sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
- Joined
- Aug 15, 2011
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Another sellout, another very large Fine Lot SyraCruz tailgate. There was a ton of food consumed, along with many many adult beverages. Props to Nell. Jeremy, Mike L, Cliff, Bees, Rich and all the others who helped make it happen. It was another beautiful fall day in what has been a great fall season. Pretty cool to enjoy a brilliant blue sky, a warm sun and the backdrop of the Goodyear blimp.
ND had a good, not great turnout. There was probably only 500 in the normal fa section but ND fans were scattered all through the stadium, easily identified by their white skin, large bellies and ghastly green attire.
The SUMB had 10 tubas. They played the ND fight song to their fans. Classy.
This was a game it was really important to get out to a good start and we all know, that did not happen. Garrett had time on the first play from the line of scrimmage and inexplicitedly threw it directly to an ND player jumping coverage on Gadsden. Pick 6.
This was a harbinger of things to come as Garrett struggled the entire first half. He had a number of bad passes to open receivers. He seemed tentative and passed up chances to run for big yardage several times. Things that just were not in keeping with how he has played this season.
ND was as advertised. They really don’t have a QB or decent WRs and the only hope they had to win the game was to run the ball and wear down the Syracuse defense. It was much like the situation SU faced against a one dimensional Clemson offense last year.
Props to ND for executing this game plan and following the Clemson blueprint very nicely. They used a bunch of TEs, rotated their RBs to keep the fresh and ran up the middle 90% of the time. Pyne did not have a good day throwing the ball but the ND OL gave him a lot of time on passing plays, helped by a conservative SU defense that rarely or never blitzed.
ND blew the SU DL off the line of scrimmage most plays, which is pretty disturbing since they have not been great running the ball this year. SU eventually adjusted but not until the 2nd half. The SU defense spent a ton of time on the field as the SU offense again struggled to get sustained drives, otter forced to punt after running 3 ineffective plays.
It was great to get Garrett W back but he was injured and did not return. That injury unfortunately looked serious. Hope that is not the case.
Good news. Sean Tucker played the whole game. Bad news. He looked good but did not put up his normal numbers. A lot of that is on his OL, who got dominated by the ND DL.
A key moment was a 4th and 7 play late in the first half when Dino, generally extremely conservative, decided to go for it. Shrader rolled to his right and had one man to beat to get a huge gain. But he elected to throw against his body instead and made another poor pass,this time under thrown, and ND took over on downs.
ND was able to drive down the field and score, which I believe put them up 14. I believe that was where Dino determined it was time to sit GS and bring in CDRW.
CDRW did some great things and and no so great things. He played like an inexperienced QB is expected to play. I am excited about his potential but he is really wild right now and I fear he is going to throw a lot of interceptions if we are forced to play him a lot the rest of the year. Hope he learns from this experience and takes better care of the football. No question he has a strong arm and plays with a lot of confidence. Really looks relaxed and poised in the pocket. I don’t have a lot of plays to evaluate him but to me, it looks like he has a really strong arm. And it looks like he is exceptionally fast when he runs too.
I think when he plays, the band is going to be playing a lot. Sometimes it will be our band and sometimes it will be the other team’s band though.
Despite everything, we had the ball down 7 sometime around the start of the 4th quarter and were driving for the tying TD when ND DL 56 got his hand up and deflected a CDRW throw that bounced way up in the air and into the arms of an ND defender. That was another huge play that turned the game. I guess you can add the ND block of an SU punt, which I think happened the next time SU had the ball.
Max had a miserable day punting; his worse so far in his career and Dino decided to give former starter James Williams a chance to punt. James is notoriously slow getting the ball off, and was slow again on his punt and it was blocked. Pretty sure Max punted poorly because he was rushing his punts to ensure none were blocked. ND blocked 2 last week against UNLV and that scared the crap out.of the SU punting unit.
ND has a great DE who wore #7. Think his name is Farley. He dominated things all game long. Got sacks, got pressure, got tackles. A number of times Sean went out on passing routes. Farley was asked to cover him and kept right in his face, down the field. Unbelievable athlete.
Gotta give props to Andre for making that long (was it 54 yards?) FG. Think it was a career long. Brady did a good job kicking off. Thought the SU coverage teams were solid too against some excellent return guys. But the punt team was not good. Max, James and the guys who blocked for them were bad.
It looks like our offense is going to struggle the rest of the year. Tucker is not 100%. Shrader is not 100%. Will either be completely healthy the rest of the year? The only positive I can say is that today might mark the day Umari Hatcher started to emerge as a factor for SU. Umari has size and speed and I think he has the highest ceiling of any of our WRs. He needs strength but the kid can get open and he did get open today. He dropped one tough catch and they just missed on another but he did get at least one. I expect to see him get more PT the rest of the year. Cooper had another costly drop and continues to drop about half the passes thrown his way. Adams had a TD and maybe he will also get more PT down the road.
Worried about our run defense the rest of the year. Teams are going to see the film and go with a power rush attack against us.
Pitt is struggling to throw the ball and has had awful QB play (sound familiar?) but they can run the ball. Not good.
Wake always seems to have a strong rushing attack and is going to be tough to stop on offense. Though I have to say, they look awful in all aspects of the game today. Especially on offense. No pass blocking at all. Hartman is human after all.
FSU destroyed Georgia Tech and also runs it well. They are going to be a problem for our defense.
That leaves BC, who has completely imploded and has no offense at all. They are another team that can’t throw it much and can’t run it much either. That is the one game I feel good about. The rest are going to be wars that will take great efforts to win.
ND had a good, not great turnout. There was probably only 500 in the normal fa section but ND fans were scattered all through the stadium, easily identified by their white skin, large bellies and ghastly green attire.
The SUMB had 10 tubas. They played the ND fight song to their fans. Classy.
This was a game it was really important to get out to a good start and we all know, that did not happen. Garrett had time on the first play from the line of scrimmage and inexplicitedly threw it directly to an ND player jumping coverage on Gadsden. Pick 6.
This was a harbinger of things to come as Garrett struggled the entire first half. He had a number of bad passes to open receivers. He seemed tentative and passed up chances to run for big yardage several times. Things that just were not in keeping with how he has played this season.
ND was as advertised. They really don’t have a QB or decent WRs and the only hope they had to win the game was to run the ball and wear down the Syracuse defense. It was much like the situation SU faced against a one dimensional Clemson offense last year.
Props to ND for executing this game plan and following the Clemson blueprint very nicely. They used a bunch of TEs, rotated their RBs to keep the fresh and ran up the middle 90% of the time. Pyne did not have a good day throwing the ball but the ND OL gave him a lot of time on passing plays, helped by a conservative SU defense that rarely or never blitzed.
ND blew the SU DL off the line of scrimmage most plays, which is pretty disturbing since they have not been great running the ball this year. SU eventually adjusted but not until the 2nd half. The SU defense spent a ton of time on the field as the SU offense again struggled to get sustained drives, otter forced to punt after running 3 ineffective plays.
It was great to get Garrett W back but he was injured and did not return. That injury unfortunately looked serious. Hope that is not the case.
Good news. Sean Tucker played the whole game. Bad news. He looked good but did not put up his normal numbers. A lot of that is on his OL, who got dominated by the ND DL.
A key moment was a 4th and 7 play late in the first half when Dino, generally extremely conservative, decided to go for it. Shrader rolled to his right and had one man to beat to get a huge gain. But he elected to throw against his body instead and made another poor pass,this time under thrown, and ND took over on downs.
ND was able to drive down the field and score, which I believe put them up 14. I believe that was where Dino determined it was time to sit GS and bring in CDRW.
CDRW did some great things and and no so great things. He played like an inexperienced QB is expected to play. I am excited about his potential but he is really wild right now and I fear he is going to throw a lot of interceptions if we are forced to play him a lot the rest of the year. Hope he learns from this experience and takes better care of the football. No question he has a strong arm and plays with a lot of confidence. Really looks relaxed and poised in the pocket. I don’t have a lot of plays to evaluate him but to me, it looks like he has a really strong arm. And it looks like he is exceptionally fast when he runs too.
I think when he plays, the band is going to be playing a lot. Sometimes it will be our band and sometimes it will be the other team’s band though.
Despite everything, we had the ball down 7 sometime around the start of the 4th quarter and were driving for the tying TD when ND DL 56 got his hand up and deflected a CDRW throw that bounced way up in the air and into the arms of an ND defender. That was another huge play that turned the game. I guess you can add the ND block of an SU punt, which I think happened the next time SU had the ball.
Max had a miserable day punting; his worse so far in his career and Dino decided to give former starter James Williams a chance to punt. James is notoriously slow getting the ball off, and was slow again on his punt and it was blocked. Pretty sure Max punted poorly because he was rushing his punts to ensure none were blocked. ND blocked 2 last week against UNLV and that scared the crap out.of the SU punting unit.
ND has a great DE who wore #7. Think his name is Farley. He dominated things all game long. Got sacks, got pressure, got tackles. A number of times Sean went out on passing routes. Farley was asked to cover him and kept right in his face, down the field. Unbelievable athlete.
Gotta give props to Andre for making that long (was it 54 yards?) FG. Think it was a career long. Brady did a good job kicking off. Thought the SU coverage teams were solid too against some excellent return guys. But the punt team was not good. Max, James and the guys who blocked for them were bad.
It looks like our offense is going to struggle the rest of the year. Tucker is not 100%. Shrader is not 100%. Will either be completely healthy the rest of the year? The only positive I can say is that today might mark the day Umari Hatcher started to emerge as a factor for SU. Umari has size and speed and I think he has the highest ceiling of any of our WRs. He needs strength but the kid can get open and he did get open today. He dropped one tough catch and they just missed on another but he did get at least one. I expect to see him get more PT the rest of the year. Cooper had another costly drop and continues to drop about half the passes thrown his way. Adams had a TD and maybe he will also get more PT down the road.
Worried about our run defense the rest of the year. Teams are going to see the film and go with a power rush attack against us.
Pitt is struggling to throw the ball and has had awful QB play (sound familiar?) but they can run the ball. Not good.
Wake always seems to have a strong rushing attack and is going to be tough to stop on offense. Though I have to say, they look awful in all aspects of the game today. Especially on offense. No pass blocking at all. Hartman is human after all.
FSU destroyed Georgia Tech and also runs it well. They are going to be a problem for our defense.
That leaves BC, who has completely imploded and has no offense at all. They are another team that can’t throw it much and can’t run it much either. That is the one game I feel good about. The rest are going to be wars that will take great efforts to win.