMU left the field after the pre game warmup.

As for the game, we got the ball first, which is pretty unusual for a Babers team, and it was great to see us march it down the field and score a TD our first possession. Think that is a first this season. I have been saying I think Tommy needs to break a couple big runs to establish himself as a threat to run. That makes defending the team harder, especially when a play breaks down. Mission accomplished. No doubt he is faster than Eric and can do damage when given some room to run. But he has to be stronger with the ball in the open field. Almost had another fumble on a slide that was too close for comfort.

I have been watching SU play football since 1973. I have seen a lot of QBs through this time. I am still evaluating TD in some areas. I think his decision making under duress has been a little shaky. Understandable given his inexperience. But one thing I am sure of: Tommy is the most accurate passer I have seen in a Syracuse uniform. If he has a guy open, he is going to hit him 99 times out of 100. It is pretty exciting to watch him play when we are able to get receivers open and give him time to throw.

It was great to see this offense get rolling and do damage. Heckel was out again, forcing Servais to play at center again. He had 3 or 4 penalties against him (the refs called him on one offsides I am pretty sure was on Vetterello). Disturbing for a senior captain. Especially given I believe he has already had 3 or 4 penalties called on him this year. That said, the blocking was better today, protecting the passer and opening holes for the running game. We didn’t abuse WMU running the ball but it looked like we wore then down and got a lot more effective running it in the second half.

Abdul Adams had a bad fumble that looked more of a careless thing than a big hit. And I believe he was the RB on the controversial pitch that was called a fumble. Didn’t see a replay but it looked like it might have been a fairly bad pitch and a fairly bad effort getting to the ball. After those turnovers, I don’t think Adams played again. Before them, it appeared he was getting more PT than Neal and threatening to become the top dog among the RBs. Neal, to his credit, was very good in the fourth quarter and made some big time runs to burn the clock and get needed first downs.

Ryan Alexander went down with what looked like a sprained knee. I think it was sometime relatively late in the 2nd quarter. He was replaced by Pat Davis, who played the rest of the half. But when the team came out for the second half, Ryan was back out there.

Thought Trishton had a big day, which I bet was big for him, playing against a bunch of players he knows from Michigan. He broke some tackles, blew by #4 on a sprint route (what a great throw by Tommy; I think it was 60 yards in the air and he could have run for a first down on the play but saw Trishton had a step and made them pay for getting beat). The WMU CBs were not as big or as physical as the Clemson or UMd CBs were and it was a long easier for our WRs to get open against them. Harris had a couple of nice plays, one on an out route where he was fairly well covered by a WMU defender who had the angle for a pick. But Devito freaking lasered it past him right into Harris’ hands for a big first down. That was one of the big plays in the game.

Riley had a quiet game. One on of the rare times he was targeted, it looked like he broke off his route and it almost led to an interception. That was the play where Tommy threw it almost directly to a WMU defender. Tommy immediately ran to Sean afterwards and was clearly unhappy with the route Sean ran. Then Dino called Sean over and also clearly yelled at him, in a rare display of anger while coaching.

Nykeim also had a bad game. They are targeting him a lot but I have to say, it seems every time they try and get him the ball, sometime bad happens. This includes a reverse he got where he couldn’t beat a LB to the corner. He looks like a ghost of himself, tentative and clearly has lost a step. Don’t think he is close to 100% and I wonder if he should be playing right now.

One thing that is weird is that we are playing very few WRs in the rotation this season. T Jackson, N Johnson, T Harris and S Riley seem to be getting all the PT. Of course, we are using Elsimore a ton and Hackett got a lot of playing time too. Speaking of Hackett, in the past couple of years, we have been solid getting TDs in the red zone, often relying on ED to make a play and get the score. I think the staff has been looking for someone to fill the go to role in the red zone. It looks like maybe Hackett is going to be an important weapon for us this season in the red zone. I think we don’t have a lot of confidence in the backup WRs right now and that is driving more PT for CE and Aaron. But I am glad to see Aaron getting more touches. He is good.

Hope we see at least one of the young WRs emerge soon. The Holy Cross game should be a chance for some of them to get some playing time. Let’s see what they do with it. Courtney Jackson is a guy I think can contribute right now.

On defense, Alton Robinson didn’t have monster numbers but he had a big impact on the game, rushing Wassink (sp?) on a regular basis. Wassink is very accurate when he has time. When he is pressured, his accuracy appears to be great affected. I think he only completed 50% of his passes and I think a big reason why was our pass rush, led by Robinson.

Cisco and Iffy did not play. Cordy, a guy some thought was never going to play, filled in for Iffy last week at CB. This week, he started at FS. Thought overall he did really well. Knocked the ball away at least once and showed great closing speed. One of the biggest plays of the game was when he collided with Eskridge on what I think was a key 4th down play, breaking up the play. Both Eskridge and Cordy were injured on the play. That affected WMU on offense and defense. Add in an injury to WMU’s star RB Bellamy and it is easy to see why the Broncos struggled to score late.

Scoop started for Iffy. It looked like he was targeted a lot during most of the game. He lost some battles and won some too. CF was mostly left alone but got beat badly for a long TD on a weird play where another WMU WR was close by and it looked like Chris thought the ball was headed to the other WR.

When Cordy went down, Coley came in as the 3rd FS. WMU had a great game plan and attacked SU very intelligently and they went right after the inexperienced player here with good success. But Coley started to play tighter and it was great to see him get a great break to get his first pick late in the game. Even if he fell down when it looked like he had a good chance to get a TD.

Foster had a good bounce back game. Seems like Lakiem gets a little better each week. Mikel Jones got a lot of playing time again and had a strong game...looking much more comfortable and ready to play at this level. Thought Armstrong and the rest of the DL were solid. The WMU running game has been very strong and while they got a few long ones in the second half, we by and large shut their running game down, which forced them to be one dimensional and got them in a lot of 3rd and long passing situations, where our pass rushers could go all out. Wassink did a nice job buying time and avoiding pressure but eventually we started getting to him and it was game over.

I think very highly of the WMU offense, which I think is better than the offenses of several ACC schools we will be facing. They played like warriors, never gave up and were quite impressive. Their defense wasn’t great but they played hard and one thing you can say about the Broncos is that they never gave up. I think Lester is doing a fine job and I think they have a real chance to win the MAC. I hope they do it. I will be rooting for them.

For the second game in a row, no vendors selling in the stands. Not good. Why are people who are completely out of touch with the fanbase being allowed to make decisions on things they do not understand? Why mettle with things? Very disappointing. The font on the out of town scores on the main scoreboard remains way too small for people to read. Please fix this. It was really hard to follow the scores on the out of town scoreboard that was readable on the ribbon scoreboard, as someone messed with the frequency and length of time used to display these scores. Suggestion: Don’t do that. Only use the ribbon scoreboards for stats at the end/start of each quarter. Make it east for us to follow out of town scores for the other teams we play and historical rivals. If we aren’t given the ability to do this, it is a compelling reason to stay home where this is much easier to do.

I will finish by praising the crowd for being loud and loyal. There might have only been 25 or 30K in the Dome but the people that came made noise and did a great job supporting the team. Regarding the in house game hosts, the young lady seems very nice and is very pretty. But that sound system makes her voice sound like someone making scrunchy sounds with a wet inflated balloon. Can someone order her a microphone that lowers the frequency of her voice? James Mungro was amusing. The young black guy seemed okay but didn’t seem comfortable. Didn’t even notice the guy from Okie State. Was he there?

Good win. We had to get it and the team made it happen. Hopefully we can play a lot of young players next week and give the vets a couple of weeks to rest and get healthy for the final 7 games.
 
The announcers said it was Moe who lost that fumble on the pitch, but it was a bad toss and and botched catch, so both players at fault there.

Agreed about Nykeim.
It’s a shame, he was so effective for us last year, and really seems a step or 2 slower now for sure.
Even his kick returns were quite underwhelming.

Hope he can turn it around.
Or, that he gets some rest, and maybe give one of the other guys a chance?
Really want to see Courtney out there.
(And Jawhar. Hope Dino puts him in vs HC.)

Great recap!
Thx for sharing.

PS - some other posters are saying that Foster took some bad angles, leading to big Bellamy runs.
So, it appears that opinions on that regard differ substantially.
 
Wow! Great job, Tomcat. You outdid yourself tonight!
Totally agree with your assessment of WMU’S offense...I think they could beat a number of ACC teams.
 
I think Eskridge going down really early changed the complexion of the total game. That's kinda equivalent to us losing Dungey last year...when your best player goes down it takes the air out of the sails a bit. I wanted to beat them full strength to get a better read on everything but that's football for ya.
 
Some responses:

-it was def moe who dropped the pitch and the pitch wasnt really bad. Adams fumble was weak though.
-thought our safeties, both cordy and foster, were terrible. Thought they were ok v clemson besides a couple of bad tackles which they did the same today. Foster gave up 2 tds with poor tackling and angles.
-the pass to riley that almost got picked was not rileys fault. That play was made by the cb playing the outside wr who just made a nice play on it. That was one of those tommy prob hadnt seen before and will learn from it
-agree 100% on devitos arm. Im no longer concerned about him. He is going to be very good. Ive seen enough.

Overall, think the team is still a bit short on ol talent and playmakers. Jackson is good. Neal and adams are good. Think we are one explosive wr short of what we need to be very good. Harris isnt there yet but maybe he will emerge.
 
To be fair, other than the program guy well into the game, I haven’t seen vendors in the stands in...
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Given time Tommy can carve a team up. Thought he played a complete game. Im not sure if Foster takes bad angles or is out of position. Either way its his Achilles and opposing OCs know it. LBs are improving. Alton is a sure top 4 round pick. Hof will get drafted. We need another WR to emerge. Grovs and Harper each played well. The OL played hard but Serva continues to make too many errors. I think he has a ton of pressure on his shoulders and is pressing.
This was a quality win against a solid team. We needed this one badly and the guys and coaches really stepped up.
 
We are one of the most penalized teams in nation so far.

Many of the penalties negated chunk yard plays.

We really need a 66 point 750 yard game next week to boost our team offensive stats from bottom feeder to below average heading into conference play.

We are like bizzaro world this year compared to last statistically.
 
Last week I sat in my old seats in 319. Today I was in my 2 new additional seats in 110. Being 20 feet from the Su players you see things that you would never notice from 319, row O, although those seats are great also. First and foremost, I can't believe how thin Airon Servais is. Hard to believe he wants to be that thin. And Carlos Vettorello must have done something good on the series when we scored our last td. He got what appeared to be a congratulatory hug from the other O linemen when they got to the sideline. Very nice to see! Edit- Oops, meant section 130.
 
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Jawhar Jordan, Courtney Jackson and Anthony Queeley...are we saving them for a particular game or are they just not ready? We need playmakers to emerge and this would be the group that they would come from.

Also, Kevin Mital...if the expectation is that he plays this year, he’s not even dressing at this point. I give it less than 50%.
 
tons of bad angles by the safeties.. what we need is an oline that creates bit better blocking.. slowly getting better I think
 
Riley also almost fumbled the opening kick return.

He along with Nykeim are shells of themselves from last year

Both have lost a step with regards to explosiveness and Taj isn't any stronger. I don't think any of them forgot to play football they are solid players I'm thinking it might be a strength and conditioning thing.
 
It was pretty hot in the Dome, especially in the second half, but I didn’t get my clothes soaked in sweat and have sweat dripping into my eyes, so conditions were not bad for a September game.

I didn’t do a My Take last week. Too busy, too many things going on. So let me start by noting how pleased I was to see us with 15 tubas in the SUMB for Clemson. We had 9 sometimes 8 last year. What.a momentous improvement! I know the size of the band and the number of tubas was higher when the program was going to bowls regularly (the primary reward for members of the SUMB is a free trip to the bowl game, if there is one). But I am not sure we ever had 15 tubas. Awesome. Thanks to the students who took up the sousaphone.


Anyway, I was worried that big number would drop for game 2. It didn’t. Awesome. Want to note that it appears to me that the marching the band is doing is far more ambitious this season and the band sounds clearly more cohesive, louder and just plain better. The new band director is doing a hell of a job, as are the kids in it.

WMU did not bring a large contingent. Maybe 50 people. But they were loud very early, when they did a chant, I believe as WMU left the field after the pre game warmup.

As for the game, we got the ball first, which is pretty unusual for a Babers team, and it was great to see us march it down the field and score a TD our first possession. Think that is a first this season. I have been saying I think Tommy needs to break a couple big runs to establish himself as a threat to run. That makes defending the team harder, especially when a play breaks down. Mission accomplished. No doubt he is faster than Eric and can do damage when given some room to run. But he has to be stronger with the ball in the open field. Almost had another fumble on a slide that was too close for comfort.

I have been watching SU play football since 1973. I have seen a lot of QBs through this time. I am still evaluating TD in some areas. I think his decision making under duress has been a little shaky. Understandable given his inexperience. But one thing I am sure of: Tommy is the most accurate passer I have seen in a Syracuse uniform. If he has a guy open, he is going to hit him 99 times out of 100. It is pretty exciting to watch him play when we are able to get receivers open and give him time to throw.

It was great to see this offense get rolling and do damage. Heckel was out again, forcing Servais to play at center again. He had 3 or 4 penalties against him (the refs called him on one offsides I am pretty sure was on Vetterello). Disturbing for a senior captain. Especially given I believe he has already had 3 or 4 penalties called on him this year. That said, the blocking was better today, protecting the passer and opening holes for the running game. We didn’t abuse WMU running the ball but it looked like we wore then down and got a lot more effective running it in the second half.

Abdul Adams had a bad fumble that looked more of a careless thing than a big hit. And I believe he was the RB on the controversial pitch that was called a fumble. Didn’t see a replay but it looked like it might have been a fairly bad pitch and a fairly bad effort getting to the ball. After those turnovers, I don’t think Adams played again. Before them, it appeared he was getting more PT than Neal and threatening to become the top dog among the RBs. Neal, to his credit, was very good in the fourth quarter and made some big time runs to burn the clock and get needed first downs.

Ryan Alexander went down with what looked like a sprained knee. I think it was sometime relatively late in the 2nd quarter. He was replaced by Pat Davis, who played the rest of the half. But when the team came out for the second half, Ryan was back out there.

Thought Trishton had a big day, which I bet was big for him, playing against a bunch of players he knows from Michigan. He broke some tackles, blew by #4 on a sprint route (what a great throw by Tommy; I think it was 60 yards in the air and he could have run for a first down on the play but saw Trishton had a step and made them pay for getting beat). The WMU CBs were not as big or as physical as the Clemson or UMd CBs were and it was a long easier for our WRs to get open against them. Harris had a couple of nice plays, one on an out route where he was fairly well covered by a WMU defender who had the angle for a pick. But Devito freaking lasered it past him right into Harris’ hands for a big first down. That was one of the big plays in the game.

Riley had a quiet game. One on of the rare times he was targeted, it looked like he broke off his route and it almost led to an interception. That was the play where Tommy threw it almost directly to a WMU defender. Tommy immediately ran to Sean afterwards and was clearly unhappy with the route Sean ran. Then Dino called Sean over and also clearly yelled at him, in a rare display of anger while coaching.

Nykeim also had a bad game. They are targeting him a lot but I have to say, it seems every time they try and get him the ball, sometime bad happens. This includes a reverse he got where he couldn’t beat a LB to the corner. He looks like a ghost of himself, tentative and clearly has lost a step. Don’t think he is close to 100% and I wonder if he should be playing right now.

One thing that is weird is that we are playing very few WRs in the rotation this season. T Jackson, N Johnson, T Harris and S Riley seem to be getting all the PT. Of course, we are using Elsimore a ton and Hackett got a lot of playing time too. Speaking of Hackett, in the past couple of years, we have been solid getting TDs in the red zone, often relying on ED to make a play and get the score. I think the staff has been looking for someone to fill the go to role in the red zone. It looks like maybe Hackett is going to be an important weapon for us this season in the red zone. I think we don’t have a lot of confidence in the backup WRs right now and that is driving more PT for CE and Aaron. But I am glad to see Aaron getting more touches. He is good.

Hope we see at least one of the young WRs emerge soon. The Holy Cross game should be a chance for some of them to get some playing time. Let’s see what they do with it. Courtney Jackson is a guy I think can contribute right now.

On defense, Alton Robinson didn’t have monster numbers but he had a big impact on the game, rushing Wassink (sp?) on a regular basis. Wassink is very accurate when he has time. When he is pressured, his accuracy appears to be great affected. I think he only completed 50% of his passes and I think a big reason why was our pass rush, led by Robinson.

Cisco and Iffy did not play. Cordy, a guy some thought was never going to play, filled in for Iffy last week at CB. This week, he started at FS. Thought overall he did really well. Knocked the ball away at least once and showed great closing speed. One of the biggest plays of the game was when he collided with Eskridge on what I think was a key 4th down play, breaking up the play. Both Eskridge and Cordy were injured on the play. That affected WMU on offense and defense. Add in an injury to WMU’s star RB Bellamy and it is easy to see why the Broncos struggled to score late.

Scoop started for Iffy. It looked like he was targeted a lot during most of the game. He lost some battles and won some too. CF was mostly left alone but got beat badly for a long TD on a weird play where another WMU WR was close by and it looked like Chris thought the ball was headed to the other WR.

When Cordy went down, Coley came in as the 3rd FS. WMU had a great game plan and attacked SU very intelligently and they went right after the inexperienced player here with good success. But Coley started to play tighter and it was great to see him get a great break to get his first pick late in the game. Even if he fell down when it looked like he had a good chance to get a TD.

Foster had a good bounce back game. Seems like Lakiem gets a little better each week. Mikel Jones got a lot of playing time again and had a strong game...looking much more comfortable and ready to play at this level. Thought Armstrong and the rest of the DL were solid. The WMU running game has been very strong and while they got a few long ones in the second half, we by and large shut their running game down, which forced them to be one dimensional and got them in a lot of 3rd and long passing situations, where our pass rushers could go all out. Wassink did a nice job buying time and avoiding pressure but eventually we started getting to him and it was game over.

I think very highly of the WMU offense, which I think is better than the offenses of several ACC schools we will be facing. They played like warriors, never gave up and were quite impressive. Their defense wasn’t great but they played hard and one thing you can say about the Broncos is that they never gave up. I think Lester is doing a fine job and I think they have a real chance to win the MAC. I hope they do it. I will be rooting for them.

For the second game in a row, no vendors selling in the stands. Not good. Why are people who are completely out of touch with the fanbase being allowed to make decisions on things they do not understand? Why mettle with things? Very disappointing. The font on the out of town scores on the main scoreboard remains way too small for people to read. Please fix this. It was really hard to follow the scores on the out of town scoreboard that was readable on the ribbon scoreboard, as someone messed with the frequency and length of time used to display these scores. Suggestion: Don’t do that. Only use the ribbon scoreboards for stats at the end/start of each quarter. Make it east for us to follow out of town scores for the other teams we play and historical rivals. If we aren’t given the ability to do this, it is a compelling reason to stay home where this is much easier to do.

I will finish by praising the crowd for being loud and loyal. There might have only been 25 or 30K in the Dome but the people that came made noise and did a great job supporting the team. Regarding the in house game hosts, the young lady seems very nice and is very pretty. But that sound system makes her voice sound like someone making scrunchy sounds with a wet inflated balloon. Can someone order her a microphone that lowers the frequency of her voice? James Mungro was amusing. The young black guy seemed okay but didn’t seem comfortable. Didn’t even notice the guy from Okie State. Was he there?

Good win. We had to get it and the team made it happen. Hopefully we can play a lot of young players next week and give the vets a couple of weeks to rest and get healthy for the final 7 games.
To say you do an awesome job is an understatement and I hate to criticize you but let me ask you a ? And most of you . You stated a problem with Tommy decision making which was on one play one ! and you clearly know Sean didn’t come back to the ball per Dino’s reaction so after knowing what happened how do you still call that a bad descion ? Dino had a presser last week explaining bad luck happings on previous interceptions , we know the deficiencies we have we talk about them in one sentence yet forget them the next . It’s like bipolarism . I shake my head so many times I’m getting dizzy ! Don’t get me wrong Tommy is not a finished product yet and your all entitled to say what ever you want but PLEASE try not to ignore the facts it will make us all a little smarter .
That being said a season saving win ! Great to see the run game get going as well !
 
To say you do an awesome job is an understatement and I hate to criticize you but let me ask you a ? And most of you . You stated a problem with Tommy decision making which was on one play one ! and you clearly know Sean didn’t come back to the ball per Dino’s reaction so after knowing what happened how do you still call that a bad descion ? Dino had a presser last week explaining bad luck happings on previous interceptions , we know the deficiencies we have we talk about them in one sentence yet forget them the next . It’s like bipolarism . I shake my head so many times I’m getting dizzy ! Don’t get me wrong Tommy is not a finished product yet and your all entitled to say what ever you want but PLEASE try not to ignore the facts it will make us all a little smarter .
That being said a season saving win ! Great to see the run game get going as well !
I was about as close to the receiving end of that play as a fan could be. Reilly was blanketed on both sides. He didn’t do Tommy any favors by coming back to the ball but it never should’ve been thrown there.

Great game overall by Tommy, good rebound from last weeks performance.
 
It was Moe as many pointed out and also it seemed to me that Babers kept him out for a while in the second half...maybe because of that?

Williams seems to be going in Guthries pattern of last year as getting better each game but sadly once again much like Guthrie, he's a senior and will have to be replaced.

I have no clue why there are no other WR's playing. There seems to be a mixed chemistry between Riley and TD, other than those quick outs I really haven't seen any real flow with those two of yet like ED had with him.Every QB has their comfort guy and from what I see it's Jackson for TD.

Love love loved the TE Hackett being involved! He adds a big target who has hands and can block.

I don't think TD is elusive foot wise like ED but had better jets and nobody could catch him. Did a better job with play fakes as well which is very important. I have never had any doubts about his arm and had a nice soft touch on screens and thought he made a lot of good decisions.

Are the secondary guys arms hurt because some of these lean with the shoulder tackles are maddening. Plus the tackling way too high is leading to a lot of long runs...don't be scared to grab some legs gentlemen and wait for help. That said, I can't remember who it was but he dove and tripped a WMU guy and if he didn't do that...it would have been a very large gain.

The OL did a lot better and as Tom pointed out, Maybe Servais bouncing back and forth is a cause of the penalties? I never played that position but being slid over 2 spots seems difficult.

That WMU QB was accurate and recievers ran solid routes and Bellamy is as good of a back as SU will face. This was a good win and on to next week.
 

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