My Take | Syracusefan.com

My Take

sutomcat

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I went to the game. Got there early. Only the kickers, punters, holders and snappers were on the field then and it stayed that way a long time.

General observations of special teams pregame warmups:

Szmyt looked really good. The trajectory and crispness of his kicks declined fairly steadily after the great frosh season. He hit a disturbingly high number of low kicks the past couple of years. That has changed in a big way. He is consistently kicking his FG attempts high in the air. This is important because it makes it much harder to block his kicks. He also appears to have added some strength to his kicks. Was making 45 yards with at least 10 yards to spare. Probably more. I didn’t see him miss one. Looked dominant.

Williams, Von Marburg and Hawkins appear to be the backup placekickers. I think Hawkins looked better. But neither is close to Andre.

There were 4 guys practicing punts. Williams, Hawkins, Von Marburg.and Barker. Barker was a real mess. Didn’t see him lay into any of his punts. Von Marburg was better and fairly consistent. But he never turned the ball over and got it booming and didn’t get much hang time. Hawkins appeared to have a stronger leg than these two and was a bit more consistent too. He had a few terrific punts. But Williams was easily the best of the bunch. Way better hang time. More consistent than the others. Longer distance too. Even the ones he mishit a bit still had good hang time.

So I expect Szmyt and Williams to be out specialists. Barron was one of the holders. That surprised me. He was wearing an orange jersey, which I think means he is non contact. Not sure if he got into this to have something to do while he recovers from his injury. No idea where he is/was hurt. His arms looked fine and he moved around fine with no trace of a limp. But I think this is why Justin has not been in the discussion for a starting safety job in spring write ups.

Found out about when the whole team came out that a bunch of key players were going to sit this one out. Shrader, Tucker, Rhino and Bergeron. That was unfortunate. Assume all are fine and the staff decided to hold them out since they know what they can do and wanted to keep them healthy and evaluate some other players.

They appeared to be showing the ACCN feed on the main scoreboard most, perhaps all of the practice. The acoustics were uneven. The announcers were fine. Some of the interviews were fine. And some were harder to understand. They did have closed captioning in the corner of the ribbon scoreboard and that helped fill in gaps. I think Drew Carter was the play by play guy and a Syracuse grad.

It was unfortunate how they elected to have the players practice. The Blue team, which won the game pretty easily, had the first team offense. They played against the second team defense. Thought some players on both teams were actually 3rd team due to injury or coaches choice. Anyway, Lamson ran the blue offense, with a solid supporting cast, against the second team defense. For both units, there was a big dropoff from the first to second team units.

So Justin had a big advantage on the QBs assigned to the White team (Villari, Morgan and MacPhail0. They had the second team offense to work with, and had to play against the first team defense all the time. There was rarely time to throw and the coverages and tackling were a lot tighter.

Now Lamson was able to move the ball and score points pretty consistently. He looked really good. Made good reads and decisions passing it and threw it accurately. Also read the ball well and looked very capable on running plays. But he typically had a lot of time to make reads and for plays to develop. And his WRs got open consistently.

Villari and Morgan rarely had much time to do anything but run for their lives. That said, both looked good at times. They took what the defenses gave them, and I don’t remember any foolish turnovers from them. Villari made some plays with his legs. Morgan got out of trouble running around a couple of times but then threw the ball from just inside the LOS. I think Morgan managed the short passes well. Villari has a bigger arm and is a lot more dangerous running. He connected on at least one long pass (believe there was a PI called on it). I would say Villari looked beat between these two but Morgan was solid as well. Not sure if Lamson is better than Villari. They seemed pretty well matched.

Towards the end, the staff gave MacPhail extended minutes. He struggled some trying to dealing with an outmanned supporting cast but did make some plays, mostly to Donovan Brown. One was a long bomb to Brown where Donovan was tackled inside the 5. That was the last play of the scrimmage. Brown can really run and is going to be a solid deep threat soon. Very skinny now. His arms look very thin.

I think this was how the first team offensive line lined up most of the time;

LT Cruz
LG Hoeh
C Vetterello
RG Davis
RT Tisdale

Now Bergeron was held out and is surely going to be our LT. Ellis just got banged up and could not play, so Wes Hoeh filled in for him. But we also have Bleich recovering from surgery and when he is back he will need to start somewhere.

Anyway, thought all these guys looked good. Even Tisdale, who looked trimmer and more athletic than in previous seasons.

We have 3 really nice OGs in Davis, Bleich and Ellis. And Bergeron and Vet are veterans who almost have to start. I think those are our 5 best OL, assuming everyone is healthy. What do you do? Move one of the guards to center? Move Vet to center and an OG to RT? Davis did play there briefly last season when all 3 guards were healthy. Maybe they go that way. It will be interesting to watch this until the start of the season.

The second team OL lined up like this most of the time:

LT Magnuson
LG Kauhi
C Ilaoa
RG Bradford
RT Petry

Sometimes Hoeh played center as well. Sometimes Barclay played OG. Sometimes Froumy played OG. Maybe they are members of the third team but they mix and match and I don’t think it makes sense to break them out separately. Didn’t see Red at all. Assume he is banged up.

Mang and Maher played a lot at TE. I think Mang was on the blue team. They didn’t throw much to either of them. Looked like they blocked okay. Guessing they don’t see them as good receiving targets. Makes me think it is a given we are bringing in a TE from the portal. Time will tell.

Courtney played a lot and got his shared of targets. Think he came though on all of them as well. Tough short passes over the middle. He did.a nice job. Alford played a fair amount and the one time they threw it long to him, he ran past his man and got a long TD down the left sideline. He can run. Looks bigger and very impressive.

They had a lot of interviews during the game. Some I could understand. Some I could not. At least 2 people said Isaiah Jones was a big surprise for the offense this spring. He made a spectacular catch on a drill and a couple nice ones on down and outs. CJ Hayes had a long catch and looked good but didn’t get a lot of targets. Don’t think he is a speed guy. Coop got some call outs for improved play in interviews and had a couple good catches. Another slot guy specializing in passes over the middle.

Hatcher has become the people’s choice on the board and he did not disappoint, getting open on a fly route pretty early and making an easy catch for a long TD. He also needs work in the weight room and is mostly now a deep play specialist.

Gadsden had some catches. Mostly short passes over the middle with no running room. He got open and caught the ball. Ja’Vontae Williams also had a couple of short catches for decent yardage in traffic. Don’t remember any drops all game long. Good to see our WRs catching it well consistently.

Don’t think Pena had any targets. He just got cleared to play and the staff might have opted to limit him to catching on special teams units.

Overall, thought the WRs played well. No drops. They looked tougher and more willing to fight for 50-50 balls.

At RB, Price looked really quick and nimble. Very impressive; And Allen, well, I think the first time he touched the ball, he went wide, took one side step to beat a guy and exploded down the side line for a TD. Had some other moments too. About as impressive a debut for a frosh RB I can remember in a spring game. And he only enrolled in January.

The first team defense was impressive. They put heavy pressure on all the QBs, pretty much shut down the run and had tight coverage all game long. G Williams just missed getting a pick. Chestnut had some nice breakups but he was beaten a couple of times (believe he committed PI).

I think the backup CBs were Wilson and Foster. Both got targeted a lot. Both had good and bad moments. I think Foster is a little ahead of Wilson right now.

The starting DL was Linton, Lockett and Caleb O. They all looked good. Good pressure from all of them. Simmons, Darton, and Geer were, I think, the second wave. They can play too, Fuentes-Candiff made a couple nice plays. Saw walk on Alberga make a nice tackle frorm behind as well.

I think Wax was out. Saw McDonald in playing with Thompson and Jones on the first group. They are an impressive group. All can run and fend off blocked with the best of them. They dominated things while they were in. Sparrow, Mason and Lowery are all capable of big plays as well. Sparrow is a good pass rusher and got a sack beating Cruz inside on one play. Mason though is the one that stands out to me. He can get to the ball and make tackles. I think he has a chance to be very good if he keeps working hard.

At safety, the starters were Coley, Carter and Simmons. Thought all looked good but Carter stood out. Just made a lot of nice plays. Was all over the field. Good to see him played at 100%. I think the second team was Folk, Greenwood and Oliver. They also played well. Especially Oliver. He is big, fast, anticipates well and tackles hard. Got a great pick jumping a route in the flat. It is going to be tough keeping him off the field. At least one of the interviewed people called him out as a player to watch out for.

It was a really well done practice and i greatly enjoyed watching it. What a vast improvement over the last couple of PR disasters. Props to Dino, the rest of the staff, the people from the ACCN and everyone else involved. Hope it was fun to watch on TV. Gotta check it out soon. I suspect it will be shown on ACCN dozens of times over the summer.

Lots of young people at the game. A bunch of HS sent people up, including Herkimer and Waverly. We like a QB from Waverly so this has to be a good sign. When I got to the dome, I wanted to get a soda but was behind dozens of kids. Someone from the concession stand came up to me and told me to go to a special line and bypass the kids. He explained that they were all from the same HS football team, which turned out to be from Herkimer. All the kids had gotten money from their parents for food but no one realized that the dome is now cashless. So all those purchased had to be made on the coaches credit card. Whoops.

Saw at least 25 recruits walk on the field just before the game started. A bunch looked really big.

They had like 25 kids have a 100 yard race on the field at halftime. The oldest boy won but a girl almost caught him. Good idea.

Again, great job by SUAD to pull this together. Really enjoyed it!
 
I went to the game. Got there early. Only the kickers, punters, holders and snappers were on the field then and it stayed that way a long time.

General observations of special teams pregame warmups:

Szmyt looked really good. The trajectory and crispness of his kicks declined fairly steadily after the great frosh season. He hit a disturbingly high number of low kicks the past couple of years. That has changed in a big way. He is consistently kicking his FG attempts high in the air. This is important because it makes it much harder to block his kicks. He also appears to have added some strength to his kicks. Was making 45 yards with at least 10 yards to spare. Probably more. I didn’t see him miss one. Looked dominant.

Williams, Von Marburg and Hawkins appear to be the backup placekickers. I think Hawkins looked better. But neither is close to Andre.

There were 4 guys practicing punts. Williams, Hawkins, Von Marburg.and Barker. Barker was a real mess. Didn’t see him lay into any of his punts. Von Marburg was better and fairly consistent. But he never turned the ball over and got it booming and didn’t get much hang time. Hawkins appeared to have a stronger leg than these two and was a bit more consistent too. He had a few terrific punts. But Williams was easily the best of the bunch. Way better hang time. More consistent than the others. Longer distance too. Even the ones he mishit a bit still had good hang time.

So I expect Szmyt and Williams to be out specialists. Barron was one of the holders. That surprised me. He was wearing an orange jersey, which I think means he is non contact. Not sure if he got into this to have something to do while he recovers from his injury. No idea where he is/was hurt. His arms looked fine and he moved around fine with no trace of a limp. But I think this is why Justin has not been in the discussion for a starting safety job in spring write ups.

Found out about when the whole team came out that a bunch of key players were going to sit this one out. Shrader, Tucker, Rhino and Bergeron. That was unfortunate. Assume all are fine and the staff decided to hold them out since they know what they can do and wanted to keep them healthy and evaluate some other players.

They appeared to be showing the ACCN feed on the main scoreboard most, perhaps all of the practice. The acoustics were uneven. The announcers were fine. Some of the interviews were fine. And some were harder to understand. They did have closed captioning in the corner of the ribbon scoreboard and that helped fill in gaps. I think Drew Carter was the play by play guy and a Syracuse grad.

It was unfortunate how they elected to have the players practice. The Blue team, which won the game pretty easily, had the first team offense. They played against the second team defense. Thought some players on both teams were actually 3rd team due to injury or coaches choice. Anyway, Lamson ran the blue offense, with a solid supporting cast, against the second team defense. For both units, there was a big dropoff from the first to second team units.

So Justin had a big advantage on the QBs assigned to the White team (Villari, Morgan and MacPhail0. They had the second team offense to work with, and had to play against the first team defense all the time. There was rarely time to throw and the coverages and tackling were a lot tighter.

Now Lamson was able to move the ball and score points pretty consistently. He looked really good. Made good reads and decisions passing it and threw it accurately. Also read the ball well and looked very capable on running plays. But he typically had a lot of time to make reads and for plays to develop. And his WRs got open consistently.

Villari and Morgan rarely had much time to do anything but run for their lives. That said, both looked good at times. They took what the defenses gave them, and I don’t remember any foolish turnovers from them. Villari made some plays with his legs. Morgan got out of trouble running around a couple of times but then threw the ball from just inside the LOS. I think Morgan managed the short passes well. Villari has a bigger arm and is a lot more dangerous running. He connected on at least one long pass (believe there was a PI called on it). I would say Villari looked beat between these two but Morgan was solid as well. Not sure if Lamson is better than Villari. They seemed pretty well matched.

Towards the end, the staff gave MacPhail extended minutes. He struggled some trying to dealing with an outmanned supporting cast but did make some plays, mostly to Donovan Brown. One was a long bomb to Brown where Donovan was tackled inside the 5. That was the last play of the scrimmage. Brown can really run and is going to be a solid deep threat soon. Very skinny now. His arms look very thin.

I think this was how the first team offensive line lined up most of the time;

LT Cruz
LG Hoeh
C Vetterello
RG Davis
RT Tisdale

Now Bergeron was held out and is surely going to be our LT. Ellis just got banged up and could not play, so Wes Hoeh filled in for him. But we also have Bleich recovering from surgery and when he is back he will need to start somewhere.

Anyway, thought all these guys looked good. Even Tisdale, who looked trimmer and more athletic than in previous seasons.

We have 3 really nice OGs in Davis, Bleich and Ellis. And Bergeron and Vet are veterans who almost have to start. I think those are our 5 best OL, assuming everyone is healthy. What do you do? Move one of the guards to center? Move Vet to center and an OG to RT? Davis did play there briefly last season when all 3 guards were healthy. Maybe they go that way. It will be interesting to watch this until the start of the season.

The second team OL lined up like this most of the time:

LT Magnuson
LG Kauhi
C Ilaoa
RG Bradford
RT Petry

Sometimes Hoeh played center as well. Sometimes Barclay played OG. Sometimes Froumy played OG. Maybe they are members of the third team but they mix and match and I don’t think it makes sense to break them out separately. Didn’t see Red at all. Assume he is banged up.

Mang and Maher played a lot at TE. I think Mang was on the blue team. They didn’t throw much to either of them. Looked like they blocked okay. Guessing they don’t see them as good receiving targets. Makes me think it is a given we are bringing in a TE from the portal. Time will tell.

Courtney played a lot and got his shared of targets. Think he came though on all of them as well. Tough short passes over the middle. He did.a nice job. Alford played a fair amount and the one time they threw it long to him, he ran past his man and got a long TD down the left sideline. He can run. Looks bigger and very impressive.

They had a lot of interviews during the game. Some I could understand. Some I could not. At least 2 people said Isaiah Jones was a big surprise for the offense this spring. He made a spectacular catch on a drill and a couple nice ones on down and outs. CJ Hayes had a long catch and looked good but didn’t get a lot of targets. Don’t think he is a speed guy. Coop got some call outs for improved play in interviews and had a couple good catches. Another slot guy specializing in passes over the middle.

Hatcher has become the people’s choice on the board and he did not disappoint, getting open on a fly route pretty early and making an easy catch for a long TD. He also needs work in the weight room and is mostly now a deep play specialist.

Gadsden had some catches. Mostly short passes over the middle with no running room. He got open and caught the ball. Ja’Vontae Williams also had a couple of short catches for decent yardage in traffic. Don’t remember any drops all game long. Good to see our WRs catching it well consistently.

Don’t think Pena had any targets. He just got cleared to play and the staff might have opted to limit him to catching on special teams units.

Overall, thought the WRs played well. No drops. They looked tougher and more willing to fight for 50-50 balls.

At RB, Price looked really quick and nimble. Very impressive; And Allen, well, I think the first time he touched the ball, he went wide, took one side step to beat a guy and exploded down the side line for a TD. Had some other moments too. About as impressive a debut for a frosh RB I can remember in a spring game. And he only enrolled in January.

The first team defense was impressive. They put heavy pressure on all the QBs, pretty much shut down the run and had tight coverage all game long. G Williams just missed getting a pick. Chestnut had some nice breakups but he was beaten a couple of times (believe he committed PI).

I think the backup CBs were Wilson and Foster. Both got targeted a lot. Both had good and bad moments. I think Foster is a little ahead of Wilson right now.

The starting DL was Linton, Lockett and Caleb O. They all looked good. Good pressure from all of them. Simmons, Darton, and Geer were, I think, the second wave. They can play too, Fuentes-Candiff made a couple nice plays. Saw walk on Alberga make a nice tackle frorm behind as well.

I think Wax was out. Saw McDonald in playing with Thompson and Jones on the first group. They are an impressive group. All can run and fend off blocked with the best of them. They dominated things while they were in. Sparrow, Mason and Lowery are all capable of big plays as well. Sparrow is a good pass rusher and got a sack beating Cruz inside on one play. Mason though is the one that stands out to me. He can get to the ball and make tackles. I think he has a chance to be very good if he keeps working hard.

At safety, the starters were Coley, Carter and Simmons. Thought all looked good but Carter stood out. Just made a lot of nice plays. Was all over the field. Good to see him played at 100%. I think the second team was Folk, Greenwood and Oliver. They also played well. Especially Oliver. He is big, fast, anticipates well and tackles hard. Got a great pick jumping a route in the flat. It is going to be tough keeping him off the field. At least one of the interviewed people called him out as a player to watch out for.

It was a really well done practice and i greatly enjoyed watching it. What a vast improvement over the last couple of PR disasters. Props to Dino, the rest of the staff, the people from the ACCN and everyone else involved. Hope it was fun to watch on TV. Gotta check it out soon. I suspect it will be shown on ACCN dozens of times over the summer.

Lots of young people at the game. A bunch of HS sent people up, including Herkimer and Waverly. We like a QB from Waverly so this has to be a good sign. When I got to the dome, I wanted to get a soda but was behind dozens of kids. Someone from the concession stand came up to me and told me to go to a special line and bypass the kids. He explained that they were all from the same HS football team, which turned out to be from Herkimer. All the kids had gotten money from their parents for food but no one realized that the dome is now cashless. So all those purchased had to be made on the coaches credit card. Whoops.

Saw at least 25 recruits walk on the field just before the game started. A bunch looked really big.

They had like 25 kids have a 100 yard race on the field at halftime. The oldest boy won but a girl almost caught him. Good idea.

Again, great job by SUAD to pull this together. Really enjoyed it!
Nice recap Tom. I definitely saw Red on the field to answer your one question.

Also, the replay is available on Watch ESPN.

 
I came in for the game as well. Spent considerable time before and after with players and parents more on this later as ill do a separate post.
I thought that Lamson was unquestionably the best QB on the field. He throws a great ball effortlessly. Has good vision and wheels.
Dan is a work in progress. Decent arm but threw into coverage too often. One pick and other that should have been. He is a very big person. Big, strong, thick. Hes a horse.
Spoke to Hough for a good amount of time. Hes full go this June and is a very large person. Extremely nice kid. Told him i was part of a group that " Stuffed" the ballot box and he knew about us, and loved it.
As Tom said the event was very well done. I thought the sound was good.
Last point. I spoke at length to 5 players, about a dozen all in and 3 parents for a long time. All of them players and parents were articulate, polite, and simply put really nice.
Dinos record is what it is but he deserves major praise for the kids he has brought into the program.
Great night. More later.
 
Good write-up. I think blue was offense and orange was defense all night. So, I'm still trying to figure out - how did they assign team scores?
 
Nice recap Tom. It was great to watch the game on the ACC network and hear them hyping things so much. Nice interviews with the former players and great to see them again. I had chatted with Don McPherson on the quad the day his jersey was retired, and he was always my second favorite player behind Ernie. Man, Don is looking more mature these days based on the broadcast. Hard to believe, because "obviously" I, myself, am not aging.

Was impressed with Lamson. Nice to see a guy with an arm who also has poise. The RB's looked really nice as well, even though their time will clearly be post-Tucker. Great to fill the cupboard for the future. A number of WR's staked their claim to PT this year.

I think we are going to enjoy this offense. The D had some nice moments too. It was hard, as you say, to really evaluate based upon which unit was matched up against which string.

Build a fire, watch some SU football. Felt like October in April.
 
Red definitely played. Distinctly remember seeing him on the field on the broadcast.
I believe you and MSOrange. Did either of you notice where he played? He has been moved around some over the course of his career. Guessing he was one of the guys who started playing relatively late and did not get a lot of snaps.
 
Yes, what a fantastic event.

This team really has some chemistry and every single player that I talked to after the game was incredibly gracious and just happy to have fans there.

This was a HUGE win for the program. These kind of events are what fans want and are what builds fan bases and builds a bigger donor network. The Athletics department should be proud with what they just did last night.

If you know me, I don’t often compliment what Syracuse Athletics does so that speaks volumes to this post.

Felt this was also a huge win for recruiting. The recruits I saw all seemed to be having a great time and there parents as well. I think they enjoyed being able to talk to individual players after etc.

I just can’t say enough good things about last nights event!

I am excited for the season, I can’t wait for Syracuse Football!!!!!
 
Good write-up. I think blue was offense and orange was defense all night. So, I'm still trying to figure out - how did they assign team scores?

The "Blue" team were the 1st teamers. The "Orange" team were the 2nd & 3rd teamers.

When "Blue" had the ball, it was the #1 Offense vs the #2 Defense. When "Orange" had the ball it was the #2 Offense vs the #1 Defense. Not really a fair fight. Thats how the score got to 21-0 in a hurry.

Just to confuse everyone further: All the offensive players wore blue, all the defensive players wore orange, and the QB's wore white.
 
Also when talking to Andre Szmyt he said that hiring a special teams coach that had coached in the NFL was why he came back. He said it would be a great opportunity to learn from him and get the skills necessary to play at the next level. I look forward to seeing the old Andre Szmyt this year!

Very nice talking with him last night!
 
The "Blue" team were the 1st teamers. The "Orange" team were the 2nd & 3rd teamers.

When "Blue" had the ball, it was the #1 Offense vs the #2 Defense. When "Orange" had the ball it was the #2 Offense vs the #1 Defense. Not really a fair fight. Thats how the score got to 21-0 in a hurry.

Just to confuse everyone further: All the offensive players wore blue, all the defensive players wore orange, and the QB's wore white.

Yup, that part was made very very confusing and I’m 100% sure that was by design
 
I went to the game. Got there early. Only the kickers, punters, holders and snappers were on the field then and it stayed that way a long time.

General observations of special teams pregame warmups:

Szmyt looked really good. The trajectory and crispness of his kicks declined fairly steadily after the great frosh season. He hit a disturbingly high number of low kicks the past couple of years. That has changed in a big way. He is consistently kicking his FG attempts high in the air. This is important because it makes it much harder to block his kicks. He also appears to have added some strength to his kicks. Was making 45 yards with at least 10 yards to spare. Probably more. I didn’t see him miss one. Looked dominant.

Williams, Von Marburg and Hawkins appear to be the backup placekickers. I think Hawkins looked better. But neither is close to Andre.

There were 4 guys practicing punts. Williams, Hawkins, Von Marburg.and Barker. Barker was a real mess. Didn’t see him lay into any of his punts. Von Marburg was better and fairly consistent. But he never turned the ball over and got it booming and didn’t get much hang time. Hawkins appeared to have a stronger leg than these two and was a bit more consistent too. He had a few terrific punts. But Williams was easily the best of the bunch. Way better hang time. More consistent than the others. Longer distance too. Even the ones he mishit a bit still had good hang time.

So I expect Szmyt and Williams to be out specialists. Barron was one of the holders. That surprised me. He was wearing an orange jersey, which I think means he is non contact. Not sure if he got into this to have something to do while he recovers from his injury. No idea where he is/was hurt. His arms looked fine and he moved around fine with no trace of a limp. But I think this is why Justin has not been in the discussion for a starting safety job in spring write ups.

Found out about when the whole team came out that a bunch of key players were going to sit this one out. Shrader, Tucker, Rhino and Bergeron. That was unfortunate. Assume all are fine and the staff decided to hold them out since they know what they can do and wanted to keep them healthy and evaluate some other players.

They appeared to be showing the ACCN feed on the main scoreboard most, perhaps all of the practice. The acoustics were uneven. The announcers were fine. Some of the interviews were fine. And some were harder to understand. They did have closed captioning in the corner of the ribbon scoreboard and that helped fill in gaps. I think Drew Carter was the play by play guy and a Syracuse grad.

It was unfortunate how they elected to have the players practice. The Blue team, which won the game pretty easily, had the first team offense. They played against the second team defense. Thought some players on both teams were actually 3rd team due to injury or coaches choice. Anyway, Lamson ran the blue offense, with a solid supporting cast, against the second team defense. For both units, there was a big dropoff from the first to second team units.

So Justin had a big advantage on the QBs assigned to the White team (Villari, Morgan and MacPhail0. They had the second team offense to work with, and had to play against the first team defense all the time. There was rarely time to throw and the coverages and tackling were a lot tighter.

Now Lamson was able to move the ball and score points pretty consistently. He looked really good. Made good reads and decisions passing it and threw it accurately. Also read the ball well and looked very capable on running plays. But he typically had a lot of time to make reads and for plays to develop. And his WRs got open consistently.

Villari and Morgan rarely had much time to do anything but run for their lives. That said, both looked good at times. They took what the defenses gave them, and I don’t remember any foolish turnovers from them. Villari made some plays with his legs. Morgan got out of trouble running around a couple of times but then threw the ball from just inside the LOS. I think Morgan managed the short passes well. Villari has a bigger arm and is a lot more dangerous running. He connected on at least one long pass (believe there was a PI called on it). I would say Villari looked beat between these two but Morgan was solid as well. Not sure if Lamson is better than Villari. They seemed pretty well matched.

Towards the end, the staff gave MacPhail extended minutes. He struggled some trying to dealing with an outmanned supporting cast but did make some plays, mostly to Donovan Brown. One was a long bomb to Brown where Donovan was tackled inside the 5. That was the last play of the scrimmage. Brown can really run and is going to be a solid deep threat soon. Very skinny now. His arms look very thin.

I think this was how the first team offensive line lined up most of the time;

LT Cruz
LG Hoeh
C Vetterello
RG Davis
RT Tisdale

Now Bergeron was held out and is surely going to be our LT. Ellis just got banged up and could not play, so Wes Hoeh filled in for him. But we also have Bleich recovering from surgery and when he is back he will need to start somewhere.

Anyway, thought all these guys looked good. Even Tisdale, who looked trimmer and more athletic than in previous seasons.

We have 3 really nice OGs in Davis, Bleich and Ellis. And Bergeron and Vet are veterans who almost have to start. I think those are our 5 best OL, assuming everyone is healthy. What do you do? Move one of the guards to center? Move Vet to center and an OG to RT? Davis did play there briefly last season when all 3 guards were healthy. Maybe they go that way. It will be interesting to watch this until the start of the season.

The second team OL lined up like this most of the time:

LT Magnuson
LG Kauhi
C Ilaoa
RG Bradford
RT Petry

Sometimes Hoeh played center as well. Sometimes Barclay played OG. Sometimes Froumy played OG. Maybe they are members of the third team but they mix and match and I don’t think it makes sense to break them out separately. Didn’t see Red at all. Assume he is banged up.

Mang and Maher played a lot at TE. I think Mang was on the blue team. They didn’t throw much to either of them. Looked like they blocked okay. Guessing they don’t see them as good receiving targets. Makes me think it is a given we are bringing in a TE from the portal. Time will tell.

Courtney played a lot and got his shared of targets. Think he came though on all of them as well. Tough short passes over the middle. He did.a nice job. Alford played a fair amount and the one time they threw it long to him, he ran past his man and got a long TD down the left sideline. He can run. Looks bigger and very impressive.

They had a lot of interviews during the game. Some I could understand. Some I could not. At least 2 people said Isaiah Jones was a big surprise for the offense this spring. He made a spectacular catch on a drill and a couple nice ones on down and outs. CJ Hayes had a long catch and looked good but didn’t get a lot of targets. Don’t think he is a speed guy. Coop got some call outs for improved play in interviews and had a couple good catches. Another slot guy specializing in passes over the middle.

Hatcher has become the people’s choice on the board and he did not disappoint, getting open on a fly route pretty early and making an easy catch for a long TD. He also needs work in the weight room and is mostly now a deep play specialist.

Gadsden had some catches. Mostly short passes over the middle with no running room. He got open and caught the ball. Ja’Vontae Williams also had a couple of short catches for decent yardage in traffic. Don’t remember any drops all game long. Good to see our WRs catching it well consistently.

Don’t think Pena had any targets. He just got cleared to play and the staff might have opted to limit him to catching on special teams units.

Overall, thought the WRs played well. No drops. They looked tougher and more willing to fight for 50-50 balls.

At RB, Price looked really quick and nimble. Very impressive; And Allen, well, I think the first time he touched the ball, he went wide, took one side step to beat a guy and exploded down the side line for a TD. Had some other moments too. About as impressive a debut for a frosh RB I can remember in a spring game. And he only enrolled in January.

The first team defense was impressive. They put heavy pressure on all the QBs, pretty much shut down the run and had tight coverage all game long. G Williams just missed getting a pick. Chestnut had some nice breakups but he was beaten a couple of times (believe he committed PI).

I think the backup CBs were Wilson and Foster. Both got targeted a lot. Both had good and bad moments. I think Foster is a little ahead of Wilson right now.

The starting DL was Linton, Lockett and Caleb O. They all looked good. Good pressure from all of them. Simmons, Darton, and Geer were, I think, the second wave. They can play too, Fuentes-Candiff made a couple nice plays. Saw walk on Alberga make a nice tackle frorm behind as well.

I think Wax was out. Saw McDonald in playing with Thompson and Jones on the first group. They are an impressive group. All can run and fend off blocked with the best of them. They dominated things while they were in. Sparrow, Mason and Lowery are all capable of big plays as well. Sparrow is a good pass rusher and got a sack beating Cruz inside on one play. Mason though is the one that stands out to me. He can get to the ball and make tackles. I think he has a chance to be very good if he keeps working hard.

At safety, the starters were Coley, Carter and Simmons. Thought all looked good but Carter stood out. Just made a lot of nice plays. Was all over the field. Good to see him played at 100%. I think the second team was Folk, Greenwood and Oliver. They also played well. Especially Oliver. He is big, fast, anticipates well and tackles hard. Got a great pick jumping a route in the flat. It is going to be tough keeping him off the field. At least one of the interviewed people called him out as a player to watch out for.

It was a really well done practice and i greatly enjoyed watching it. What a vast improvement over the last couple of PR disasters. Props to Dino, the rest of the staff, the people from the ACCN and everyone else involved. Hope it was fun to watch on TV. Gotta check it out soon. I suspect it will be shown on ACCN dozens of times over the summer.

Lots of young people at the game. A bunch of HS sent people up, including Herkimer and Waverly. We like a QB from Waverly so this has to be a good sign. When I got to the dome, I wanted to get a soda but was behind dozens of kids. Someone from the concession stand came up to me and told me to go to a special line and bypass the kids. He explained that they were all from the same HS football team, which turned out to be from Herkimer. All the kids had gotten money from their parents for food but no one realized that the dome is now cashless. So all those purchased had to be made on the coaches credit card. Whoops.

Saw at least 25 recruits walk on the field just before the game started. A bunch looked really big.

They had like 25 kids have a 100 yard race on the field at halftime. The oldest boy won but a girl almost caught him. Good idea.

Again, great job by SUAD to pull this together. Really enjoyed it!
Great job TC. This might have been the spring game but you are in mid-season form. I watched some of it on TV as I watching some other games as well and it was great seeing Cuse represented as a big time school. What was the overall attendance like? I couldn't really tell.
 
OK...I was looking at the "kickoffs". I didn't watch the entire scrimmage, But the few I saw
were not reaching the endzone. Anybody have thoughts on this?
 
I believe you and MSOrange. Did either of you notice where he played? He has been moved around some over the course of his career. Guessing he was one of the guys who started playing relatively late and did not get a lot of snaps.

You can see Red at 24:58 of the WatchESPN on-demand replay. It is the first play of the second team offense. He played left tackle. I didn't notice him really after that.
 
Some more things I should have mentioned. These are just random things some might be interested in.

Cruz runs really well for an OL. On one of the long RB runs, I saw him drop the DL in front of him, beat an LB and take him out and go around 10 yards and block a safety. All in one play.

I was worried after we lost Cantin-Arcu about linebacker depth. That happens if one of the ‘Big 3’ (Thompson/Wax/Jones) get hurt? Much less concerned about that now.

Sparrow, McDonald, Lowery and Mason all were impressive. Best of all, they are all physically ready to play today. Meaning, they aren’t 205 pound kids we hope can add 20 pounds and retain their athletic ability.

We have no one who can get the ball into the end zone consistently on kickoffs. That worries me. We face some really good return guys in the ACC. Hope Liggy has the coverage units ready. No chance to see the coverage units last night as kickoffs and punts were limited to the guy kicking it and the guy catching it. And a snapper for punts. Bolinsky looked good long snapping. Kelly was almost as good backing him up.
It will be interesting to see who plays on the coverage units. Who are the gunners going to be? We have upgraded the overall size and speed of the team sufficiently that trying to guess this is not a trivial exercise.

Donovan Brown was one of the guys who caught kickoffs. Pena did it most of the time. I think Pena and Courtney Jackson caught most of the punts.

They ran some trick plays. I think Dino is not a big fan of these. We have rarely used them. Believe the UVa fans thought Coach Anae called them too often. I guess we will see on this but I really like running a few during the spring game. Get that on film. Force defenses to waste time prepping for this. Even if we never get them in real games.

This was the first dome event I attended with dynamic bar codes on tickets. Not sure if that is even the right terminology but this is the latest brainchild of everyone’s favorite company, TicketMaster. Even I downloaded my tickets to the game and tried to add them to my wallet, a couple weird things happened.

First, I was asked if I wanted to add all my tickets to the event to my wallet at once. This excited me. I have 4 seasons for football and 3 for hoops and up until now, I have had to download the tickets one by one, then add them to my electronic wallet one by one. Just an awful design. Shocking that TicketMaster, Apple, whoever is responsible for the software would ever come up with such an inconvenient and poorly thought out setup. Anyway, I said yes, download them all and not only it this download both tickets to my phone, it also added them to my wallet in one fell swoop. So it appears an awful inconvenience has been removed.

As an aside, when you look at the new fangled electronic tickets in your wallet, there is just a stub there. No bar code. Just some text identifying the ticket. I was wondering if something was wrong. How is this going to work when I get my ‘ticket’ scanned?

Well, the worker scanning tickets knew about the change and asked me to point my phone at him. You are supposed to read the bar code by having the ticket up in your wallet and having the scanner point at the reader on your phone. He had to manipulate it a bit but it scanned pretty quickly. At least one friend had a major issue as it appears not all the people scanning tickets knew about the change.

The SUMB was at the game. No uniforms. No marching. I would guess maybe 25% of the normal band showed up. But they played with enthusiasm and it made the atmosphere collegiate and I was glad they were there. 9. Yup, 9. Great turnout of tubas given how small the SUMB was. It was a tuba concentric sound and I liked it. Hope we can get up past the 11 or 12 we had for most games last year. Based on the turnout last night, it seems possible.

Maybe the best thing about the game was seeing a lot of young children attending. Didn’t realize how much I missed seeing kids at the dome. They looked thrilled to be there and from what I could see, the players were awesome to them. Posing for pics, signing autographs, talking to them and making them feel important even before the game started.

Sitting halfway down section 116, I was looking indirectly into the LED lighting, which appeared to mostly be pointed directly in my eyes. It was a lot to take for 3 hours. Still hoping some small adjustments can be made to make this less tough on the eyes. I am fortunate that I sit on the 300 level for football and basketball and don’t have to deal with this very often.

I was the first person from the normal syracusefan.com contingent to arrive (right after the doors opened at 6 pm) and I sat alone on the end of a row in 116 for a while by myself. Wondered briefly if this was going to be a solo mission. Nope. @Orangetreme arrived shortly after me. storange and Dcuse shortly after that. LeMoyneCuse, JRHEETER, Cuseregular, Consigliere, TexanMark. Chris02M, lincolncuse were some of the board regulars in our group. Nice turnout. Good to see so much enthusiasm for the program.

Hope. It is a great thing.
 
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OK...I was looking at the "kickoffs". I didn't watch the entire scrimmage, But the few I saw
were not reaching the endzone. Anybody have thoughts on this?
One was drilled probably 7-8 yards in. One other might have been a situational kick as it sort of died around the goal line near the corner.
 
I went to the game. Got there early. Only the kickers, punters, holders and snappers were on the field then and it stayed that way a long time.

General observations of special teams pregame warmups:

Szmyt looked really good. The trajectory and crispness of his kicks declined fairly steadily after the great frosh season. He hit a disturbingly high number of low kicks the past couple of years. That has changed in a big way. He is consistently kicking his FG attempts high in the air. This is important because it makes it much harder to block his kicks. He also appears to have added some strength to his kicks. Was making 45 yards with at least 10 yards to spare. Probably more. I didn’t see him miss one. Looked dominant.

Williams, Von Marburg and Hawkins appear to be the backup placekickers. I think Hawkins looked better. But neither is close to Andre.

There were 4 guys practicing punts. Williams, Hawkins, Von Marburg.and Barker. Barker was a real mess. Didn’t see him lay into any of his punts. Von Marburg was better and fairly consistent. But he never turned the ball over and got it booming and didn’t get much hang time. Hawkins appeared to have a stronger leg than these two and was a bit more consistent too. He had a few terrific punts. But Williams was easily the best of the bunch. Way better hang time. More consistent than the others. Longer distance too. Even the ones he mishit a bit still had good hang time.

So I expect Szmyt and Williams to be out specialists. Barron was one of the holders. That surprised me. He was wearing an orange jersey, which I think means he is non contact. Not sure if he got into this to have something to do while he recovers from his injury. No idea where he is/was hurt. His arms looked fine and he moved around fine with no trace of a limp. But I think this is why Justin has not been in the discussion for a starting safety job in spring write ups.

Found out about when the whole team came out that a bunch of key players were going to sit this one out. Shrader, Tucker, Rhino and Bergeron. That was unfortunate. Assume all are fine and the staff decided to hold them out since they know what they can do and wanted to keep them healthy and evaluate some other players.

They appeared to be showing the ACCN feed on the main scoreboard most, perhaps all of the practice. The acoustics were uneven. The announcers were fine. Some of the interviews were fine. And some were harder to understand. They did have closed captioning in the corner of the ribbon scoreboard and that helped fill in gaps. I think Drew Carter was the play by play guy and a Syracuse grad.

It was unfortunate how they elected to have the players practice. The Blue team, which won the game pretty easily, had the first team offense. They played against the second team defense. Thought some players on both teams were actually 3rd team due to injury or coaches choice. Anyway, Lamson ran the blue offense, with a solid supporting cast, against the second team defense. For both units, there was a big dropoff from the first to second team units.

So Justin had a big advantage on the QBs assigned to the White team (Villari, Morgan and MacPhail0. They had the second team offense to work with, and had to play against the first team defense all the time. There was rarely time to throw and the coverages and tackling were a lot tighter.

Now Lamson was able to move the ball and score points pretty consistently. He looked really good. Made good reads and decisions passing it and threw it accurately. Also read the ball well and looked very capable on running plays. But he typically had a lot of time to make reads and for plays to develop. And his WRs got open consistently.

Villari and Morgan rarely had much time to do anything but run for their lives. That said, both looked good at times. They took what the defenses gave them, and I don’t remember any foolish turnovers from them. Villari made some plays with his legs. Morgan got out of trouble running around a couple of times but then threw the ball from just inside the LOS. I think Morgan managed the short passes well. Villari has a bigger arm and is a lot more dangerous running. He connected on at least one long pass (believe there was a PI called on it). I would say Villari looked beat between these two but Morgan was solid as well. Not sure if Lamson is better than Villari. They seemed pretty well matched.

Towards the end, the staff gave MacPhail extended minutes. He struggled some trying to dealing with an outmanned supporting cast but did make some plays, mostly to Donovan Brown. One was a long bomb to Brown where Donovan was tackled inside the 5. That was the last play of the scrimmage. Brown can really run and is going to be a solid deep threat soon. Very skinny now. His arms look very thin.

I think this was how the first team offensive line lined up most of the time;

LT Cruz
LG Hoeh
C Vetterello
RG Davis
RT Tisdale

Now Bergeron was held out and is surely going to be our LT. Ellis just got banged up and could not play, so Wes Hoeh filled in for him. But we also have Bleich recovering from surgery and when he is back he will need to start somewhere.

Anyway, thought all these guys looked good. Even Tisdale, who looked trimmer and more athletic than in previous seasons.

We have 3 really nice OGs in Davis, Bleich and Ellis. And Bergeron and Vet are veterans who almost have to start. I think those are our 5 best OL, assuming everyone is healthy. What do you do? Move one of the guards to center? Move Vet to center and an OG to RT? Davis did play there briefly last season when all 3 guards were healthy. Maybe they go that way. It will be interesting to watch this until the start of the season.

The second team OL lined up like this most of the time:

LT Magnuson
LG Kauhi
C Ilaoa
RG Bradford
RT Petry

Sometimes Hoeh played center as well. Sometimes Barclay played OG. Sometimes Froumy played OG. Maybe they are members of the third team but they mix and match and I don’t think it makes sense to break them out separately. Didn’t see Red at all. Assume he is banged up.

Mang and Maher played a lot at TE. I think Mang was on the blue team. They didn’t throw much to either of them. Looked like they blocked okay. Guessing they don’t see them as good receiving targets. Makes me think it is a given we are bringing in a TE from the portal. Time will tell.

Courtney played a lot and got his shared of targets. Think he came though on all of them as well. Tough short passes over the middle. He did.a nice job. Alford played a fair amount and the one time they threw it long to him, he ran past his man and got a long TD down the left sideline. He can run. Looks bigger and very impressive.

They had a lot of interviews during the game. Some I could understand. Some I could not. At least 2 people said Isaiah Jones was a big surprise for the offense this spring. He made a spectacular catch on a drill and a couple nice ones on down and outs. CJ Hayes had a long catch and looked good but didn’t get a lot of targets. Don’t think he is a speed guy. Coop got some call outs for improved play in interviews and had a couple good catches. Another slot guy specializing in passes over the middle.

Hatcher has become the people’s choice on the board and he did not disappoint, getting open on a fly route pretty early and making an easy catch for a long TD. He also needs work in the weight room and is mostly now a deep play specialist.

Gadsden had some catches. Mostly short passes over the middle with no running room. He got open and caught the ball. Ja’Vontae Williams also had a couple of short catches for decent yardage in traffic. Don’t remember any drops all game long. Good to see our WRs catching it well consistently.

Don’t think Pena had any targets. He just got cleared to play and the staff might have opted to limit him to catching on special teams units.

Overall, thought the WRs played well. No drops. They looked tougher and more willing to fight for 50-50 balls.

At RB, Price looked really quick and nimble. Very impressive; And Allen, well, I think the first time he touched the ball, he went wide, took one side step to beat a guy and exploded down the side line for a TD. Had some other moments too. About as impressive a debut for a frosh RB I can remember in a spring game. And he only enrolled in January.

The first team defense was impressive. They put heavy pressure on all the QBs, pretty much shut down the run and had tight coverage all game long. G Williams just missed getting a pick. Chestnut had some nice breakups but he was beaten a couple of times (believe he committed PI).

I think the backup CBs were Wilson and Foster. Both got targeted a lot. Both had good and bad moments. I think Foster is a little ahead of Wilson right now.

The starting DL was Linton, Lockett and Caleb O. They all looked good. Good pressure from all of them. Simmons, Darton, and Geer were, I think, the second wave. They can play too, Fuentes-Candiff made a couple nice plays. Saw walk on Alberga make a nice tackle frorm behind as well.

I think Wax was out. Saw McDonald in playing with Thompson and Jones on the first group. They are an impressive group. All can run and fend off blocked with the best of them. They dominated things while they were in. Sparrow, Mason and Lowery are all capable of big plays as well. Sparrow is a good pass rusher and got a sack beating Cruz inside on one play. Mason though is the one that stands out to me. He can get to the ball and make tackles. I think he has a chance to be very good if he keeps working hard.

At safety, the starters were Coley, Carter and Simmons. Thought all looked good but Carter stood out. Just made a lot of nice plays. Was all over the field. Good to see him played at 100%. I think the second team was Folk, Greenwood and Oliver. They also played well. Especially Oliver. He is big, fast, anticipates well and tackles hard. Got a great pick jumping a route in the flat. It is going to be tough keeping him off the field. At least one of the interviewed people called him out as a player to watch out for.

It was a really well done practice and i greatly enjoyed watching it. What a vast improvement over the last couple of PR disasters. Props to Dino, the rest of the staff, the people from the ACCN and everyone else involved. Hope it was fun to watch on TV. Gotta check it out soon. I suspect it will be shown on ACCN dozens of times over the summer.

Lots of young people at the game. A bunch of HS sent people up, including Herkimer and Waverly. We like a QB from Waverly so this has to be a good sign. When I got to the dome, I wanted to get a soda but was behind dozens of kids. Someone from the concession stand came up to me and told me to go to a special line and bypass the kids. He explained that they were all from the same HS football team, which turned out to be from Herkimer. All the kids had gotten money from their parents for food but no one realized that the dome is now cashless. So all those purchased had to be made on the coaches credit card. Whoops.

Saw at least 25 recruits walk on the field just before the game started. A bunch looked really big.

They had like 25 kids have a 100 yard race on the field at halftime. The oldest boy won but a girl almost caught him. Good idea.

Again, great job by SUAD to pull this together. Really enjoyed it!

Just to add to the others Wax was out there at times too.
 
Might be by design.

You kick to the endzone, and the ball comes out to the 25.

You kick to the 3 yard line and they try to return, you can bury them.
I don't think it was by design. In the post-game presser, Dino said he noticed that none of the kickoffs went into the endzone and that he was concerned about that.
 

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