As I start this post, I get the strong feeling I have already written it. A couple of times.
I think a lot of us thought this team was much improved and was going to play in a lot of close games this season. Not sure anyone realized just how many close games there would be, and when I say close, I mean, decided on the last play of the game close. We have to be contending for a record for the most game ending play finishes in a single season. Unfortunately, also the most games lost in a single season on the last play of the game.
Things did not start really well. There were weather alerts of possible tornadoes that could happen during the tailgate. I am told SU cancelled all outdoors events prior to the game due to the bad weather forecast. Props to the Fine Mess folks, who ignored the dire warnings and put on an excellent tailgate regardless.
We hired a caterer for this one. I missed the meatballs. They were gone by the time we arrived or maybe never got there. The pulled pork was drenched in BBQ sauce and was a non-starter for me. I brought an expert on Utica Greens to the tailgate and he told me that while they were a little bland, they were still very good. I couldn’t have any of the desserts but they looked awesome and everyone who tried them loved them. I think they were the highlight.
The vaccination/COVID test staging tent off the ESF lot on the way to the Dome was not open. Macky Macpherson was sitting there by himself, telling people to go straight to the dome and get it taken care of there. Strange decision. I assume there were problems finding people to staff the tents with the game on Friday night (this was not an issue for the first Friday night game). COVID rates in Onondaga County are extremely high right now and it is not the time to ease checking and COVID protocols.
So my crew of 4 arrived at Gate B with no pre-checks. I was the first to get inside the dome. A kid looked at a picture of my vaccination card (couldn’t use Excelsior because my vaccination pass expired; shoddy programming by whoever the boneheads were that developed that awful app) and told me I was okay. He did not cross check by having me show my NYS drivers license. Worse, the other 3 in my party were just waved in. I guess the thought was, if I have a picture of a vaccination card, everyone in the party must also be okay. Really shoddy. I assume SUAD realized with the screening tents down, there were going to be 30 minute waits to get into the stadium and decided to just ignore the pandemic for this game. Not good.
A couple of people in my party had not been to the dome since the renovations. They loved the scoreboard, the lighting in the halls and in the stadium, the new roof…everything except the PA system. It was just as awful as it has been all season; perhaps worse. We all really wanted to hear what Floyd’s wife and daughter were saying at halftime. It was completely unintelligible. Huge miss. Very unfortunate.
I understand maybe that when setting up a new sound system, some tweaking and fine tuning might be needed. No way to simulate the impact on acoustics when 40K of people sit in the stands. But this was the fourth home game, and there was an open practice before that. Absolutely no improvement over all this time. Things actually got significantly worse since the spring, when the PA system was good for lacrosse games. Unacceptable.
With each passing game this year, I have seen more people wear masks and wear them more often. The damage caused by Pete Sala’s unfortunate comments before the first game has mostly been overcome. I heard a couple people who do not normally wear masks complain that security told them to put their masks on. In section 302/301 anyway, security is enforcing the mask requirement and people are following it. That was true until a huge influx of young people (I suspect they were students) arrived halfway through the first half and sat in front of us, unmasked. They stayed that way and security let them.
I dislike wearing a mask. It makes it uncomfortable to yell (I do a lot of that). It is just uncomfortable period. Especially for 4 straight hours. But I do it. I still work. I don’t want to bring COVID into the office. I don’t want to bring COVID into my house. I have an infant granddaughter and and 83 year old mother in law and do not want to subject them to this virus. So I follow the rules and wear it. Glad security was trying to enforce the rules, disappointed they gave up after a while. Really unhappy with the decision to just ignore checking for vaccination cards and negative tests. We are coming to games in a pandemic, subjecting ourselves to significant risk, in large part because of promises SU has made to the fanbase. Please honor your word and make a reasonable effort to protect your fan base.
12 tubas again. SUAD sounds fantastic this year. Maybe it is because I haven’t heard a marching band in a year but I am impressed and a couple of the people I brought were too. Couldn’t compliment the band enough. They being so much energy and atmosphere to the games. Props and respect. The half time show was excellent. They did a nice formation in tribute to Floyd during the halftime ceremony where they formed FLOYD and 2 44s.
Also, I believe they played the Clemson fight song just prior to the game. I can’t confirm it because I do not know the Clemson fight song and SUMB was facing away from my seats (towards the Clemson fans) when they did it, and I of course could not hear what the PA announcement said. I think I mentioned it before but they have someone trying to do a closed caption feed of PA announcements in the northeast corner of the ribbon board (they probably do it on the opposite side too). I wasn’t expecting an announcement so I didn’t look when SUMB played that unfamiliar song pregame.
I have expressed sadness that SUAD was not playing the opponent’s fight song before games (most, maybe all of the other ACC schools do this). So props to SUAD for learning that song and playing it, and taking this on. Assuming they did take it on. It is the right thing to do.
I expected a low scoring rock fight so the game was not a surprise. Clemson was everything we thought they would be. Good defensively, not good on offense. Venables did his usual good job throwing blitzes at us and getting strong pressure on the QB. He largely took away our short passing game playing his excellent CBs very tight from the start of the game. There were times we could have taken advantage but Garrett had a couple of overthrows to miss sure TDs.
Garrett had a number of bad throws. Like Dungey, it looks like every 8th pass ends up 20 feet short of where it was supposed to be. He threw several balls behind or in front of receivers as well. But he showed me great toughness hanging in and getting throw off just before getting leveled a number of times. He saved a bunch of blown up plays where he had a guy in his face almost immediately by running outside and was able to avoid strong rushes a bunch of times using his size and feel for the pocket. He does a lot of things we have not seen in years and that we need to see to have a successful offense, given of severe limitations at WR and our continual issues with our OL.
I have no doubt he is our QB the next 3 years. I have no doubt he is going to have a really good career here and lead this team to a lot of points and wins.
That assumes we get him some better receivers to throw to. Clemson is a great measuring stick for our WRs. Their CBs and LBs are big, fast, physical and athletic. If you can get open and make plays against them, you can do it against anyone. Well, we were measured and for the most part, found severely lacking. Props to Courtney Jackson, who continues to be Garrett’s favorite WR and our most reliable (only reliable) WR. He is still really skinny but he is a tough SOB who will make catches over the middle and hold on to the ball after getting blasted. I think he is going to be a terrific slot for us and is someone we can build around.
Queeley looks to be getting a lot of targets but rarely is able to get open. He is not playing physical enough, not tough enough. One of the fundamental differences between Tommy and Garrett is that Tommy would not throw to a WR who was well covered. He never understood it is a better play to throw it to a covered WR than to take a sack or throw it OB. Not talking about plays where the CB has jumped a route and if the ball is thrown, it will be intercepted. I am talking about what happens a lot with SU WRs. They have someone on their back, in good position, where they might be able to deflect the ball away reaching around our WR.
Garrett understands it is okay to throw in these situations. You can get PI calls a lot and a good WR will fight off the defender and make the catch. But Queeley is not holding off the defender with his body and is playing too soft. Garrett tried to get the ball to Alford a couple of times where the same thing happened. We need some junk yard dogs at WR who find a way to get the ball in there situations. I think sometimes we fall in love with a 40 time instead of things like heart and toughness. Alec Lemon wasn’t really big, really strong or really fast but he seemed to get open every time he ran a route and he caught any ball thrown his way. We need players like him on this team.
Anyway, I thought Gilbert called a pretty good game. We just don’t have the receivers this year to run the offense correctly against teams like Clemson. Maybe Pena is going to step up and help in this area. I think i saw Hatcher getting some reps late as well. Maybe he can step up. Would really like to see us throw some to a TE as well. Another game where I did not see Benson targeted (did he even play)? It would be great if we could find a big, strong TE and throw it to him. Seems to work well for the teams we play.
Tisdale is off the scooter and walking around now. Big walking boot. Maybe he broke an ankle? Guessing his is done for the year. Vet has taken over RT. Got abused by #3 on Clemson a lot, but Shrader was able to cover for him some. Great to have Servais back. He was excellent. Bleich started the game and tried to give it a go but was out early and I do not believe he returned. Was limping badly. Hope he is going to be able to return soon. Young Ellis filled in admirably for him though and we do not appear to drop a lot with Kalen in the game. Davis seems to be close to his old self now and had a good game. Bergeron showed no ill effects from his injury last week and was good as well.
On defense, it was good to have Carter back. Not sure he was 100%. Maybe rusty. Didn’t make the plays he normally makes. Might have gotten hurt again. Cole had to play a lot after Garrett W got hurt. Clemson picked on him some. He is so light right now it is very tough for him to defend sweeps coming his way and when he is matched against one of the big Clemson WRs it is a huge mismatch. But he is a fighter and a tough kid and was okay. Thought Barron made a lot of plays and was good. Simmons continues to get burned deep an alarming number of times each game. Great athlete who seems really undisciplined. Smurph tries hard but sometimes is overmatched physically. Same with Hanna but he seems more with it mentally. I think Coley did not play at all, which hurt us some. He is really our only experienced safety. Thought Chestnut was good but they avoided him and he didn’t have much to do. Garrett Williams was having a monster game until he got hurt. Hope he gets back soon. There is a big drop off from first to second team here.
Gotta take a moment to give praise to the LBs here. They were all excellent. Especially Mikel Jones, who was all over the field, playing his heart out. I think he belongs first team all conference and might get AA consideration. Wax is not far behind him and Thompson is as well.
People ask why aren’t we getting any turnovers on defense? I think a big reason is the lack of experience with our defensive backs. Haven’t seen a safety swoop in and break up a play all season. Simmons had an interception in the end zone but panicked and jumped early and was only able to knock the ball away on a bad throw on a fade route. I think the talent is there. Our guys are still a little undersized and inexperienced and are a step late from making the big play regularly.
I like a lot about Dino. My biggest issue with him continues to be game management, especially decisions in the last couple of minutes of games. A lot of college football programs use analytics to help the staff make these decisions and give the team the best chance to win. I know Lane Kiffen has a staffer whose only job is doing this. He stands close to him and provides guidance throughout the game. If I were the AD, I would tell Dino he can stay but he needs to get some of these guys and work with him in the future. I really think he does not understand probabilities and is not capable of using them to guide his decisions. This has to change if he is to stay the Syracuse HC.
Before I end this post, I wanted to single out the student section for doing a terrific job supporting the team all season in general and in this game in particular. They are turning out in great numbers this year. I know they tried to break the all time record for student attendance last night and I would not be surprised if they did. They had a couple of sections in the lower southwest corner, a couple above those and it looked like they put more in a couple sections in the northwest corner, near the Clemson fans. They were loud, they were passionate and pretty awesome. I could do without the Clemson chants but otherwise, fantastic. Otto’s Army is doing great work getting the kids out. As an aside, it seems there are a ton more female students at the games this year and it is striking how many of them are wearing revealing outfits. It looks to me as though the football games have become a place to dress hot and troll for guys. I have never seen this before here (I have at other schools) and I think it is great. Hope it continues for basketball (where females students have traditionally attended a lot more than football already).
I really like how hard this team plays. They have made a lot of big plays, and a lot of clutch plays. We are so close. I pray the stars align soon and the players start to get some wins on the board to reward the great effort they are clearly making each and every game.
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