My Take | Page 2 | Syracusefan.com

My Take

How did people feel about the noise level? I thought it was greatly improved. I like it when We made the noise, as we should, but hate the painfully loud speaker system. I wore ear plugs anyway but every time I took them out I didn’t gasp with horror. Improvement! And we could talk to the people around us. Good job, Sala! I am going to write to him again tomorrow.
 
Diggs shouldn't have been there. you don't cross that 10 yard line unless you think you have a play and can grab it cleanly. I know Fran said that's on him... but that's stuff your special teams coach should have been preaching to his team when doing situational drills. That ball was only about 6-7 yards downfield, not like it was even close to making the 10 yards at that point.
Maybe.

Another play though is for guys to go forward and block so the hands guys can grab it cleanly, without guys crashing in on them as the ball gets there. I’m assuming that was what Diggs was doing a he was blocking not trying to get the ball.
 
That is a specific play, yes. In the post game presser though, Fran specifically said no one should have been there, and that we should blame him and not the players or the ST coach.

As a general rule you don't cross that 10 yards unless you are sure you can catch it OR you have a play set up to have gunners blow up the kicking team so your hands guys can grab it.
 
As you mentioned, Cuse was much more physically dominant. They mentioned on the broadcast that Cuse wanted to be the hammer and not the nail. We were definitely the hammer and we did it against a ranked team in our house. Of course we still need to be able to do it on the road but take away the ST play and the game wasn't that close.

That NC State game doesn't look so daunting, the way they got smacked around by Tennessee. A beat down like that sticks with a team that had high hopes.

And ironically the UNLV game may wind up the tougher road game in the first half of the schedule.
 
Nice bounce-back effort by UH with 5 catches. OG and Pena could not be contained. OL was dominant in a pass-heavy game plan (46/32). And our secondary covered well all day forcing dump-offs, except when Singleton glided by two of our safeties (Cinco and Gould) for a 45 yard reception. Great to wipe the smirk off Key's face.
Good point about Hatcher. He had a nice game today.
 
That NC State game doesn't look so daunting, the way they got smacked around by Tennessee. A beat down like that sticks with a team that had high hopes.

And ironically the UNLV game may wind up the tougher road game in the first half of the schedule.
Agreed. The UNLV game looks much tougher than NC State game at this point. If we win the UNLV game I think we are going to have a really nice season.
 
Good win for us, but besides their victory over FSU, GT has been very sub-par over the last 7 seasons - little reason (besides our run defense last week) for us not to expect the win. Disappointed that we only won by 3; we were the best team on both sides of the ball today. Regardless, I'm happy.
 
Officials I feel where much better then last week buuut that is a low bar.
The last hit I agree he was slowing down, I think they where looking at his arms pushing a bit, still don't think it's a flag.
They missed a target on Nixon, defender lead with helmet right into Nixon.
The knee down had a ton of bad angles but on one good one you can see it's not down and the black beads coming up where from his foot dragging.
I'm glad I wasn't the only one who thought it was a targeting hit on Nixon, but you know even if they reviewed it, the other team is never guilty of targeting ala last week on the obvious one by the Ohio dude on the KO.
 
IMG_0099.jpeg
 
The first replay they showed in the dome you could see daylight under King's knee, then they a showed some bad angles from above and behind where it was questionable, but thought it was the right call. End of the day McDonald needs to be better.
Maybe, but I was suprised that none of the linemen were able to get their QB near the line after McDonald slowed him down.
 
Maybe, but I was suprised that none of the linemen were able to get their QB near the line after McDonald slowed him down.
At the time, I thought they were very lucky to get that TD, but I think they ran the same play later and easily scored a clean TD.
 
This has to be short.

Missed the tailgate. Played a couple rounds at Thendara yesterday. Did not get home until just before 11 pm. Had to sleep in because I was tired.

But it looked great, even with a pouring rain coming down. Props to everyone involved for making these happen in wind, rain, sleet or snow. Awesome.

Headed up to the dome early. Got a Freeney towel. Cool. Watched the team go through warmups. They looked very focused.

8 tubas. Grateful for one more but improvement is needed.

I don’t miss the train whistle. Just wasn’t my thing. Hated it at Purdue too. Some of the stuff they do during commercials is lame but it seemed like there weren’t quite as many appearances by the in game host and it wasn’t as intrusive. They did get the kid a mallet to use when hitting the base drum but you still couldn't;t hit it. One would think someone would test these ideas before hand to see if they have a chance of working. I think this one needs to end.

They did show out of town scores on the center hung at least once. Progress. Need to have a corner scoreboard dedicated for this. Maybe they have and I missed it?

SUMB sounded great. They did a nice tribute to all the armed services at half time on Military Appreciation Day. The ceremony to honor Dwight Freeney was nicely done and it looked like it touched Dwight. Overall, not a bad job.

But let’s talk about the game.

SU won the toss. Took the ball. Marched down the field and scored pretty easily. GT looked confused and pretty slow. GT fans on their board say they saw McCord talked to his teammates on the sideline early after a scoring drive telling them that the GT defenders were ‘slow as fxxx’. Not sure if that is true (if McCord said it) but I think it is fair to say SU had open receivers just about every time they tried to pass it. Props to the OL for giving Kyle plenty of time to throw. Props to the receivers for running good routes and getting open (and making the catches). Props to McCord for his many accurate throws, where a bunch were thrown well down the field. Adn special props to OC Jeff /Nixon, who called another great game. SU had players open on playing plays all game and when they ran, there were openings there too. When GT tried to blitz, McCord usually made them pay for it with a long gain on a passing play. They had no response to stop the SU offense. SU had over 500 yards of total offense and could have added a lot more had they wanted to.

It looked to me as though GT tried to double OG a lot, and this helped Pena (another big game), Hatcher and others to get open. But when they really needed a play, it usually went to OG and OG usually came though. He was the best player on the field again in week 2.

Lots of imaginative calls from Nixon. When the players said the new offense was more complex, they weren’t lying.

They opened things with 3 TEs in a super heavy look but most of the game, I think SU went with 3 or even 4 WRs, spreading out the GT defenders and making space for McCord to get the ball to SU receivers.

On defense, we really changed things up. It looked to me as though Diggs played all of the game, or almost all the game at LB. McDonald, Sparrow and Omopariola (I think) also played at LB, but I did not see ZMG. I wonder if he is banged up some?

I expected GT was going to either hurt us badly with running plays or hurt us badly with long passing plays, but really, neither of these things were the case. The GT OL struggled to open holes against a Syracuse DL that was embarrassed by Ohio last week. To be fair, it looked like SU often ran run blitzes on running downs and these hurt GT as well. This was often how we had players in the backfield tackling GT RBs almost as they were getting the ball.

It looked like GT tried to throw deep a lot. Thought I saw King looked downfield on a number of passing plays but over and over he was forced to settle for a short passs to the flat for a short gain. I think SU played some zone and the safeties helped the corners out. Already seeing the benefits of having the best DB coach in college football on the staff. As it happens, he is also a pretty good head coach.

We didn’t get a ton of pressure on King, but I don’t know that this was a huge priority. I think we were happy to give them short dings over the middle or to the sidelines. GT tried to make first downs with YAC but SU tackled much better this game and they struggled to find any daylight. Really, the only guy who hurt SU much was King on QB draws. It is tough to be competitive in the ACC with undersized RBs and WRs. That is what GT has to work with.

Gotta talk about the special teams disaster a bit. So many problems. A punt was blocked. I thought watching real time part of it was on Stonehouse, who seemed to take a long time to get the punt off. But there was also a blocking backdown. There was also a blocking breakdown on the blocked FG attempt. At least it looked like it in real time.

But wait, there is more!

Denaberg generally hit his KOs deep into the end zone and they were downed. But he kicked one low and sideways, like he was trying to bounce it into the end zone just inside the end line. It went OB and GT was gifted with a start at the 35. Not good. he hit another weakly down the middle that ended up getting returned. Is he banged up? What the heck happened to Mr Money?

But the most special of the special teams plays was the on sides kick GT attempted. It looked like a bad kick that was destined to go OB without traveling for 10 yards. But it appeared to me that an SU played decided to touch it at a point where it was maybe 6 yards downfield. And didn’t hold on to the ball. Just an awful awful play

And speaking of awful, how about those referees (and also the ACC replay center officials in Charlotte)?

Maybe the replays shown on the scoreboard were wrong or I was crazy or something. But how was the ‘late hit’ called? This was a play on the sideline where an SU DB (I believe it was Lewis) visibly slowed down as he neared the GT player who was stepping OB. They gently met. And a flag was thrown. What the heck?

And the play when King Haynes was trying to pass it and got pulled on by an SU defender, who got his knee to touch the ground (on the dome scoreboard, you could clearly see the black rubber bits fly up as his knee hit the turf. What happened there? I get the refs missing the call in real time. They missed a ton of stuff. Clearly not a good crew. But how does the replay also get messed up? Again. Is this going to happen to Syracuse all season?

We got called for a chop block (I think they called that one on LeQuint). A bunch of other stuff I never saw. What was the backdown on penalty yards? It didnt seem even remotely close. I saw Fran almost lose it a couple times. I hope the refs can do a better job the rest of the season.

Syracuse won. It wasn’t a fluke. The SU OL dominated the GT DL. The SU DL dominated the GT OL. SU hit the crap out of the smaller, slower, less athletic GT players and a lot of them got hurt. Sorry for that but when you play a game and get 10 players hurt and no one on the other team gets hurt, that tells you your team just got its butt kicked. I hope all the GT injured players are able to return to game action soon.

For all the physical dominance SU had, some spectularly bad special teams play and a number of questionable ref calls kept it close. But in the end, the better team won. I thought GT made a lot of really good tackles in the open field all game long where a GT player just got his hand on a heel of an SU player to get them down where SU was an inch from breaking a big play. But GT kept doing it and it kept them in the game. Was impressed they never gave up and played hard to the final whistle.

Thought the GT coaches were badly out coached though. The GT OC looked pretty clueless and the GT DC, who was highly touted, was made to look like a fool by SU OC Jeff Nixon. That is really good to see. If we can get our special teams issued straighted out during the bye, maybe we can be something pretty good.

This was a big win. We are now going to be taken seriously. I expect we will go from being ranked 13-16 in many ‘expert’ rankings of ACC programs up to the 5-8 range. The talk of SU being real and the hype for what Fran is doing at Syracuse is going to get louder. And yes, our chances to host a Game Day just got a big boost. Still need a lot of things to happen but if it was gonna happen this year, we needed to win this game.

I think having a bye now is good. The team just went through two tough games against good opponents and can use some time to heal up. But so far, so good..
The big question in the off season was, 'can Fran coach and manage the program', seems like that has been mostly answered.
 
How did people feel about the noise level? I thought it was greatly improved. I like it when We made the noise, as we should, but hate the painfully loud speaker system. I wore ear plugs anyway but every time I took them out I didn’t gasp with horror. Improvement! And we could talk to the people around us. Good job, Sala! I am going to write to him again tomorrow.
Agree. It sounded like they lowered the volume on the PA system to tolerable levels. Not sure how they decided to set it so loud, but glad they finally got it right.
 
This has to be short.

Missed the tailgate. Played a couple rounds at Thendara yesterday. Did not get home until just before 11 pm. Had to sleep in because I was tired.

But it looked great, even with a pouring rain coming down. Props to everyone involved for making these happen in wind, rain, sleet or snow. Awesome.

Headed up to the dome early. Got a Freeney towel. Cool. Watched the team go through warmups. They looked very focused.

8 tubas. Grateful for one more but improvement is needed.

I don’t miss the train whistle. Just wasn’t my thing. Hated it at Purdue too. Some of the stuff they do during commercials is lame but it seemed like there weren’t quite as many appearances by the in game host and it wasn’t as intrusive. They did get the kid a mallet to use when hitting the base drum but you still couldn't;t hit it. One would think someone would test these ideas before hand to see if they have a chance of working. I think this one needs to end.

They did show out of town scores on the center hung at least once. Progress. Need to have a corner scoreboard dedicated for this. Maybe they have and I missed it?

SUMB sounded great. They did a nice tribute to all the armed services at half time on Military Appreciation Day. The ceremony to honor Dwight Freeney was nicely done and it looked like it touched Dwight. Overall, not a bad job.

But let’s talk about the game.

SU won the toss. Took the ball. Marched down the field and scored pretty easily. GT looked confused and pretty slow. GT fans on their board say they saw McCord talked to his teammates on the sideline early after a scoring drive telling them that the GT defenders were ‘slow as fxxx’. Not sure if that is true (if McCord said it) but I think it is fair to say SU had open receivers just about every time they tried to pass it. Props to the OL for giving Kyle plenty of time to throw. Props to the receivers for running good routes and getting open (and making the catches). Props to McCord for his many accurate throws, where a bunch were thrown well down the field. Adn special props to OC Jeff /Nixon, who called another great game. SU had players open on playing plays all game and when they ran, there were openings there too. When GT tried to blitz, McCord usually made them pay for it with a long gain on a passing play. They had no response to stop the SU offense. SU had over 500 yards of total offense and could have added a lot more had they wanted to.

It looked to me as though GT tried to double OG a lot, and this helped Pena (another big game), Hatcher and others to get open. But when they really needed a play, it usually went to OG and OG usually came though. He was the best player on the field again in week 2.

Lots of imaginative calls from Nixon. When the players said the new offense was more complex, they weren’t lying.

They opened things with 3 TEs in a super heavy look but most of the game, I think SU went with 3 or even 4 WRs, spreading out the GT defenders and making space for McCord to get the ball to SU receivers.

On defense, we really changed things up. It looked to me as though Diggs played all of the game, or almost all the game at LB. McDonald, Sparrow and Omopariola (I think) also played at LB, but I did not see ZMG. I wonder if he is banged up some?

I expected GT was going to either hurt us badly with running plays or hurt us badly with long passing plays, but really, neither of these things were the case. The GT OL struggled to open holes against a Syracuse DL that was embarrassed by Ohio last week. To be fair, it looked like SU often ran run blitzes on running downs and these hurt GT as well. This was often how we had players in the backfield tackling GT RBs almost as they were getting the ball.

It looked like GT tried to throw deep a lot. Thought I saw King looked downfield on a number of passing plays but over and over he was forced to settle for a short passs to the flat for a short gain. I think SU played some zone and the safeties helped the corners out. Already seeing the benefits of having the best DB coach in college football on the staff. As it happens, he is also a pretty good head coach.

We didn’t get a ton of pressure on King, but I don’t know that this was a huge priority. I think we were happy to give them short dings over the middle or to the sidelines. GT tried to make first downs with YAC but SU tackled much better this game and they struggled to find any daylight. Really, the only guy who hurt SU much was King on QB draws. It is tough to be competitive in the ACC with undersized RBs and WRs. That is what GT has to work with.

Gotta talk about the special teams disaster a bit. So many problems. A punt was blocked. I thought watching real time part of it was on Stonehouse, who seemed to take a long time to get the punt off. But there was also a blocking backdown. There was also a blocking breakdown on the blocked FG attempt. At least it looked like it in real time.

But wait, there is more!

Denaberg generally hit his KOs deep into the end zone and they were downed. But he kicked one low and sideways, like he was trying to bounce it into the end zone just inside the end line. It went OB and GT was gifted with a start at the 35. Not good. he hit another weakly down the middle that ended up getting returned. Is he banged up? What the heck happened to Mr Money?

But the most special of the special teams plays was the on sides kick GT attempted. It looked like a bad kick that was destined to go OB without traveling for 10 yards. But it appeared to me that an SU played decided to touch it at a point where it was maybe 6 yards downfield. And didn’t hold on to the ball. Just an awful awful play

And speaking of awful, how about those referees (and also the ACC replay center officials in Charlotte)?

Maybe the replays shown on the scoreboard were wrong or I was crazy or something. But how was the ‘late hit’ called? This was a play on the sideline where an SU DB (I believe it was Lewis) visibly slowed down as he neared the GT player who was stepping OB. They gently met. And a flag was thrown. What the heck?

And the play when King Haynes was trying to pass it and got pulled on by an SU defender, who got his knee to touch the ground (on the dome scoreboard, you could clearly see the black rubber bits fly up as his knee hit the turf. What happened there? I get the refs missing the call in real time. They missed a ton of stuff. Clearly not a good crew. But how does the replay also get messed up? Again. Is this going to happen to Syracuse all season?

We got called for a chop block (I think they called that one on LeQuint). A bunch of other stuff I never saw. What was the backdown on penalty yards? It didnt seem even remotely close. I saw Fran almost lose it a couple times. I hope the refs can do a better job the rest of the season.

Syracuse won. It wasn’t a fluke. The SU OL dominated the GT DL. The SU DL dominated the GT OL. SU hit the crap out of the smaller, slower, less athletic GT players and a lot of them got hurt. Sorry for that but when you play a game and get 10 players hurt and no one on the other team gets hurt, that tells you your team just got its butt kicked. I hope all the GT injured players are able to return to game action soon.

For all the physical dominance SU had, some spectularly bad special teams play and a number of questionable ref calls kept it close. But in the end, the better team won. I thought GT made a lot of really good tackles in the open field all game long where a GT player just got his hand on a heel of an SU player to get them down where SU was an inch from breaking a big play. But GT kept doing it and it kept them in the game. Was impressed they never gave up and played hard to the final whistle.

Thought the GT coaches were badly out coached though. The GT OC looked pretty clueless and the GT DC, who was highly touted, was made to look like a fool by SU OC Jeff Nixon. That is really good to see. If we can get our special teams issued straighted out during the bye, maybe we can be something pretty good.

This was a big win. We are now going to be taken seriously. I expect we will go from being ranked 13-16 in many ‘expert’ rankings of ACC programs up to the 5-8 range. The talk of SU being real and the hype for what Fran is doing at Syracuse is going to get louder. And yes, our chances to host a Game Day just got a big boost. Still need a lot of things to happen but if it was gonna happen this year, we needed to win this game.

I think having a bye now is good. The team just went through two tough games against good opponents and can use some time to heal up. But so far, so good..
I have fond memories of Thendara. Is that elephant still buried in the middle of the 9th Green?
Years ago they had several exhibitions with tour players. I went to several and saw Tony Lema, Doug Sanders and even Jackie Gleason who can really play. I didn't see the 9-hole excision with Arnold Palmer and Sam Snead. Lee Trevino also played Doug Sanders in I think 1971.

On television the late hit looked like he shoved the GT player at the last minute and that was the reason for the flag - really a dumb play.

It also looked like King's knee never hit the ground.

The onside klick fiasco is all on Vollono. Apparently, the ST players were not taught to no touch the damn ball until it goes 10 yards. That ball was headed out-of-bounds. Even if it did not they never should have been inside the 10 yards. I imagine he will a have a tough Monday.

Could not be more impressed with Nixon and ER showed his chops with the adjustments he mad for the GT game.

This team and the staff are really special.
 

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