My Take | Syracusefan.com

My Take

sutomcat

No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
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This one is going to be pretty short. I have an early tee time tomorrow and I don’t want to dwell on the many negative things that happened today. There has already been plenty of that expressed already since the game ended.

I haven’t seen the pressers or read the post game articles. It looked like Trill sat out the first half. I assume it was a suspension imposed by Dino? We started the season with 3 solid safeties: Cisco, Trill and Coley. It was not good playing with none of them in the first half. If it was a suspension, it is very disappointing to see Trill getting suspended when the team needs him so badly.

I thought the team again missed Thompson a ton. He stands out from the other linebackers because he is the one guy who appears to be able to tackle solidly. When he is out, we are really vulnerable to the run. It was good to see Cantin-Arcu out there but I thought he was not quite 100%. Also good to have Richards back. He made some mental mistakes on assignments and I think he took another foolish penalty, but he made a lot of plays too. Want to give props to Garrett Williams for playing hard all game. He makes a ton of tackles for a CB. Yes, he gets beat a few times but he holds his own very well for a frosh and is going to be very good very soon. Thought Josh Black was really active and hustled all over the field. Kingsley made a bad penalty but was a factor on a bunch of plays. Thought this was one of his best games.

Lee Kpogba really stood out in the limited snaps he got. Good to see some passion out there. He played really hard and made some eye opening stops. He needs to play more.

Hanna had a really tough day. I think the kid has talent but he is not physically ready to play right now, even against a lower tier team like Liberty. I think Greenwood was asked to fill in for Trill and he also have a tough day. Again, he should not be playing so early in his career and I think better days are ahead for him Leon Lowery is getting some snaps and is trying hard to make plays, but is off the chart missing his assignments and just gettting big boyed out there. I hope he starts learning soon. Looks like he is going to be a fine player some day. But not for a while yet.

Thought Rex did pretty well. Yes, he held on to the ball too long sometimes. I am sure part of the reason is on our WRs struggling to get open. Thought the line did pretty darned well all told. They opened a hole for the RBs most of the time and gave Rex a lot of time to throw on most passing plays. Servais was consistently the weak link, which is out of character for him, but if you watch him out there, you can see he is really limping and struggling to move. No doubt in my mind he is playing really hurt right now, so props to him for trying to help the team. I can’t rip him for this.

Thought the play calling was not inspired. Didn’t really see any changes to accommodate Rex. Yes, Rex had some bad throws. He is not nearly as accurate as Tommy is. Yes, his arm is not really strong. The ball hangs in the air a while. When he tried to make long throws, it looks like he really loads up but the ball doesn’t have nearly the zip Tommy’s throws have. The interception was directly related to this.

Thought Rex, like most backups, tended to lock into his primary target and telegraphed his throw regularly. He has to get better about looking off his target sometimes. That said, he looked poised and comfortable in the pocket and I think he was willing to throw the ball into tight coverage more than Tommy typically does.

When he had pressure on him, he generally got sacked. Was not great at feeling it, stepping up from it, evading the rush or breaking out of tackles. Rarely threw the ball away under pressure. Took a bad intentional grounding. All these things should be expected of a second string QB. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at how rarely he ran the ball. Pretty sure the staff told him to not run it no matter what. Much like what happened with TD last year after he got hurt. They must have been worried he would get hurt and did not want to go with a true frosh who barely knows the offense. Which is understandable. But this is going to limit the SU offense severely the rest of the season.

Good to see Tucker out there. You could see him limping and it looked like it got worse as the game progressed but he has good instincts, he makes good reads and has the size and speed we have been looking for. Excited to have him for 3 or 4 more years.

Taj is the most demonstrative WR I have ever seen at SU. I will be honest. I don’t like that stuff. Wish he would just play football. But I understand he has a lot of passion and I respect that. We need more players who play as hard as he does. He got open a lot, and made a lot of plays. Gets good YAC. But what is it with him when and the drops on open TD passes? I think he has 5 in his career now. C’mon Taj. Hold on to the TDs.

Was talking last week about the need for someone to step up as the 2nd and 3rd options. I think it is safe to say Nykeim has emerged as a reliable option. Not great making catches in traffic, which is not great for a slot guy, but he gets open deep on a regular basis, he has good hands and is a real weapon on special teams. Anyway, I thought Anthony Queeley had a bit of a coming out party today as a threat at WR.

The staff targeted him a lot and he made a bunch of nice plays. I think this is just the start for him. Courtney had another chance to make a big play and it looked like he had a catchable ball over the middle but could not hold on to it. Barron got a look at a key time and I think he would have made a good catch on a shaky throw behind him in traffic, but the defender grabbed him by the helmet and face mask, took him down by the helmet and of course the refs swallowed their whistle. Thought the refs had a number of questionable calls that hurt Syracuse but even if they were competent and honest, we were not going to win this game.

I just hope we can get through the Clemson game with enough players left to finish the season. We have to be getting close to the point where we just do not have enough players at some positions to play games. What a nightmare of a season. I miss going to games terribly but for this season, maybe it is for the best that I haven’t had to watch these disastrous games in person.
 
RE: Trill I think Bailey mentioned he got hurt this week in practice so they limited the number of snaps he played.
 
Matt Park said that Trill was banged up, and that he was in and out of the locker room a few times in the 1st half.

Maybe he had the same illness Josh Mack had?
 
Taj “plays hard” only when there’s a potential opportunity for him to get the ball. Watch pretty much any snap where it’s a called run to the side he’s not on he’s really dogging it.
 
It is a bid odd that Trill was “hurt” and didn’t play at all in the first half and then all of a sudden was good enough to play nearly every down in the second half. Felt more like a suspension to me. But who knows.
 
I think you say this will Be brief every time and then its quite lengthy!

(and I love them)
 
Trill was banged up and came in after we suffered an injury
Rex held the ball a bit but but but they were dropping 7/8 in coverage not easy to find someone open but liberty didn’t have much of a pass rush credit the O line a bit but they rushed 3/4 the majority of the game .
 
Good to see a sprinkling of positives in sutomcat’s take. I also thought Rex had a good outing overall. He adds little or nothing to our run game, but he was using Queeley more, and spreading his passes around more than TD has in the prior games. Too bad he throws too many short of his target,

I expect Taj will have to sit out all or part of next week, and maybe it will be a good lesson. He, along with Tucker, are two bright spots in an otherwise bland offense. Taj dropped one pass where he might have scored; he also made the catch of the day on a play where unfortunately he landed with one toe on the white line.

‘While we can note a few positives, the simple fact is that Liberty’s back-up RB ran through gapping holes. Their OL pushed our smaller DL around, got blocks on our young LBs, and Louis was off to the races. They converted short yardage with ease. Game over, because of what their OL did to our 3:3:5.
 
Tucker should be a good to great one as he continues to learn. I enjoy watching him run. I believe sky is the limit for him. Queeley looks like a smooth one out there, good to finally see him get his shot to play meaningful snaps.
 

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