sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
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Another unexpected outcome in a season of unexpected outcomes.
Disclaimer: I haven’t read any stories or posts on the game, so this might be behind the times on injury updates and other recent news. Will try and get those read later today.
Thought the coaches did a fine job preparing the team for Clemson, as they seem to do just about every year. Sometimes I wonder if they put too much emphasis on this game (as opposed say to the game against Liberty last week).
To me, the fundamental issue for this football team that must be solved to have success this week is the rush defense. We have to be able to stop the run to have any chance to win more games. We have some big issues on offense that are not going to get solved this season with our current QB situation, so the defense has to makes some stops, and hopefully get some turnovers, in order for this team to out score other teams.
After the first half of the Liberty game, things looked pretty hopeless on this front. I think Tony made some adjustments in the second half that helped, the young defense started to better learn how to defend the run (and the addition of Trill didn’t help either).
Thought it was a team effort that stopped Clemson from abusing us with the run. McKinley had one of his best games (and maybe. Got on some draft boards) yesterday. Josh, Kingsley, Roscoe and even Harper made a lot of plays, got penetration, tried up OL and gave the LBs and DBs a chance to make some plays.
We caught some breaks. Etienne was clearly not 100% (he said because he ate Frosted Flakes for breakfast). The backup RBs are a big dropout from Travis. Clemson’s WRs (other than Rodgers) are not close to as good as they have been in recent years. Trevor might have been banged up by a couple good hits the SU defense put on him (why does Dabo expose him to so many hits; he is still pretty frail and goofy and might get his head detached one of these days). Also, I believe Clemson had 3 of their starters out for the game, and was reduced to playing Venables at MLB. He was not impressive.
With Clemson struggling to run most of the game, they had to pass it. When they tried to throw it long, they usually faced double coverage and I don’t think their staff had a lot of confidence in Trevor, who was not throwing the ball accurately. They ended up relying heavily on bubble screens to Rodgers, about the only ball Trevor was able to complete reliably. If I were a Clemson fan, I would be concerned.
I thought Garrett Williams earned a lot of votes for the frosh AA team yesterday. He might even make some 2nd and 3rd All ACC teams. Really nice job breaking up passes and that run he took to the house is going to get a lot of attention. He is also one of our best tacklers and hustles his butt off on every play. He makes an ungodly number of tackles from a CB position.
He did such a good job shutting down his man that for the first time this season, Clemson changed gears and started trying to attack Iffy instead. That also didn’t work out too well for them. Iffy was solid. Thought Greenwood had some bad moments but some good ones too. Hope that interception he almost had two or three times was quite unfortunate. I think he will hold out to it next time.
I like all our young LBs. Great seeing us playing a bunch of them to keep them fresh. Gonna be interesting to see who emerges as the best one. I think Thompson but the others are all close.
Let’s talk about the offense some. Was really impressed with the OL. They weren’t dominant and caught a break when Clemson’s AA DL did not play but I thought this was their best game. They gave Rex time pretty consistently on passing plays (I think our WRs continue to have some trouble getting open vs press coverage), and actually opened holes run blocking on a regular basis. It was shocking to see Sean Tucker with more yards rushing at half time than Etienne. I think he would have ended up with more too had he been able to stay in the game. If Clemson has a big gap between their starting and backup RBs, we have a bigger one. So hoping Sean will be able to play the rest of the season healthy. If resting him for the Wake game gives us Sean 100% for the last 4 games, please do it. He is such a big part of our offense with our current QB situation. What a nice combination of size and speed, and his vision and decision making is really top notch too.
Thought Queeley was solid in his first game as the #1 receiver. He gets open a lot and when the ball comes his way, he catches it. What is not to like about that? We were all hoping for another WR to step up to join Taj, AQ and Nykeim. It looks like Ed Hendrix, the much talked about in preseason, little talked about during the season WR out of DC finally got a lot of playing time and he did well. I think he might have run one route wrong but he seemed to get open a lot and again, caught it when it was thrown near him. We so need a big WR who the QB can throw it to that will find a way to make the catch in tight coverage. Ed needs to be that guy. He has the size and the strength. Let’s see if he can do it again next week.
Nykeim had another drop. Too many this season for a senior. I hope that was the last one. But he got open long again, this time against a Clemson CB and outran their secondary to the house. That is something maybe 2 players will be able to say this season. So props to him on that. He looks like he did as a sophomore, and that is great news for Syracuse fans.
Aaron Hackett got a rare target and dropped a ball when it appeared he had a lot of room to run. That is not like him. Feel bad since he has had so few chances to catch a ball. Hope he gets more chances next game. Wish he and Benson would be a bigger part of the game plan. What happened to that great drag route we used with Benson where he ran for a long TD? How can we not call that play 2 or 3 times every game?
Let’s talk about Rex. I love his poise in the pocket. Even against Clemson, he shows a lot of calmness there, very uncommon for someone without a lot of experience. He made a couple terrific throws, and made a lot of good decisions. But he also made a couple of throws he never should have thrown, he made a bunch of bad throws to open WRs and had to throw a bunch of balls away when no one was open. Probably held on to the ball a couple of times too long, and that led to a turnover or two. Ran it pretty well a couple of times. Not a speedster but he is tough and not afraid to take a hit
I think he is never going to win games by himself. He just doesn’t have the talent to do that. He has to be a good game manager and a big part of that is good decision making. He has to avoid turnovers. He can’t blindly throw into coverage and when he gets heavy pressure, he needs to throw the ball away. If he can do that, we have a chance to win.
No FGs attempted so not much to say about Andre. Thought Cooney had an okay day but it probably was not up to the high standards he has set so far this year. His kickoffs were solid again. I hope Williams will play up to his standards next season.
Nykeim looked good returning KOs and it looked like Clemson started kicking pooch kicks to keep it away from him. He caught a punt inside the 5 for at least the second time this year...wish he would stop doing that. Though it didn’t hurt us as he quickly made up for that mistake with a long TD reception.
I think we got out of the game without a ton of injuries. Other than Sean, I don’t remember anyone else who appeared to get seriously banged up. That is great news because we have so little depth left at a number of positions.
So,,,a promising effort. It looks like the defense isn’t horrendous after all. It looks like the offense isn’t horrendous after all. Clemson probably got over 600 yards of total offense. It isn’t like we dominated them. But they had to punt a lot and the defense again scored a TD...seems like that happens once or twice every game. Pretty awesome.
With the improvements in the OL and the emergence of a couple of young WRs, and the continued development of Tucker, coupled with the promise we can see in our defense, there is hope. And hope is a good thing to have in these troubled times.
Wake just beat up what was supposed to be a good VT team. Last I saw, they really shut down their transfer RB, who I think was leading the nation in rushing. They are well coached and Hartman, as we saw last season, is a tough little SOB who can play. This will be a tough game to win. Please let Tucker be 100% for it.
Disclaimer: I haven’t read any stories or posts on the game, so this might be behind the times on injury updates and other recent news. Will try and get those read later today.
Thought the coaches did a fine job preparing the team for Clemson, as they seem to do just about every year. Sometimes I wonder if they put too much emphasis on this game (as opposed say to the game against Liberty last week).
To me, the fundamental issue for this football team that must be solved to have success this week is the rush defense. We have to be able to stop the run to have any chance to win more games. We have some big issues on offense that are not going to get solved this season with our current QB situation, so the defense has to makes some stops, and hopefully get some turnovers, in order for this team to out score other teams.
After the first half of the Liberty game, things looked pretty hopeless on this front. I think Tony made some adjustments in the second half that helped, the young defense started to better learn how to defend the run (and the addition of Trill didn’t help either).
Thought it was a team effort that stopped Clemson from abusing us with the run. McKinley had one of his best games (and maybe. Got on some draft boards) yesterday. Josh, Kingsley, Roscoe and even Harper made a lot of plays, got penetration, tried up OL and gave the LBs and DBs a chance to make some plays.
We caught some breaks. Etienne was clearly not 100% (he said because he ate Frosted Flakes for breakfast). The backup RBs are a big dropout from Travis. Clemson’s WRs (other than Rodgers) are not close to as good as they have been in recent years. Trevor might have been banged up by a couple good hits the SU defense put on him (why does Dabo expose him to so many hits; he is still pretty frail and goofy and might get his head detached one of these days). Also, I believe Clemson had 3 of their starters out for the game, and was reduced to playing Venables at MLB. He was not impressive.
With Clemson struggling to run most of the game, they had to pass it. When they tried to throw it long, they usually faced double coverage and I don’t think their staff had a lot of confidence in Trevor, who was not throwing the ball accurately. They ended up relying heavily on bubble screens to Rodgers, about the only ball Trevor was able to complete reliably. If I were a Clemson fan, I would be concerned.
I thought Garrett Williams earned a lot of votes for the frosh AA team yesterday. He might even make some 2nd and 3rd All ACC teams. Really nice job breaking up passes and that run he took to the house is going to get a lot of attention. He is also one of our best tacklers and hustles his butt off on every play. He makes an ungodly number of tackles from a CB position.
He did such a good job shutting down his man that for the first time this season, Clemson changed gears and started trying to attack Iffy instead. That also didn’t work out too well for them. Iffy was solid. Thought Greenwood had some bad moments but some good ones too. Hope that interception he almost had two or three times was quite unfortunate. I think he will hold out to it next time.
I like all our young LBs. Great seeing us playing a bunch of them to keep them fresh. Gonna be interesting to see who emerges as the best one. I think Thompson but the others are all close.
Let’s talk about the offense some. Was really impressed with the OL. They weren’t dominant and caught a break when Clemson’s AA DL did not play but I thought this was their best game. They gave Rex time pretty consistently on passing plays (I think our WRs continue to have some trouble getting open vs press coverage), and actually opened holes run blocking on a regular basis. It was shocking to see Sean Tucker with more yards rushing at half time than Etienne. I think he would have ended up with more too had he been able to stay in the game. If Clemson has a big gap between their starting and backup RBs, we have a bigger one. So hoping Sean will be able to play the rest of the season healthy. If resting him for the Wake game gives us Sean 100% for the last 4 games, please do it. He is such a big part of our offense with our current QB situation. What a nice combination of size and speed, and his vision and decision making is really top notch too.
Thought Queeley was solid in his first game as the #1 receiver. He gets open a lot and when the ball comes his way, he catches it. What is not to like about that? We were all hoping for another WR to step up to join Taj, AQ and Nykeim. It looks like Ed Hendrix, the much talked about in preseason, little talked about during the season WR out of DC finally got a lot of playing time and he did well. I think he might have run one route wrong but he seemed to get open a lot and again, caught it when it was thrown near him. We so need a big WR who the QB can throw it to that will find a way to make the catch in tight coverage. Ed needs to be that guy. He has the size and the strength. Let’s see if he can do it again next week.
Nykeim had another drop. Too many this season for a senior. I hope that was the last one. But he got open long again, this time against a Clemson CB and outran their secondary to the house. That is something maybe 2 players will be able to say this season. So props to him on that. He looks like he did as a sophomore, and that is great news for Syracuse fans.
Aaron Hackett got a rare target and dropped a ball when it appeared he had a lot of room to run. That is not like him. Feel bad since he has had so few chances to catch a ball. Hope he gets more chances next game. Wish he and Benson would be a bigger part of the game plan. What happened to that great drag route we used with Benson where he ran for a long TD? How can we not call that play 2 or 3 times every game?
Let’s talk about Rex. I love his poise in the pocket. Even against Clemson, he shows a lot of calmness there, very uncommon for someone without a lot of experience. He made a couple terrific throws, and made a lot of good decisions. But he also made a couple of throws he never should have thrown, he made a bunch of bad throws to open WRs and had to throw a bunch of balls away when no one was open. Probably held on to the ball a couple of times too long, and that led to a turnover or two. Ran it pretty well a couple of times. Not a speedster but he is tough and not afraid to take a hit
I think he is never going to win games by himself. He just doesn’t have the talent to do that. He has to be a good game manager and a big part of that is good decision making. He has to avoid turnovers. He can’t blindly throw into coverage and when he gets heavy pressure, he needs to throw the ball away. If he can do that, we have a chance to win.
No FGs attempted so not much to say about Andre. Thought Cooney had an okay day but it probably was not up to the high standards he has set so far this year. His kickoffs were solid again. I hope Williams will play up to his standards next season.
Nykeim looked good returning KOs and it looked like Clemson started kicking pooch kicks to keep it away from him. He caught a punt inside the 5 for at least the second time this year...wish he would stop doing that. Though it didn’t hurt us as he quickly made up for that mistake with a long TD reception.
I think we got out of the game without a ton of injuries. Other than Sean, I don’t remember anyone else who appeared to get seriously banged up. That is great news because we have so little depth left at a number of positions.
So,,,a promising effort. It looks like the defense isn’t horrendous after all. It looks like the offense isn’t horrendous after all. Clemson probably got over 600 yards of total offense. It isn’t like we dominated them. But they had to punt a lot and the defense again scored a TD...seems like that happens once or twice every game. Pretty awesome.
With the improvements in the OL and the emergence of a couple of young WRs, and the continued development of Tucker, coupled with the promise we can see in our defense, there is hope. And hope is a good thing to have in these troubled times.
Wake just beat up what was supposed to be a good VT team. Last I saw, they really shut down their transfer RB, who I think was leading the nation in rushing. They are well coached and Hartman, as we saw last season, is a tough little SOB who can play. This will be a tough game to win. Please let Tucker be 100% for it.
