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My Take

sutomcat

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Sorry this wasn’t posted earlier. Had to watch the Mets last night. Played a round early this morning.

Let’s start with the tailgate. Guessing we still had 80 or 90 for Wagner. Our little get together before games has grown into something very different. But great. Props to all involved.

Benny Williams was the featured guest. He is very down to earth, and very modest. Was down to answer any question. Another great young man,

Asked him who he thought was going to start this season. He immediately said Joe, Jesse, Judah, himself and Maliq.

Then he thought about it for a sec and added, or maybe Chris instead of Maliq. It depends on whether I play small forward or power forward.

In his civilian clothes, he looked skinny. So skinny I wonder how much he is going to be able to play power forward this season.

Said his roommates this year are Judah, Chris and Shane (walk on Shane Feldman).

Said the team is working hard on playing man and zone in practice and thinks the team is really going to play man this year. Thinks this is being driven because it takes a long time to learn how to play zone and with all the new players, there isn’t time to get them all familiar with the zone.

I headed up to the dome about an hour before kickoff. It was exciting to see all 10 tubas marching on the field. 1 has been banished from marching all year. The suspension was finally lifted. Yay.

The students were loud and into the game but it was a much smaller turnout than the earlier games. The sections allocated to them in the upper deck sat empty all game. Quite unfortunate.

Wagner had a really small turnout in the lower deck section allocated for visitor seating (next to the band). But there were 50 or so people in a dark color in the section in the 300 level where visitors sit when there is a big turnout. I think some students must have come in a bus. They were gone within 20 minute leaving their bags, as they sought shelter from the devastating destruction in other areas of the dome.

I am not sure if they brought any cheerleaders or a mascot. They’re ally didn’t have a chance to cheer for anything. Quite unfortunate.

I thought the sound was better than previous games. Not great. Still major problems hearing the female emcee. When she talked, there wasn’t the usual seizure causing teradytal like shriek. Nice. But her mic seemed to stop working for every other word. So still less than optimal.

On the positive side, the kid asked to lead the ‘Let’s Go Orange’ cheer during a time out was given a microphone and even better, it worked well.

Best of all, the stat on the main center hung scoreboard insisting that Oronde Gadsden had 116 receptions for 14 yards has finally been fixed. I think the handling of stats is still very poor but has improved slightly. Didn’t see a single out of town score for college football or baseball. There is a lot of work to do here and it is sad to see how slowly things are being addressed.

At halftime, the SUMB was joined some members of two HS bands: Middletown and General Brown. They sounded good. Love this, wish we would have some HS bands join the SUMB during the halftime show for every home game. There were also a couple of older people who performed on the field that I assume were SUMB alums visiting for homecoming.

Moving on to the game. Clearly the SU staff wanted to establish the run. Clearly it was very successful. Thought we added a number of ‘new’ running plays that I think were actually mothballed after last season. Not sure how much of the success was because of new plays and how much was because of the opposition. But the OL looked a lot sharper and on point.

It should be noted that Enrique Cruz played in several series early. I believe he first came in for Ellis at LG. He also played RT for a couple of series. They had Davis move inside some. I agree with the PFF grades Bees has been posting. Ellis gained a bunch of weight during the off season, not good weight, and I think it has affected the quality of his play.

Though Enrique played well. I expect to see him more and more as the season progresses. Guessing he will mostly play RT and the Big 3 OGs who started there last year will split playing time there, with Davis continuing to also play some RT.

It was good to see Sean play like Sean. It is a shame he didn’t get the record but it almost seemed like the football gods did not want it to happen. I know a lot of people are criticizing Dino over playing the starters up 50 early in the second half but I think he did it to get Sean a prestigious record and reward him for his patience and loyalty. I don’t really have a problem with that.

OG played like OG. Nice. Courtney had a nice bounce back game, which he needed. Sweet. Alford had a couple nice moments as a WR, catching the ball and blocking. Cooper had a couple nice moments and looked solid. Pena had a catch and I think needs more targets. Quelley was released from the witness protection program and had a nice catch. Hatcher finally got some reps last week and this week, got his first reception. That hustle play to hold off the closest Wagner guy running down Allen was awesome to see and really showcased his speed. Hope we see more and more of him as the season progresses. I think we will.

Shrader wasn’t perfect. A few of his throws were off target but his receivers bailed him out with good catches. On a lot of the passing plays, Wagner looked confused and you could see the first, second and third options all wide open. They were not ready for our passing offense, or our running offense. Understatement of the year.

On defense, Tony White played a lot of people. He always plays a lot of people but this game, he REALLY played a lot of people. Jones was out early. More starters started leaving early in the second quarter and by the third quarter, it was mostly the second team out there on defenses. They did surprisingly well.

Lowery was really active. Looked vastly improved over last season. I don’t remember Barron playing much. He had to miss the first and I am not sure he even played in the second half. It is a shame Hanna got the targeting call but I think it was legit and hopefully he will learn from it.

The play of the game was probably the route Duce jumped to get that pick 6. Beautiful.

I think Geer is developing into our next great DL. Seems to get better each game. Very impressive player. Darton and Caleb just make plays every game. Reliable and dependable. Jobity flashed some in his first real playing time. It is a shame Jaquez got hurt. Looked like it might have been friendly fire frmo Sparrow, who looked really upset after the play. Anwar had another good game BTW. Oliver had his first real playing time and looked good. Nice to see the backups able to stop the Wagner first team.

Good effort. Hope NC State can beat FSU and that is good enough to get us on Gameday in two weeks. That would be really cool.
 
Really interesting note from Benny that Maliq is in the starting mix.

Yeah might just need a separate thread on the hoops board just based on those comments.. very interesting.. then again mtm comments maybe even more so.
 
Yeah might just need a separate thread on the hoops board just based on those comments.. very interesting.. then again mtm comments maybe even more so.
As I've stated, I'm a Boeheim man to man denier.

I won't believe it until I see it.

And if I ever do see it, I'll deny it and won't believe it.
 
Really interesting note from Benny that Maliq is in the starting mix.
I have been surprised that so many people were NOT thinking this was a possibility. So far...merely so far, mind you...Benny has not shown the skills to be effective at the 3 nor the muscle to be effective at the 4. Really rooting hard for the kid but he is still developing. The staff will likely take a long look at Maliq at the 4 (and Benny at the 3) for the rebounding factor alone. They may not stick with him, but he will get a good look before they make a firm decision.
 
Barron didn’t play at all on defense. Lowery was in the backfield all game. The program is very deep at linebacker and safety.
Really sucks to lose anothe defensive lineman. Jacquez injury looked bad. I didn’t see Jobity will definitely look for him on replay.
 
I have been surprised that so many people were NOT thinking this was a possibility. So far...merely so far, mind you...Benny has not shown the skills to be effective at the 3 nor the muscle to be effective at the 4. Really rooting hard for the kid but he is still developing. The staff will likely take a long look at Maliq at the 4 (and Benny at the 3) for the rebounding factor alone. They may not stick with him, but he will get a good look before they make a firm decision.
I definitely think there's a good possibility Maliq plays. We're going to need someone other than Jesse to rebound.

It's just most of the other forward starting speculation has been around Bunch or Taylor.
 
I have been surprised that so many people were NOT thinking this was a possibility. So far...merely so far, mind you...Benny has not shown the skills to be effective at the 3 nor the muscle to be effective at the 4. Really rooting hard for the kid but he is still developing. The staff will likely take a long look at Maliq at the 4 (and Benny at the 3) for the rebounding factor alone. They may not stick with him, but he will get a good look before they make a firm decision.

If we break form and play mtm it makes even more sense given the noted ability he has to guard so many positions.
 
Best of all, the stat on the main center hung scoreboard insisting that Oronde Gadsden had 116 receptions for 14 yards has finally been fixed. I think the handling of stats is still very poor but has improved slightly. Didn’t see a single out of town score for college football or baseball. There is a lot of work to do here and it is sad to see how slowly things are being addressed.

He's listed as Oronde Gadsden II.

If Joe Girard III played WR, he'd have 1116 receptions for 14 yards. A really bad average if you asked me.
 
Thanks for the writeup of one of the most overmatched opponents we’ve ever faced. Tough to get terribly excited about the win but I think that was our karmic reward for some tough wins preceding it.
 
We really should be embarrassed for dipping so low into the D1 ranks for an opponent. If we're going to play an FCS team (no problem with that) we should at least play someone at the Patriot League level.
 
Sorry this wasn’t posted earlier. Had to watch the Mets last night. Played a round early this morning.

Let’s start with the tailgate. Guessing we still had 80 or 90 for Wagner. Our little get together before games has grown into something very different. But great. Props to all involved.

Benny Williams was the featured guest. He is very down to earth, and very modest. Was down to answer any question. Another great young man,

Asked him who he thought was going to start this season. He immediately said Joe, Jesse, Judah, himself and Maliq.

Then he thought about it for a sec and added, or maybe Chris instead of Maliq. It depends on whether I play small forward or power forward.

In his civilian clothes, he looked skinny. So skinny I wonder how much he is going to be able to play power forward this season.

Said his roommates this year are Judah, Chris and Shane (walk on Shane Feldman).

Said the team is working hard on playing man and zone in practice and thinks the team is really going to play man this year. Thinks this is being driven because it takes a long time to learn how to play zone and with all the new players, there isn’t time to get them all familiar with the zone.

I headed up to the dome about an hour before kickoff. It was exciting to see all 10 tubas marching on the field. 1 has been banished from marching all year. The suspension was finally lifted. Yay.

The students were loud and into the game but it was a much smaller turnout than the earlier games. The sections allocated to them in the upper deck sat empty all game. Quite unfortunate.

Wagner had a really small turnout in the lower deck section allocated for visitor seating (next to the band). But there were 50 or so people in a dark color in the section in the 300 level where visitors sit when there is a big turnout. I think some students must have come in a bus. They were gone within 20 minute leaving their bags, as they sought shelter from the devastating destruction in other areas of the dome.

I am not sure if they brought any cheerleaders or a mascot. They’re ally didn’t have a chance to cheer for anything. Quite unfortunate.

I thought the sound was better than previous games. Not great. Still major problems hearing the female emcee. When she talked, there wasn’t the usual seizure causing teradytal like shriek. Nice. But her mic seemed to stop working for every other word. So still less than optimal.

On the positive side, the kid asked to lead the ‘Let’s Go Orange’ cheer during a time out was given a microphone and even better, it worked well.

Best of all, the stat on the main center hung scoreboard insisting that Oronde Gadsden had 116 receptions for 14 yards has finally been fixed. I think the handling of stats is still very poor but has improved slightly. Didn’t see a single out of town score for college football or baseball. There is a lot of work to do here and it is sad to see how slowly things are being addressed.

At halftime, the SUMB was joined some members of two HS bands: Middletown and General Brown. They sounded good. Love this, wish we would have some HS bands join the SUMB during the halftime show for every home game. There were also a couple of older people who performed on the field that I assume were SUMB alums visiting for homecoming.

Moving on to the game. Clearly the SU staff wanted to establish the run. Clearly it was very successful. Thought we added a number of ‘new’ running plays that I think were actually mothballed after last season. Not sure how much of the success was because of new plays and how much was because of the opposition. But the OL looked a lot sharper and on point.

It should be noted that Enrique Cruz played in several series early. I believe he first came in for Ellis at LG. He also played RT for a couple of series. They had Davis move inside some. I agree with the PFF grades Bees has been posting. Ellis gained a bunch of weight during the off season, not good weight, and I think it has affected the quality of his play.

Though Enrique played well. I expect to see him more and more as the season progresses. Guessing he will mostly play RT and the Big 3 OGs who started there last year will split playing time there, with Davis continuing to also play some RT.

It was good to see Sean play like Sean. It is a shame he didn’t get the record but it almost seemed like the football gods did not want it to happen. I know a lot of people are criticizing Dino over playing the starters up 50 early in the second half but I think he did it to get Sean a prestigious record and reward him for his patience and loyalty. I don’t really have a problem with that.

OG played like OG. Nice. Courtney had a nice bounce back game, which he needed. Sweet. Alford had a couple nice moments as a WR, catching the ball and blocking. Cooper had a couple nice moments and looked solid. Pena had a catch and I think needs more targets. Quelley was released from the witness protection program and had a nice catch. Hatcher finally got some reps last week and this week, got his first reception. That hustle play to hold off the closest Wagner guy running down Allen was awesome to see and really showcased his speed. Hope we see more and more of him as the season progresses. I think we will.

Shrader wasn’t perfect. A few of his throws were off target but his receivers bailed him out with good catches. On a lot of the passing plays, Wagner looked confused and you could see the first, second and third options all wide open. They were not ready for our passing offense, or our running offense. Understatement of the year.

On defense, Tony White played a lot of people. He always plays a lot of people but this game, he REALLY played a lot of people. Jones was out early. More starters started leaving early in the second quarter and by the third quarter, it was mostly the second team out there on defenses. They did surprisingly well.

Lowery was really active. Looked vastly improved over last season. I don’t remember Barron playing much. He had to miss the first and I am not sure he even played in the second half. It is a shame Hanna got the targeting call but I think it was legit and hopefully he will learn from it.

The play of the game was probably the route Duce jumped to get that pick 6. Beautiful.

I think Geer is developing into our next great DL. Seems to get better each game. Very impressive player. Darton and Caleb just make plays every game. Reliable and dependable. Jobity flashed some in his first real playing time. It is a shame Jaquez got hurt. Looked like it might have been friendly fire frmo Sparrow, who looked really upset after the play. Anwar had another good game BTW. Oliver had his first real playing time and looked good. Nice to see the backups able to stop the Wagner first team.

Good effort. Hope NC State can beat FSU and that is good enough to get us on Gameday in two weeks. That would be really cool.

Good post as always but your attendance guess for the tailgate is extremely low, we were around 115-120 at least.
 
Thanks for the writeup of one of the most overmatched opponents we’ve ever faced. Tough to get terribly excited about the win but I think that was our karmic reward for some tough wins preceding it.
The relative performance was outstanding. Get get they were mismatched by they only got to club that seal for 50 minutes, slow played it, and put up those numbers effortlessly.
 
Many schools play teams of this type every year and yet why do SU fans feel so guilty about it? SU plays a very competitive schedule year in and year out and I enjoyed seeing them do what they were supposed to do, crush of a very weak opponent with class.
 
Sorry this wasn’t posted earlier. Had to watch the Mets last night. Played a round early this morning.

Let’s start with the tailgate. Guessing we still had 80 or 90 for Wagner. Our little get together before games has grown into something very different. But great. Props to all involved.

Benny Williams was the featured guest. He is very down to earth, and very modest. Was down to answer any question. Another great young man,

Asked him who he thought was going to start this season. He immediately said Joe, Jesse, Judah, himself and Maliq.

Then he thought about it for a sec and added, or maybe Chris instead of Maliq. It depends on whether I play small forward or power forward.

In his civilian clothes, he looked skinny. So skinny I wonder how much he is going to be able to play power forward this season.

Said his roommates this year are Judah, Chris and Shane (walk on Shane Feldman).

Said the team is working hard on playing man and zone in practice and thinks the team is really going to play man this year. Thinks this is being driven because it takes a long time to learn how to play zone and with all the new players, there isn’t time to get them all familiar with the zone.

I headed up to the dome about an hour before kickoff. It was exciting to see all 10 tubas marching on the field. 1 has been banished from marching all year. The suspension was finally lifted. Yay.

The students were loud and into the game but it was a much smaller turnout than the earlier games. The sections allocated to them in the upper deck sat empty all game. Quite unfortunate.

Wagner had a really small turnout in the lower deck section allocated for visitor seating (next to the band). But there were 50 or so people in a dark color in the section in the 300 level where visitors sit when there is a big turnout. I think some students must have come in a bus. They were gone within 20 minute leaving their bags, as they sought shelter from the devastating destruction in other areas of the dome.

I am not sure if they brought any cheerleaders or a mascot. They’re ally didn’t have a chance to cheer for anything. Quite unfortunate.

I thought the sound was better than previous games. Not great. Still major problems hearing the female emcee. When she talked, there wasn’t the usual seizure causing teradytal like shriek. Nice. But her mic seemed to stop working for every other word. So still less than optimal.

On the positive side, the kid asked to lead the ‘Let’s Go Orange’ cheer during a time out was given a microphone and even better, it worked well.

Best of all, the stat on the main center hung scoreboard insisting that Oronde Gadsden had 116 receptions for 14 yards has finally been fixed. I think the handling of stats is still very poor but has improved slightly. Didn’t see a single out of town score for college football or baseball. There is a lot of work to do here and it is sad to see how slowly things are being addressed.

At halftime, the SUMB was joined some members of two HS bands: Middletown and General Brown. They sounded good. Love this, wish we would have some HS bands join the SUMB during the halftime show for every home game. There were also a couple of older people who performed on the field that I assume were SUMB alums visiting for homecoming.

Moving on to the game. Clearly the SU staff wanted to establish the run. Clearly it was very successful. Thought we added a number of ‘new’ running plays that I think were actually mothballed after last season. Not sure how much of the success was because of new plays and how much was because of the opposition. But the OL looked a lot sharper and on point.

It should be noted that Enrique Cruz played in several series early. I believe he first came in for Ellis at LG. He also played RT for a couple of series. They had Davis move inside some. I agree with the PFF grades Bees has been posting. Ellis gained a bunch of weight during the off season, not good weight, and I think it has affected the quality of his play.

Though Enrique played well. I expect to see him more and more as the season progresses. Guessing he will mostly play RT and the Big 3 OGs who started there last year will split playing time there, with Davis continuing to also play some RT.

It was good to see Sean play like Sean. It is a shame he didn’t get the record but it almost seemed like the football gods did not want it to happen. I know a lot of people are criticizing Dino over playing the starters up 50 early in the second half but I think he did it to get Sean a prestigious record and reward him for his patience and loyalty. I don’t really have a problem with that.

OG played like OG. Nice. Courtney had a nice bounce back game, which he needed. Sweet. Alford had a couple nice moments as a WR, catching the ball and blocking. Cooper had a couple nice moments and looked solid. Pena had a catch and I think needs more targets. Quelley was released from the witness protection program and had a nice catch. Hatcher finally got some reps last week and this week, got his first reception. That hustle play to hold off the closest Wagner guy running down Allen was awesome to see and really showcased his speed. Hope we see more and more of him as the season progresses. I think we will.

Shrader wasn’t perfect. A few of his throws were off target but his receivers bailed him out with good catches. On a lot of the passing plays, Wagner looked confused and you could see the first, second and third options all wide open. They were not ready for our passing offense, or our running offense. Understatement of the year.

On defense, Tony White played a lot of people. He always plays a lot of people but this game, he REALLY played a lot of people. Jones was out early. More starters started leaving early in the second quarter and by the third quarter, it was mostly the second team out there on defenses. They did surprisingly well.

Lowery was really active. Looked vastly improved over last season. I don’t remember Barron playing much. He had to miss the first and I am not sure he even played in the second half. It is a shame Hanna got the targeting call but I think it was legit and hopefully he will learn from it.

The play of the game was probably the route Duce jumped to get that pick 6. Beautiful.

I think Geer is developing into our next great DL. Seems to get better each game. Very impressive player. Darton and Caleb just make plays every game. Reliable and dependable. Jobity flashed some in his first real playing time. It is a shame Jaquez got hurt. Looked like it might have been friendly fire frmo Sparrow, who looked really upset after the play. Anwar had another good game BTW. Oliver had his first real playing time and looked good. Nice to see the backups able to stop the Wagner first team.

Good effort. Hope NC State can beat FSU and that is good enough to get us on Gameday in two weeks. That would be really cool.
I wouldn't be too hard on the students. Beautiful day + lousy game = pre-gaming never ended.

They have shown up in droves for the other games and I will expect the same for the rest of the season.

And if we get Gameday, I expect Castle Court to simply pick itself up and move itself to the Gameday location.
 
I wouldn't be too hard on the students. Beautiful day + lousy game = pre-gaming never ended.

They have shown up in droves for the other games and I will expect the same for the rest of the season.

And if we get Gameday, I expect Castle Court to simply pick itself up and move itself to the Gameday location.
Agree, the student section was great last year and somehow is even better this season. I have given them kudos a number of times and will continue to do so.

Hard to get excited about Wagner. Especially with all the other options those kids have on a Saturday night.
 
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I have been surprised that so many people were NOT thinking this was a possibility. So far...merely so far, mind you...Benny has not shown the skills to be effective at the 3 nor the muscle to be effective at the 4. Really rooting hard for the kid but he is still developing. The staff will likely take a long look at Maliq at the 4 (and Benny at the 3) for the rebounding factor alone. They may not stick with him, but he will get a good look before they make a firm decision.
Play your best players. Start 3 guards and hope someone can play foward.
 
As I've stated, I'm a Boeheim man to man denier.

I won't believe it until I see it.

And if I ever do see it, I'll deny it and won't believe it.

Two factors might make it real this time, at least as an option.

(1) Our zone was terrible with Andrew White and John Gillon until January, and by then, the season was lost.

(2). As shooters get more and more comfortable with longer 3 point attempts, the ability of untested players to get the rotations right is unlikely.
 

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