Gotta be short. Just put the granddaughter to bed and I have an early tee time.
Today was a good day. Usually big tailgate on an unusually hot September day. The food was very good and there was a lot of it. Props to all involved, especially the grillers. It was hot enough without standing in front of a fire and smoke filled grill. Good job by everyone who worked the tailgate.
I left about an hour early. Did not see the excellent new tribute to Carrier. Will look for it next time. I sit on the 300 level, where little was done so I didn’t see major changes. It is my understanding that the steps that led from the lower level concourse to stadium seating have been replaced with ramps. Part of the Uber expensive series of changes required by ADA. I believe they also added widened the rows. I would think this will open up a lot more of the dome to handicapped people. Hope this increases attendance for handicapped individuals in the dome. Seems to me the areas set aside for them are very underused today.
I saw a lot of WAP looking equipment installed near the top of the 300 sections, up on the wall just below where it meets the ceiling. Saw no improvement in my cell signal, as expected. I connected to the OrangeHotSpot WAN and got much better results than just using cell. And I continued to get good throughput all game long. So it looks to me as though the Wi-Fi has been improved.
The band took the field. They looked good. Especially the sousaphone people. This year they have switched to wearing orange berets. Believe they are the only group in SUMB to not wear the big traditional hats with the plume. Cool. Alas, I only counted nine sousaphones. Not cool.
The band sounded good.
Saw More and Ellis in walking boots. They look like they were made to immobilize the ankle. Guessing they both have high ankle sprains. Hope they recover quickly.
With Ellis and More out, Bradford was the next man up at OG and he got the start. Despite the great production on offense, I thought the OL was bad. Especially pass blocking. Seemed like they were able to open holes for LeQuint to run through on run plays most of the time but there were a lot of missed blocks and blown assignments on pass plays. Hard to see from where I was but it looked like the right side of the line had most of the problems. And center. Looked like Reed and Bradford struggled pass blocking. The others weren’t a ton better. Props to Garrett for saving a number of plays with his athletic ability and good vision.
We gotta do better here or there is no way Garrett makes it through the end of September.
Thought Allen looked quick and elusive and even broke a few tackles. Impressive game for him. Though It looked like he should have broken a few runs outside where he could have gotten more daylight. When he left and Price entered the game, our running game got a lot worse. Price looked tentative and rusty. Later Daniels got a bunch of carries and looked very good. He might play his way into a second string slot at RB pretty soon if he continues to play like this. Nice for a true fresh RB.
It looked like Garrett went to OG a lot and maybe focused on him a bit too much. Maybe that was just questionable play calling but I can’t criticize the play calls much. Colgate looked totally befuddled and lost on defense almost the entire game. Lots of talk about whether someone would step up as the second WR. Well, a bunch of WRs got chances and I think they all did well when the ball was thrown their way.
Thought Jones was open every time the ball went his way and he caught it well and got some YAC too. Looked solid. Alford had a nice TD but not a ton of other touches. Long looked good in limited action. Only remember one ball thrown to Gill and he looked really good on it, and got the ball into the end zone. That is how you win PT early in your career.
OG looked like he always dOnes. Got open a lot. Looked like he went down without a fight a number of times. I assume the staff told him to do this and be sure to not get hurt. Hatcher seemed to do damage every time he was targeted and was impressive. It was a good day for the group.
The SU defense got their shutout and really dominated the Colgate offense. They didn’t get across the 50 yard line until 7 minutes were left in the game. I think SU was playing some walk ons on defense by then. They only had 2 first downs for a really long time. Why were they so good?
Looked like Rocky blitzed more than White did and Colgate was unprepared for a lot of the different looks Long had them use. Vey impressive first game as DC for Long.
Wax dominated and looked really good. Simmons had a big game and got a pick six. Clark got injured early as collateral damage on a big hit by Wax but stayed in and made some plays. Barron was all over the field and made a lot ogf Colgate guys black and blue. Johnson locked down his guy and Wilson did a good job too. Lowery and McDonald were forces as well. Lots of TFL, sacks and QB hurries for everyone. But Caleb really seemed to dominate and had a bunch of big hits. This was a dominating performance by the whole SU DL and hopefully the start if something big this season.
The second team played most of the second half and also looked very good. Roon was a manimal. Bailey was destroying people out there. We have some depth, especially on defense.
Special teams were solid. Adams filled in ably as the return guy and had a couple impressive runs. Stonehouse boomed a punt. Didn’t get a lot of action. Denaberg nailed his PATs, made his FG and had one of the best days kicking off in SU history. Lots of balls out of the end zone. Coverage units were good too. Adams caught a kickoff about to go OB and someone, I assume Callahan, had a bad snap on a PAT but overall that was a top notch special teams performance. Gotta mention a sequence early though when Colgate was forced to punt and our return team made two penalties in a row to give them a first down. I think one was an off sides and one an illegal formation. SU was moving players around and it looked like they really wanted to disrupt Colgate and get a block. If nothing else, it was interesting.
Should mention that CDRW looked like a polished veteran out there, taking what the defense gve him and working the team down the field methodilically. He looked markedly more mature and was impressive. Shader missed a couple of throws but again, he rarely had time to throw. The pick near the end of the first half was not like him and disturbing. He ran around and made people missed like he did in the past when healthy. Good performance. Lots of production. But not his A game.
Crowd was small but loud. Most of the credit goes to the SU student section, which was again huge and very loud. Props to Otto’s Army.
