sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
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Had a nice little tailgate before the spring game with some of the Fine Mess/SyraCruz regulars. It was a beautiful day and we all had a good time.
Saw the new JMA logo on the southwest corner wall of the Dome (above gayes B and J). It looked good. Giant. But good. The Lally signage looks pretty bad to my eyes but the JMA signs look okay to me, on a huge stadium.
Got in the stadium with no problems. Walked over to section 116 and got a seat about halfway down, near mid field, as per tradition. There were a lot of parents close by, crowing when their kids did well, cheering them on and happy a good time. The crowd seemed upbeat. Not huge, not BC small. Guessing about 4K all told.
A smallish version of the SUMB was in the west end zone seats, and they played many songs before and during the practice. Four tubas. You know the tuba players are all candidates to be valedictorians, so some choosing to study instead of play is understandable. But unfortunate.
I checked out the Wi-Fi. 35 mbps. Consistently. Wow. Tried to stream the spring game as an experiment. Worked flawlessly. Now there were only 4K or so people there. But I have never seen Wifi performance like this in the dome. Not sure work on this is complete but this was very promising.
They started out with players doing drills. For at least 15 minutes. Not great to watch. When they were doing drills, it appeared the punters were trying to hit the scoreboard with their punts. Stonehouse has a really strong leg and was easily the best of the bunch. Von Marburg looks improved but he is not in the same class as Stonehouse. Hawkins struggled some. James Williams didn’t even participate. He was fully dressed though. Not sure if he is hurt or what.
Watched Marburg practice FGs. He also has a really strong leg and was making 55 yard FGs with 5 yards plus to spare. He was really accurate too. More on that later. I think it is very possible he will kick a 60 yarder at some point in 2023.
The only guy I saw hurt that has not been reported was Villari. He was not dressed in pads. Was wearing sweat pants but it was clear his right leg was in a brace. He was dragging it around. What a shame, was really hoping to write that he had emerged as a major force in the offense this spring.
On the positive side. Clement was fully dressed and participated in the scrimmage. Got a lot of playing time with the first team. Moved well, looked huge as advertised. Not knowing anything, I would have guessed he was the senior in the group of TEs. He looked good catching the ball in drills and moved well. I don’t think a single pass was thrown to a TE in the scrimmage.
The format for the game was strange. There were no teams. No score was kept. As far as I could tell, no tackling was allowed except in the red zone. There was no punting or kickoffs but they did do FG attempts. But it was with no lines. Just the snapper, the holder and the place kicker.
All the FGs attempted were by Denaburg. And much to my surprise, he missed a bunch of them. Dino would have them try again when one was missed and sometimes Brady missed the second try. He was usually just a hair wide right. There were no problems getting the ball in the air or with the quality of content or distance. Accuracy was an issue though. And this is something I am going to be concerned with all summer and into the season.
The starting OL was left to right E Cruz, Ellis. Ilaoa, Bradford and More. These guys worked as a unit consistently. I didn’t see Bleich out there. He might have been dressed but I don’t think he played at all. The backups were J Cruz, Alberga, Hoeh, Bradford and Petry. And yes, Alberga had had his number changed to 56 and is now listed as an OL on the roster. So his presence at the Texas de Brazil OL dinner was legit.
Hard to see much or make much of OL play in a scrimmage but it looked like Ilaoa could lose some weight. But I did not see him get abused a lot yesterday. The first team line seemed a lot better at pass blocking. Seemed like Bradford and More were the weakest links getting beat. We have some really good pass rushers on the DL. More on that later.
We rarely used a FB last night. Mang lined up once or twice there. I saw Zeke Wright out there in the backfield late, wearing 96 I think, and he got blown up big time. We all know a big goal of the scrimmage was to limit showing other teams what we are going to do. So this might mean nothing. Or not.
Gadsden was featured early a lot and looked really good. Lamson hit him over the middle with Simmons in his face. Simmons tried to knock the ball down, and missed. OG turned and ran, about 75 yards for a TD. Showed some surprising speed doing this. He was gone after maybe two series. The staff knows what he can do.
Alford and Jones worked with the first team a lot. I think Alford dropped an easy catch and then made a nice tough catch on the sideline. His usual stuff. Jones had a couple receptions and looked good but wasn’t targeted a ton. Peña got some chances and did well. Seems like he is filling out some.
Hatcher got a long pass from CDRW down the left sideline on a fly route for a long TD. Perfect pass. Umari can run. He had a couple other catches. Looks a little bigger but still needs to get stronger. Brown got a lot of reps and also did well. Made catches on a variety of routes and looked very fast. Again, looks a little bigger but needs to add more muscle. His arms are pretty jacked now though.
I don’t remember seeing Adams out there. A bunch of players, mostly on defense were fully dressed but did not play. Guessing a lot of them have minor injuries and were held out as a precaution. Maybe that was the case with Adams too. This was the first game I got a good look at Kendall Long. Long is a big physical kid and he looked good last night. Worked with the third team offense most of the time and was clearly a favorite target for McPhail. Got open and looks comfortable catching it in traffic. Of course, he was going around 3rd team defenders a lot too. Quite a few were walk ons. But he looked promising.
Allen was the man at RB with the first team. Looks really good catching the ball out of the backfield. Ran it well though with no tackling it is tough to judge the run game. I think the only time they tackled on runs was in the red zone. Looks a bit bigger. I bet he breaks the record for most receptions by a Syracuse RB this year. Probably going to do it a few times before he is done.
Never saw Daniels out there. Not sure if he was banged up. Parkman played some and looked promising when he was in. More of a speed back type. Price didn’t play until relatively late in the scrimmage. When he got in, he did damage running it and catching it. He is our strongest back and can run too. Not sure why he got so few reps. I will speculate maybe he has a fumble problem. Nothing puts you in the doghouse with Dino more than fumbles. Escobar actually probably got more reps than any RB. He is a walk on and he looked good. Good hands and speed. Kind of undersized but he knows what he is doing out there.
That leaves the QBs.
McPhail looked like he knew the offense and was very capable. Not a super strong arm but he was accurate and made good choices when he was in. I got a Zack Maloney vibe from him. Which is a good thing.
Lamson started with the first team unit on the first drive. He started the scrimmage playing really well. The defense was the first team guys and they looked very good. We have some athletes out there and they were moving around and causing chaos. But Justin made fast decisions, hit the safe route when he was blitzed (which was often) and nickel and dimed the offense down the field. Seemed really poised and was really accurate with his passes. While he wore a brace on his knee, he moved well and showed he can do damage with his legs a few times. As the scrimmage went on, it seemed like he lost some accuracy and poise. But I never saw him make a dangerous pass or a bad decision.
CDRW started with the second team OL and played with them for a while, before he eventually switched up and played with the first team guys. I think I mentioned the second team OL struggled pass blocking. CDRW had little time and got sacked a few times. Also had to rush throws and had a number of incompletes. For a while, it looked like Lamson was clearly the better QB.
But CDRW played better later in the scrimmage. Showed he could run the ball and be a dual threat guy. Showed off that big arm of his a number of times. A few times it looked like he had a tiny window to throw to with a couple of defenders in great position but he threw it anyway. I don’t think he had any picked off but I think this is something he has to be careful of. That said, he had a couple of great long throws and it looks like this is an area he really excels at. By the end of the scrimmage. I thought he had brought himself up close to the same level as Lamson.
It should be noted that Garrett Shrader was at the scrimmage, dressed all in white (even his shoes and his baseball cap). He radiated greatness and spent a lot of time talking to the QBs when they came off the field. No casts, splints, no signs he had surgery. But he still has the beard. Kind of a short haired football Jesus.
Let’s switch to the defense now.
First thing to know is that they played with a 4 man line the whole way. There were only a couple of healthy LBs available so I don’t think they had the option to play 3 LBs at once. Lower and Mason were the scholarship LBs that played. They both looked good. It should be noted that the defense seemed to dominate most of the scrimmage. They got a lot of pressure on the QB and our DBs were all over the place, as were the LBs. Not much room for the offense to operate and a vanilla playbook didn’t help matters either.
Long rotated DL in and out a lot. We have some depth here and I think the idea is to keep them fresh. Darton played mostly early in the scrimmage and looked dominant. Caleb looks a lot bigger, more like a DT than a DE and he looked good. Fuentes looks bigger and was impressive.
As for the DEs, Jaquez was in the backfield all game and looked like our best pass rusher. Jobity was not far behind. Two young guys that really impressed were David Omopariola and Jalil Smith. David, aka the Nigerian Nightmare, looks like a terrific athlete. High ceiling. Smith made plays all over the field and was dominant when he was in.
I think Geer, Ingraham, Bassette, Simmons and Lockett sat the scrimmage out. I believe all were fully dressed. Lockett won’t be back until the fall.
That leaves the DBs. No surprises at CB. Johnson and Wilson started. Johnson was really good. Might be the most improved looking player on the field. Played physical. Bodied up WRs. Bullied them some. Looked like a top ACC CB should look like. The QBs rarely threw it his way. Wilson got picked on some and got beat deep at least one time. Needs to get more physical and stronger. Had some moments though.
I think he is going to have a hard time holding off Jay Bellamy for a starting job. Bellamy is a little taller and plays tougher. He had a strong scrimmage and looked fast and tough. He also needs to get stronger but he has confidence and talent and that is a good combination. The other backup CB is Peterson. He looked good to me. Another fine athlete with some height that needs to get stronger. He can run and it looks like he can hit too. I don’t remember seeing Delaine, who I think is the other scholarship CB on the roster. Maybe he is banged up too.
Barron is the starter at Rover. He looked really good. Thinking he is probably the most likely guy on the defense to be All ACC. Maybe one or two of the LBs that sat out last night as well. He has the size of an LB and he covers like a DB. Thinking he is gonna get drafted and play on Sundays.
The free safety starter was Clark. Again, no surprise. Like with Barron, he has filled out some more and he looked good. We are solid here.
The boundary safety was Simmons. He played good but I think he is not quite at the level of the other safeties. If a starter is going to get beat out, it is Jason.
As for the backups at the safety positions. I think they had Greenwood at Rover, Oliver at boundary and Gould at free safety. Thought Oliver and Gould looked most impressive. Both can run and hit. I think both are going to play a lot in the fall, regardless of whether they start.
Saw Ja’Had Carter sitting near us. Nice that he drove up to watch the spring game. He was walking okay and I am hoping his injury was a minor one. Good young man. I can’t blame him for taking the money and leaving Syracuse. I would have done the same thing in his circumstances. Wish him nothing but success at OSU this fall.
Great to see so many friends at the tailgate and the game. We got there relatively late and i was not able to sit with a big group of friends like I normally do, which is a shame. Ended up waving or having a brief conversation with many.
Thought this was a fun time. Thought the team looked good. The lack of depth at a bunch of positions is a concern but it looks Ike most of the issues will be cleared up as injured players heal. Reinforcements are coming and I hope we can add to them in the next few weeks and Portal Round 2 commences.
Saw the new JMA logo on the southwest corner wall of the Dome (above gayes B and J). It looked good. Giant. But good. The Lally signage looks pretty bad to my eyes but the JMA signs look okay to me, on a huge stadium.
Got in the stadium with no problems. Walked over to section 116 and got a seat about halfway down, near mid field, as per tradition. There were a lot of parents close by, crowing when their kids did well, cheering them on and happy a good time. The crowd seemed upbeat. Not huge, not BC small. Guessing about 4K all told.
A smallish version of the SUMB was in the west end zone seats, and they played many songs before and during the practice. Four tubas. You know the tuba players are all candidates to be valedictorians, so some choosing to study instead of play is understandable. But unfortunate.
I checked out the Wi-Fi. 35 mbps. Consistently. Wow. Tried to stream the spring game as an experiment. Worked flawlessly. Now there were only 4K or so people there. But I have never seen Wifi performance like this in the dome. Not sure work on this is complete but this was very promising.
They started out with players doing drills. For at least 15 minutes. Not great to watch. When they were doing drills, it appeared the punters were trying to hit the scoreboard with their punts. Stonehouse has a really strong leg and was easily the best of the bunch. Von Marburg looks improved but he is not in the same class as Stonehouse. Hawkins struggled some. James Williams didn’t even participate. He was fully dressed though. Not sure if he is hurt or what.
Watched Marburg practice FGs. He also has a really strong leg and was making 55 yard FGs with 5 yards plus to spare. He was really accurate too. More on that later. I think it is very possible he will kick a 60 yarder at some point in 2023.
The only guy I saw hurt that has not been reported was Villari. He was not dressed in pads. Was wearing sweat pants but it was clear his right leg was in a brace. He was dragging it around. What a shame, was really hoping to write that he had emerged as a major force in the offense this spring.
On the positive side. Clement was fully dressed and participated in the scrimmage. Got a lot of playing time with the first team. Moved well, looked huge as advertised. Not knowing anything, I would have guessed he was the senior in the group of TEs. He looked good catching the ball in drills and moved well. I don’t think a single pass was thrown to a TE in the scrimmage.
The format for the game was strange. There were no teams. No score was kept. As far as I could tell, no tackling was allowed except in the red zone. There was no punting or kickoffs but they did do FG attempts. But it was with no lines. Just the snapper, the holder and the place kicker.
All the FGs attempted were by Denaburg. And much to my surprise, he missed a bunch of them. Dino would have them try again when one was missed and sometimes Brady missed the second try. He was usually just a hair wide right. There were no problems getting the ball in the air or with the quality of content or distance. Accuracy was an issue though. And this is something I am going to be concerned with all summer and into the season.
The starting OL was left to right E Cruz, Ellis. Ilaoa, Bradford and More. These guys worked as a unit consistently. I didn’t see Bleich out there. He might have been dressed but I don’t think he played at all. The backups were J Cruz, Alberga, Hoeh, Bradford and Petry. And yes, Alberga had had his number changed to 56 and is now listed as an OL on the roster. So his presence at the Texas de Brazil OL dinner was legit.
Hard to see much or make much of OL play in a scrimmage but it looked like Ilaoa could lose some weight. But I did not see him get abused a lot yesterday. The first team line seemed a lot better at pass blocking. Seemed like Bradford and More were the weakest links getting beat. We have some really good pass rushers on the DL. More on that later.
We rarely used a FB last night. Mang lined up once or twice there. I saw Zeke Wright out there in the backfield late, wearing 96 I think, and he got blown up big time. We all know a big goal of the scrimmage was to limit showing other teams what we are going to do. So this might mean nothing. Or not.
Gadsden was featured early a lot and looked really good. Lamson hit him over the middle with Simmons in his face. Simmons tried to knock the ball down, and missed. OG turned and ran, about 75 yards for a TD. Showed some surprising speed doing this. He was gone after maybe two series. The staff knows what he can do.
Alford and Jones worked with the first team a lot. I think Alford dropped an easy catch and then made a nice tough catch on the sideline. His usual stuff. Jones had a couple receptions and looked good but wasn’t targeted a ton. Peña got some chances and did well. Seems like he is filling out some.
Hatcher got a long pass from CDRW down the left sideline on a fly route for a long TD. Perfect pass. Umari can run. He had a couple other catches. Looks a little bigger but still needs to get stronger. Brown got a lot of reps and also did well. Made catches on a variety of routes and looked very fast. Again, looks a little bigger but needs to add more muscle. His arms are pretty jacked now though.
I don’t remember seeing Adams out there. A bunch of players, mostly on defense were fully dressed but did not play. Guessing a lot of them have minor injuries and were held out as a precaution. Maybe that was the case with Adams too. This was the first game I got a good look at Kendall Long. Long is a big physical kid and he looked good last night. Worked with the third team offense most of the time and was clearly a favorite target for McPhail. Got open and looks comfortable catching it in traffic. Of course, he was going around 3rd team defenders a lot too. Quite a few were walk ons. But he looked promising.
Allen was the man at RB with the first team. Looks really good catching the ball out of the backfield. Ran it well though with no tackling it is tough to judge the run game. I think the only time they tackled on runs was in the red zone. Looks a bit bigger. I bet he breaks the record for most receptions by a Syracuse RB this year. Probably going to do it a few times before he is done.
Never saw Daniels out there. Not sure if he was banged up. Parkman played some and looked promising when he was in. More of a speed back type. Price didn’t play until relatively late in the scrimmage. When he got in, he did damage running it and catching it. He is our strongest back and can run too. Not sure why he got so few reps. I will speculate maybe he has a fumble problem. Nothing puts you in the doghouse with Dino more than fumbles. Escobar actually probably got more reps than any RB. He is a walk on and he looked good. Good hands and speed. Kind of undersized but he knows what he is doing out there.
That leaves the QBs.
McPhail looked like he knew the offense and was very capable. Not a super strong arm but he was accurate and made good choices when he was in. I got a Zack Maloney vibe from him. Which is a good thing.
Lamson started with the first team unit on the first drive. He started the scrimmage playing really well. The defense was the first team guys and they looked very good. We have some athletes out there and they were moving around and causing chaos. But Justin made fast decisions, hit the safe route when he was blitzed (which was often) and nickel and dimed the offense down the field. Seemed really poised and was really accurate with his passes. While he wore a brace on his knee, he moved well and showed he can do damage with his legs a few times. As the scrimmage went on, it seemed like he lost some accuracy and poise. But I never saw him make a dangerous pass or a bad decision.
CDRW started with the second team OL and played with them for a while, before he eventually switched up and played with the first team guys. I think I mentioned the second team OL struggled pass blocking. CDRW had little time and got sacked a few times. Also had to rush throws and had a number of incompletes. For a while, it looked like Lamson was clearly the better QB.
But CDRW played better later in the scrimmage. Showed he could run the ball and be a dual threat guy. Showed off that big arm of his a number of times. A few times it looked like he had a tiny window to throw to with a couple of defenders in great position but he threw it anyway. I don’t think he had any picked off but I think this is something he has to be careful of. That said, he had a couple of great long throws and it looks like this is an area he really excels at. By the end of the scrimmage. I thought he had brought himself up close to the same level as Lamson.
It should be noted that Garrett Shrader was at the scrimmage, dressed all in white (even his shoes and his baseball cap). He radiated greatness and spent a lot of time talking to the QBs when they came off the field. No casts, splints, no signs he had surgery. But he still has the beard. Kind of a short haired football Jesus.
Let’s switch to the defense now.
First thing to know is that they played with a 4 man line the whole way. There were only a couple of healthy LBs available so I don’t think they had the option to play 3 LBs at once. Lower and Mason were the scholarship LBs that played. They both looked good. It should be noted that the defense seemed to dominate most of the scrimmage. They got a lot of pressure on the QB and our DBs were all over the place, as were the LBs. Not much room for the offense to operate and a vanilla playbook didn’t help matters either.
Long rotated DL in and out a lot. We have some depth here and I think the idea is to keep them fresh. Darton played mostly early in the scrimmage and looked dominant. Caleb looks a lot bigger, more like a DT than a DE and he looked good. Fuentes looks bigger and was impressive.
As for the DEs, Jaquez was in the backfield all game and looked like our best pass rusher. Jobity was not far behind. Two young guys that really impressed were David Omopariola and Jalil Smith. David, aka the Nigerian Nightmare, looks like a terrific athlete. High ceiling. Smith made plays all over the field and was dominant when he was in.
I think Geer, Ingraham, Bassette, Simmons and Lockett sat the scrimmage out. I believe all were fully dressed. Lockett won’t be back until the fall.
That leaves the DBs. No surprises at CB. Johnson and Wilson started. Johnson was really good. Might be the most improved looking player on the field. Played physical. Bodied up WRs. Bullied them some. Looked like a top ACC CB should look like. The QBs rarely threw it his way. Wilson got picked on some and got beat deep at least one time. Needs to get more physical and stronger. Had some moments though.
I think he is going to have a hard time holding off Jay Bellamy for a starting job. Bellamy is a little taller and plays tougher. He had a strong scrimmage and looked fast and tough. He also needs to get stronger but he has confidence and talent and that is a good combination. The other backup CB is Peterson. He looked good to me. Another fine athlete with some height that needs to get stronger. He can run and it looks like he can hit too. I don’t remember seeing Delaine, who I think is the other scholarship CB on the roster. Maybe he is banged up too.
Barron is the starter at Rover. He looked really good. Thinking he is probably the most likely guy on the defense to be All ACC. Maybe one or two of the LBs that sat out last night as well. He has the size of an LB and he covers like a DB. Thinking he is gonna get drafted and play on Sundays.
The free safety starter was Clark. Again, no surprise. Like with Barron, he has filled out some more and he looked good. We are solid here.
The boundary safety was Simmons. He played good but I think he is not quite at the level of the other safeties. If a starter is going to get beat out, it is Jason.
As for the backups at the safety positions. I think they had Greenwood at Rover, Oliver at boundary and Gould at free safety. Thought Oliver and Gould looked most impressive. Both can run and hit. I think both are going to play a lot in the fall, regardless of whether they start.
Saw Ja’Had Carter sitting near us. Nice that he drove up to watch the spring game. He was walking okay and I am hoping his injury was a minor one. Good young man. I can’t blame him for taking the money and leaving Syracuse. I would have done the same thing in his circumstances. Wish him nothing but success at OSU this fall.
Great to see so many friends at the tailgate and the game. We got there relatively late and i was not able to sit with a big group of friends like I normally do, which is a shame. Ended up waving or having a brief conversation with many.
Thought this was a fun time. Thought the team looked good. The lack of depth at a bunch of positions is a concern but it looks Ike most of the issues will be cleared up as injured players heal. Reinforcements are coming and I hope we can add to them in the next few weeks and Portal Round 2 commences.
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