My Take | Syracusefan.com

My Take

sutomcat

No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
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Sorry this is late. It was a very busy weekend.

The tailgate had a southern tier theme. Spedies with great fresh bread (did eat the spedies, did not eat the bread). We brought in someone from down there to help bring us the tastes of that area.

There was pizza from Nirchis (I think), which is apparently an institution in Binghamton. I ate some. It was good. I mostly only ate the top of the pizza but the crust was good and I had some.

There was a deep fryer and from it came delicious wings and fries (yes, I had a few). The usual fare of burgers and hot dogs, sausage with peppers and onions, two kinds of lasagna (looked great did not touch), lots of other delicious looking carby things, lots to drink, etc. Very good spread very professional staged. Outstanding.

Headed up to attend The Walk with JDemo , Bob and son. It was worth the walk. Very well attended. From what I could see it was at least 3 deep on both sides the whole way and places had 5 or 10 people deep.

Really good to see such a big turnout for such a new tradition. The players and coaches arrived on time felt the love from the crowd. There were a lot of families with young kids and I think while the players were receptive to and pleasant to everyone (lots of fist bumps, winks, smiles and high fives), they were especially receptive to children. If you have a kid and want them to have a chance to see and possibly briefly interact with SU players or coaches, get them to this.

It doesn't take long. 5 minutes top from when the police started the procession to when the last player came through. Very nice. The best part was seeing the players genuinely enjoying the interaction and appreciating the support.

We headed back down to the tailgate. It is a pretty long walk. When I headed back up 30 or 40 minutes later, my legs were not happy with having to make that climb two times.

I love that we are doing the walk and am hoping there is a way to make it more convenient for tailgaters to tailgate and attend the walk. A shuttle (maybe use the trolleys SU has) from the west parking lots to near the quad would be a boon towards getting more people to attend the walk. And if it could also be used for people to get up to the dome to attend the game, I think it would make attending football games a lot more practical and attractive for many fans with mobility issues.

I think once the Miron Victory Court (MVC) is finished, you should have trolleys ride up Forestry Drive to MVC, drop fans off there or at Gate A then head back down to the west parking lots. People could enter MVC and come out the other side where they would be close to the Quad and where the walk is staged. Not practical until MVC is finished but I think this is something that should be considered by SUAD for the future. If cost is a problem, I am quite sure people would pay if a shuttle was made available. Better yet, make it available as another way to improve the fan experience on game day. Charge extra for parking in the west lots to offset the expense and everyone wins.

I digress.

Stanford did not bring a ton of fans. My guess is they had about 500 in the visitor's seating area. That said, the ones they brought made some noise and were very enthusiastic. I was hoping to see the Stanford tree mascot but he?she?zim?zir? did not make the trip. No cheerleaders came either. And of course, the Stanford band was a no show as well. Bummer. But I understand. Not many random Stanford fans sitting in the stands either. It is far away though so this was expected.

We saw a bunch of players not dressed for the game beforehand. Weird to have a worse situation with injuries after a bye week than we had before the bye week. Maybe we practiced too hard? Maybe something the staff learned here for the future? Not sure, hope it doesn't happen again for the second bye in October.

8 tubas. Not what you want. Doesn't look like this is going to improve the rest of the season. If I could give 10 kids $50 each to play sousaphone for the rest of the season, I would. That said, the band sounded good and was sharp marching.

I think the dome was darkened more for this night game than ones last year. Some funky colors were used to gentlely light the seating areas. The field itself was pretty dark. Made for a pretty cool look.

The game itself was a dog fight from the start. I give the Stanford coaching staff credit. They saw how much GT bothered us with their blitzing in the second half of that game and emulated that. They brought pressure on seemingly every pass play. Many types of blitzes were used. They did stunts, they moved players late, they did everything they could to make McCord uncomfortable. They played press coverage pretty much all game, and they doubled OG.

We could normally attack deep with Haynes but he was not available, which was a big loss. Hatcher and Gill are good but not the same at Zeed.

And to make things worse, we couldn't run the ball. The OL was dominated by the Stanford DL to a shocking extent. It wasn't just one player. The OTs looked slow and struggled to stop basic speed rushes. Didn't get push on running plays. The inside guys might have been even worse. Someone got past them all game long. Bradford was a mess and Reed really struggled. To be fair to Reed, you can could him limping around and it looked like he got more and more hobbled as the game progressed. He couldn't even get the ball to Kyle on shotgun snaps well. Surprised the staff did not give some of the backups a shot at the inside positions. They did bring in Enrique Cruz for a series at LT and it looked like he did okay but they went back to Big Spoon after that. I thought Washington was even a bigger problem (he was really not moving well) and I don't think he ever came out.

I suspect the staff was reluctant to pull Reed because I believe he calls the blocking assignments and with all the funky stuff Stanford was doing, you want the most experienced guy you can get out there to make those calls. It was another situation where exactly the wrong guy got marginalized at exactly the wrong time. It looked like the SU OL was confused by all the stuff Stanford was doing. They really got into the player's heads. So props to Stanford.

But we have to do a better job of taking advantage of press coverage and doubles on OG. That allowed them to stay heavy on the run and take away our run game. The turnovers made a huge role in allowing Stanford to have a chance to win and couple that with all the stupid penalties (largely unforced) and it is a minor miracle we had a very good chance to win the game.

Really concerned about Reed. We need him 100%. If he was in a boot after the game, I am thinking he is probably going to be held out of the Holy Cross game so he can hopefully get back to close to full health for the last 8 games. The other positions, I think we have capable guys and will be okay if changes are needed. Center, I am not so sure. Josh should be fine for Holy Cross though.

Hopefully we get better at handling the disrupting stuff defenses are throwing at us the rest of the season. Because you know we are going to see it the rest of the year now.

Thought Kyle played pretty well considering how much pressure he was under all game. He had a few poor throws and made a couple questionable decisions but you have to give a QB time to get his throws off and we struggled to do that.

Props to Pena for another excellent game. He benefits from the doubles on OG and has become the go to guy. Surprised to see OG have a game like this. Stanford played him physical, had a couple defenders all over him most of the time (the refs missed a few pass interference calls I think) and he was not able to make a couple catches under pressure. Other WRs and TEs was asked to step up and sometimes were not up to the challenge. Props to Gill in particular for playing tough, even though he is still a skinny guy. It is a shame the Hatcher long pass was called back. I haven't seen any replays other than at the dome and don't know if there was holding there. From the one angle they showed at the dome, I didn't see any obvious hold.

Speaking of holds, I have watched a lot of football over the years and I think there was more holding called Friday night than I have ever seen in a football game. Maybe I am crazy but watching the game live, Stanford seemed to hold on every pass play. We had guys getting tackled routinely. Things that make you go hmmmm.

Ayomanor is terrific. Cisse was solid. We gave Stanford the underneath routes most of the game and they were happy to take advantage. Kind of disconcerting to make it so easy for them to move the ball.

It looked like we went back to our base 4-2-5 defense for Stanford. Did not see Diggs play LB at all. Instead, it was Barron who Wax's spot at linebacker. And I have to say, this looked like a good move. Justin looked a lot more comfortable and for the first time this year, was his dominant self on defense, making a lot of tackles and big hits. I think he stays there at least until Marlowe gets back (if he does).

I think we also moved Grant to Barron's safety spot. Which worked out well. He also looks more comfortable there than at CB and he certainly was more effective at safety. Great pick for him. Barnes got hurt, which is unfortunate because I think he is already our best press defender and probably would have been the guy assigned to Ayomanor on that key fourth down play. However we learn from that play and do better now that the players are assigned to the positions they are best suited to.

Wanted to give LeQuint props. He didn't have a big game statistically but he never had holes to run through, and he played really hard all game long. I wish all the SU players played as passionately as he does.

Also props to the special teams units, which while they didn't do anything great, managed to stop Stanford from doing anything great as well. Good performance other than Malachi running that one KO back that he shouldn't have and the awful late hit by OG. What happened there? Did he just not realize the Stanford returner was done? Didn't he hear the whistle? Sigh.

It will be interesting to see what happens with the OL for the Holy Cross game. If the staff is going to make a change, it should happen before this game.

Hoping Haynes is back playing on Saturday. Hoping our banged up guys (definitely The General and we missed Tank Wilson a lot) are back 100% for Holy Cross. The season is young and great things are still possible.

Sometimes you learn the most and improve the most after the first loss. Let's hope that is the case for Syracuse here.
 
The Stanford crowd size will go down in the annals of SyracuseFan.
 
Sorry this is late. It was a very busy weekend.

The tailgate had a southern tier theme. Spedies with great fresh bread (did eat the spedies, did not eat the bread). We brought in someone from down there to help bring us the tastes of that area.

There was pizza from Nirchis (I think), which is apparently an institution in Binghamton. I ate some. It was good. I mostly only ate the top of the pizza but the crust was good and I had some.

There was a deep fryer and from it came delicious wings and fries (yes, I had a few). The usual fare of burgers and hot dogs, sausage with peppers and onions, two kinds of lasagna (looked great did not touch), lots of other delicious looking carby things, lots to drink, etc. Very good spread very professional staged. Outstanding.

Headed up to attend The Walk with JDemo , Bob and son. It was worth the walk. Very well attended. From what I could see it was at least 3 deep on both sides the whole way and places had 5 or 10 people deep.

Really good to see such a big turnout for such a new tradition. The players and coaches arrived on time felt the love from the crowd. There were a lot of families with young kids and I think while the players were receptive to and pleasant to everyone (lots of fist bumps, winks, smiles and high fives), they were especially receptive to children. If you have a kid and want them to have a chance to see and possibly briefly interact with SU players or coaches, get them to this.

It doesn't take long. 5 minutes top from when the police started the procession to when the last player came through. Very nice. The best part was seeing the players genuinely enjoying the interaction and appreciating the support.

We headed back down to the tailgate. It is a pretty long walk. When I headed back up 30 or 40 minutes later, my legs were not happy with having to make that climb two times.

I love that we are doing the walk and am hoping there is a way to make it more convenient for tailgaters to tailgate and attend the walk. A shuttle (maybe use the trolleys SU has) from the west parking lots to near the quad would be a boon towards getting more people to attend the walk. And if it could also be used for people to get up to the dome to attend the game, I think it would make attending football games a lot more practical and attractive for many fans with mobility issues.

I think once the Miron Victory Court (MVC) is finished, you should have trolleys ride up Forestry Drive to MVC, drop fans off there or at Gate A then head back down to the west parking lots. People could enter MVC and come out the other side where they would be close to the Quad and where the walk is staged. Not practical until MVC is finished but I think this is something that should be considered by SUAD for the future. If cost is a problem, I am quite sure people would pay if a shuttle was made available. Better yet, make it available as another way to improve the fan experience on game day. Charge extra for parking in the west lots to offset the expense and everyone wins.

I digress.

Stanford did not bring a ton of fans. My guess is they had about 500 in the visitor's seating area. That said, the ones they brought made some noise and were very enthusiastic. I was hoping to see the Stanford tree mascot but he?she?zim?zir? did not make the trip. No cheerleaders came either. And of course, the Stanford band was a no show as well. Bummer. But I understand. Not many random Stanford fans sitting in the stands either. It is far away though so this was expected.

We saw a bunch of players not dressed for the game beforehand. Weird to have a worse situation with injuries after a bye week than we had before the bye week. Maybe we practiced too hard? Maybe something the staff learned here for the future? Not sure, hope it doesn't happen again for the second bye in October.

8 tubas. Not what you want. Doesn't look like this is going to improve the rest of the season. If I could give 10 kids $50 each to play sousaphone for the rest of the season, I would. That said, the band sounded good and was sharp marching.

I think the dome was darkened more for this night game than ones last year. Some funky colors were used to gentlely light the seating areas. The field itself was pretty dark. Made for a pretty cool look.

The game itself was a dog fight from the start. I give the Stanford coaching staff credit. They saw how much GT bothered us with their blitzing in the second half of that game and emulated that. They brought pressure on seemingly every pass play. Many types of blitzes were used. They did stunts, they moved players late, they did everything they could to make McCord uncomfortable. They played press coverage pretty much all game, and they doubled OG.

We could normally attack deep with Haynes but he was not available, which was a big loss. Hatcher and Gill are good but not the same at Zeed.

And to make things worse, we couldn't run the ball. The OL was dominated by the Stanford DL to a shocking extent. It wasn't just one player. The OTs looked slow and struggled to stop basic speed rushes. Didn't get push on running plays. The inside guys might have been even worse. Someone got past them all game long. Bradford was a mess and Reed really struggled. To be fair to Reed, you can could him limping around and it looked like he got more and more hobbled as the game progressed. He couldn't even get the ball to Kyle on shotgun snaps well. Surprised the staff did not give some of the backups a shot at the inside positions. They did bring in Enrique Cruz for a series at LT and it looked like he did okay but they went back to Big Spoon after that. I thought Washington was even a bigger problem (he was really not moving well) and I don't think he ever came out.

I suspect the staff was reluctant to pull Reed because I believe he calls the blocking assignments and with all the funky stuff Stanford was doing, you want the most experienced guy you can get out there to make those calls. It was another situation where exactly the wrong guy got marginalized at exactly the wrong time. It looked like the SU OL was confused by all the stuff Stanford was doing. They really got into the player's heads. So props to Stanford.

But we have to do a better job of taking advantage of press coverage and doubles on OG. That allowed them to stay heavy on the run and take away our run game. The turnovers made a huge role in allowing Stanford to have a chance to win and couple that with all the stupid penalties (largely unforced) and it is a minor miracle we had a very good chance to win the game.

Really concerned about Reed. We need him 100%. If he was in a boot after the game, I am thinking he is probably going to be held out of the Holy Cross game so he can hopefully get back to close to full health for the last 8 games. The other positions, I think we have capable guys and will be okay if changes are needed. Center, I am not so sure. Josh should be fine for Holy Cross though.

Hopefully we get better at handling the disrupting stuff defenses are throwing at us the rest of the season. Because you know we are going to see it the rest of the year now.

Thought Kyle played pretty well considering how much pressure he was under all game. He had a few poor throws and made a couple questionable decisions but you have to give a QB time to get his throws off and we struggled to do that.

Props to Pena for another excellent game. He benefits from the doubles on OG and has become the go to guy. Surprised to see OG have a game like this. Stanford played him physical, had a couple defenders all over him most of the time (the refs missed a few pass interference calls I think) and he was not able to make a couple catches under pressure. Other WRs and TEs was asked to step up and sometimes were not up to the challenge. Props to Gill in particular for playing tough, even though he is still a skinny guy. It is a shame the Hatcher long pass was called back. I haven't seen any replays other than at the dome and don't know if there was holding there. From the one angle they showed at the dome, I didn't see any obvious hold.

Speaking of holds, I have watched a lot of football over the years and I think there was more holding called Friday night than I have ever seen in a football game. Maybe I am crazy but watching the game live, Stanford seemed to hold on every pass play. We had guys getting tackled routinely. Things that make you go hmmmm.

Ayomanor is terrific. Cisse was solid. We gave Stanford the underneath routes most of the game and they were happy to take advantage. Kind of disconcerting to make it so easy for them to move the ball.

It looked like we went back to our base 4-2-5 defense for Stanford. Did not see Diggs play LB at all. Instead, it was Barron who Wax's spot at linebacker. And I have to say, this looked like a good move. Justin looked a lot more comfortable and for the first time this year, was his dominant self on defense, making a lot of tackles and big hits. I think he stays there at least until Marlowe gets back (if he does).

I think we also moved Grant to Barron's safety spot. Which worked out well. He also looks more comfortable there than at CB and he certainly was more effective at safety. Great pick for him. Barnes got hurt, which is unfortunate because I think he is already our best press defender and probably would have been the guy assigned to Ayomanor on that key fourth down play. However we learn from that play and do better now that the players are assigned to the positions they are best suited to.

Wanted to give LeQuint props. He didn't have a big game statistically but he never had holes to run through, and he played really hard all game long. I wish all the SU players played as passionately as he does.

Also props to the special teams units, which while they didn't do anything great, managed to stop Stanford from doing anything great as well. Good performance other than Malachi running that one KO back that he shouldn't have and the awful late hit by OG. What happened there? Did he just not realize the Stanford returner was done? Didn't he hear the whistle? Sigh.

It will be interesting to see what happens with the OL for the Holy Cross game. If the staff is going to make a change, it should happen before this game.

Hoping Haynes is back playing on Saturday. Hoping our banged up guys (definitely The General and we missed Tank Wilson a lot) are back 100% for Holy Cross. The season is young and great things are still possible.

Sometimes you learn the most and improve the most after the first loss. Let's hope that is the case for Syracuse here.
Hey Tomcat, we will be up this weekend. What time does the Quad walk start?
 
Hey Tomcat, we will be up this weekend. What time does the Quad walk start?
Always 2 hours and 15 minutes prior to kickoff.

Which is right in the middle of prime tailgating. But I am glad you are going. It is worth the inconvenience.

The Syracuse Orange football team's Quad Walk usually starts about two hours and 15 minutesbefore each home game. The walk takes place on the Shaw Quadrangle and is part of the "Cuse on the Quad" event.

Here's some more information about the Quad Walk:
  • The team walks from a parking lot to Hendricks Chapel and then into the JMA Dome.

  • Fans are encouraged to line the route to cheer on the team.

  • The Syracuse University Marching Band and cheerleaders are usually positioned along the route.

  • A collectible pin is available at each Quad Walk.

  • "Cuse on the Quad" also includes a food and beverage garden, lawn games, live music, and a screen to watch other college football games.

I missed the pin. Bummer.
 
Thanks for the write up.

I can confirm that Reed was in a walking boot after the game. I suspect you will be correct about his availability for HC.

The Stanford coached mentioned in his post game PC that part of the game plan was to "make the SU OL have to block." They ran a lot of stuff that seemed to create communication issues for OL. They also used delayed blitzs which created additional problems. This will be a blue print for other teams going forward.
 
On the punt return, OG didn't think the guy actually touched the ground (I agree). He rolled on top of a Cuse defender and got up kind of running hard again. That's why OG tackled him. IMO it was a harsh call because the refs were wrong.
 
This was a tough loss to be sure. I was there screaming my guts out until the end.
What I want to know is what is the deal with our tight ends, especially Villari.
He completely screwed up on the interception (just look for the ball!) and then didn't even try to tackle/stop the defender. He just stood there like a deer in headlights.
If you analyze the tape from the Georgia Tech game, you see he made two pretty anemic attempts at blocking which contributed pretty significantly to the blocked punt and blocked field goal.
And he was one of 2 SU players who touched the onsides kick.
Where is the focused guy from last year - right now he seems to be playing in a daze.

Then there is Gadsden. He not only had the late hit but he was the one called for a hold on that fantastic Hatcher catch. And he seemed to give up a bit on catching the balls in the second half. Yes he was double teamed but you still have to fight.
Frustration is probably causing some of this but if he wants to play for money on Sundays he has to grow up a bit and really focus!.

Fact of the matter is I think the bye could not have come at a worse time. The players and coaches got to drink in all that positive press and hype and started to believe it. I dare say all they thought they had to do was show up and Stanford would lose to them. I think Fran might have drank the Kool Aid - he literally looked shell shocked at the press conference. I don't think he will ever make that mistake again!

No one took into account how important this game was to Stanford. It was like the Super Bowl to them as it was their first ever game in the ACC. They had been pointing to this game since training camp. Stanford, like us, has a proud football tradition that has fallen on hard times. I remember all the great Notre Dame vs Stanford games that I watched with my Dad over the years. It was very important to them to win their first ACC game.
 
Thx for the write-up. Here are my notes: 1) with Barron playing so close to the line, there was no way he could be expected to help on Ayo (too far inside). Lewis did the best he could on an island against an all-conference WR. But this was an obvious scheming error that I hope ER doesn't repeat - make someone else beat you; 3) once they settled in, the combo of grant at safety and Barron at LB worked well (think we will see it again until Wax returns). However, letting Grant cover Ayo was unwise (end zone TD), Lewis or Barnes should have been on Ayo all game with safety help; 4) from the edge Diggs overruns the QB a lot. With his speed and strength he is effective as a 3 tech; 5) Jobbity, Jacquez and Perry filled in well for tank and, for a change, we had inside pressure but very little edge pressure giving Daniels time to burn us with RPO's (1 sack); 6) Haynes's absence created a cascade of timing issues with KM. The backups played well but need more game reps; and 8) I like Villari but it's borderline reckless to throw anything but a shallow cross to him.

I might join you for a quick scamper up to the quad Saturday - if I can get a parking spot.
 
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On the punt return, OG didn't think the guy actually touched the ground (I agree). He rolled on top of a Cuse defender and got up kind of running hard again. That's why OG tackled him. IMO it was a harsh call because the refs were wrong.
The punt returner was tackled to the ground. It was a ridiculously dumb penalty. The refs were right
 
On the tubas: back in my day the band lacked numbers for some formations so they had kids carry instruments that didn’t play (white clarinets). Won’t help the sound but can improve the optics :)
 
Sorry this is late. It was a very busy weekend.

The tailgate had a southern tier theme. Spedies with great fresh bread (did eat the spedies, did not eat the bread). We brought in someone from down there to help bring us the tastes of that area.

There was pizza from Nirchis (I think), which is apparently an institution in Binghamton. I ate some. It was good. I mostly only ate the top of the pizza but the crust was good and I had some.

There was a deep fryer and from it came delicious wings and fries (yes, I had a few). The usual fare of burgers and hot dogs, sausage with peppers and onions, two kinds of lasagna (looked great did not touch), lots of other delicious looking carby things, lots to drink, etc. Very good spread very professional staged. Outstanding.

Headed up to attend The Walk with JDemo , Bob and son. It was worth the walk. Very well attended. From what I could see it was at least 3 deep on both sides the whole way and places had 5 or 10 people deep.

Really good to see such a big turnout for such a new tradition. The players and coaches arrived on time felt the love from the crowd. There were a lot of families with young kids and I think while the players were receptive to and pleasant to everyone (lots of fist bumps, winks, smiles and high fives), they were especially receptive to children. If you have a kid and want them to have a chance to see and possibly briefly interact with SU players or coaches, get them to this.

It doesn't take long. 5 minutes top from when the police started the procession to when the last player came through. Very nice. The best part was seeing the players genuinely enjoying the interaction and appreciating the support.

We headed back down to the tailgate. It is a pretty long walk. When I headed back up 30 or 40 minutes later, my legs were not happy with having to make that climb two times.

I love that we are doing the walk and am hoping there is a way to make it more convenient for tailgaters to tailgate and attend the walk. A shuttle (maybe use the trolleys SU has) from the west parking lots to near the quad would be a boon towards getting more people to attend the walk. And if it could also be used for people to get up to the dome to attend the game, I think it would make attending football games a lot more practical and attractive for many fans with mobility issues.

I think once the Miron Victory Court (MVC) is finished, you should have trolleys ride up Forestry Drive to MVC, drop fans off there or at Gate A then head back down to the west parking lots. People could enter MVC and come out the other side where they would be close to the Quad and where the walk is staged. Not practical until MVC is finished but I think this is something that should be considered by SUAD for the future. If cost is a problem, I am quite sure people would pay if a shuttle was made available. Better yet, make it available as another way to improve the fan experience on game day. Charge extra for parking in the west lots to offset the expense and everyone wins.

I digress.

Stanford did not bring a ton of fans. My guess is they had about 500 in the visitor's seating area. That said, the ones they brought made some noise and were very enthusiastic. I was hoping to see the Stanford tree mascot but he?she?zim?zir? did not make the trip. No cheerleaders came either. And of course, the Stanford band was a no show as well. Bummer. But I understand. Not many random Stanford fans sitting in the stands either. It is far away though so this was expected.

We saw a bunch of players not dressed for the game beforehand. Weird to have a worse situation with injuries after a bye week than we had before the bye week. Maybe we practiced too hard? Maybe something the staff learned here for the future? Not sure, hope it doesn't happen again for the second bye in October.

8 tubas. Not what you want. Doesn't look like this is going to improve the rest of the season. If I could give 10 kids $50 each to play sousaphone for the rest of the season, I would. That said, the band sounded good and was sharp marching.

I think the dome was darkened more for this night game than ones last year. Some funky colors were used to gentlely light the seating areas. The field itself was pretty dark. Made for a pretty cool look.

The game itself was a dog fight from the start. I give the Stanford coaching staff credit. They saw how much GT bothered us with their blitzing in the second half of that game and emulated that. They brought pressure on seemingly every pass play. Many types of blitzes were used. They did stunts, they moved players late, they did everything they could to make McCord uncomfortable. They played press coverage pretty much all game, and they doubled OG.

We could normally attack deep with Haynes but he was not available, which was a big loss. Hatcher and Gill are good but not the same at Zeed.

And to make things worse, we couldn't run the ball. The OL was dominated by the Stanford DL to a shocking extent. It wasn't just one player. The OTs looked slow and struggled to stop basic speed rushes. Didn't get push on running plays. The inside guys might have been even worse. Someone got past them all game long. Bradford was a mess and Reed really struggled. To be fair to Reed, you can could him limping around and it looked like he got more and more hobbled as the game progressed. He couldn't even get the ball to Kyle on shotgun snaps well. Surprised the staff did not give some of the backups a shot at the inside positions. They did bring in Enrique Cruz for a series at LT and it looked like he did okay but they went back to Big Spoon after that. I thought Washington was even a bigger problem (he was really not moving well) and I don't think he ever came out.

I suspect the staff was reluctant to pull Reed because I believe he calls the blocking assignments and with all the funky stuff Stanford was doing, you want the most experienced guy you can get out there to make those calls. It was another situation where exactly the wrong guy got marginalized at exactly the wrong time. It looked like the SU OL was confused by all the stuff Stanford was doing. They really got into the player's heads. So props to Stanford.

But we have to do a better job of taking advantage of press coverage and doubles on OG. That allowed them to stay heavy on the run and take away our run game. The turnovers made a huge role in allowing Stanford to have a chance to win and couple that with all the stupid penalties (largely unforced) and it is a minor miracle we had a very good chance to win the game.

Really concerned about Reed. We need him 100%. If he was in a boot after the game, I am thinking he is probably going to be held out of the Holy Cross game so he can hopefully get back to close to full health for the last 8 games. The other positions, I think we have capable guys and will be okay if changes are needed. Center, I am not so sure. Josh should be fine for Holy Cross though.

Hopefully we get better at handling the disrupting stuff defenses are throwing at us the rest of the season. Because you know we are going to see it the rest of the year now.

Thought Kyle played pretty well considering how much pressure he was under all game. He had a few poor throws and made a couple questionable decisions but you have to give a QB time to get his throws off and we struggled to do that.

Props to Pena for another excellent game. He benefits from the doubles on OG and has become the go to guy. Surprised to see OG have a game like this. Stanford played him physical, had a couple defenders all over him most of the time (the refs missed a few pass interference calls I think) and he was not able to make a couple catches under pressure. Other WRs and TEs was asked to step up and sometimes were not up to the challenge. Props to Gill in particular for playing tough, even though he is still a skinny guy. It is a shame the Hatcher long pass was called back. I haven't seen any replays other than at the dome and don't know if there was holding there. From the one angle they showed at the dome, I didn't see any obvious hold.

Speaking of holds, I have watched a lot of football over the years and I think there was more holding called Friday night than I have ever seen in a football game. Maybe I am crazy but watching the game live, Stanford seemed to hold on every pass play. We had guys getting tackled routinely. Things that make you go hmmmm.

Ayomanor is terrific. Cisse was solid. We gave Stanford the underneath routes most of the game and they were happy to take advantage. Kind of disconcerting to make it so easy for them to move the ball.

It looked like we went back to our base 4-2-5 defense for Stanford. Did not see Diggs play LB at all. Instead, it was Barron who Wax's spot at linebacker. And I have to say, this looked like a good move. Justin looked a lot more comfortable and for the first time this year, was his dominant self on defense, making a lot of tackles and big hits. I think he stays there at least until Marlowe gets back (if he does).

I think we also moved Grant to Barron's safety spot. Which worked out well. He also looks more comfortable there than at CB and he certainly was more effective at safety. Great pick for him. Barnes got hurt, which is unfortunate because I think he is already our best press defender and probably would have been the guy assigned to Ayomanor on that key fourth down play. However we learn from that play and do better now that the players are assigned to the positions they are best suited to.

Wanted to give LeQuint props. He didn't have a big game statistically but he never had holes to run through, and he played really hard all game long. I wish all the SU players played as passionately as he does.

Also props to the special teams units, which while they didn't do anything great, managed to stop Stanford from doing anything great as well. Good performance other than Malachi running that one KO back that he shouldn't have and the awful late hit by OG. What happened there? Did he just not realize the Stanford returner was done? Didn't he hear the whistle? Sigh.

It will be interesting to see what happens with the OL for the Holy Cross game. If the staff is going to make a change, it should happen before this game.

Hoping Haynes is back playing on Saturday. Hoping our banged up guys (definitely The General and we missed Tank Wilson a lot) are back 100% for Holy Cross. The season is young and great things are still possible.

Sometimes you learn the most and improve the most after the first loss. Let's hope that is the case for Syracuse here.
We are going to need a tuba NIL.
 
Sorry this is late. It was a very busy weekend.

The tailgate had a southern tier theme. Spedies with great fresh bread (did eat the spedies, did not eat the bread). We brought in someone from down there to help bring us the tastes of that area.

There was pizza from Nirchis (I think), which is apparently an institution in Binghamton. I ate some. It was good. I mostly only ate the top of the pizza but the crust was good and I had some.

There was a deep fryer and from it came delicious wings and fries (yes, I had a few). The usual fare of burgers and hot dogs, sausage with peppers and onions, two kinds of lasagna (looked great did not touch), lots of other delicious looking carby things, lots to drink, etc. Very good spread very professional staged. Outstanding.

Headed up to attend The Walk with JDemo , Bob and son. It was worth the walk. Very well attended. From what I could see it was at least 3 deep on both sides the whole way and places had 5 or 10 people deep.

Really good to see such a big turnout for such a new tradition. The players and coaches arrived on time felt the love from the crowd. There were a lot of families with young kids and I think while the players were receptive to and pleasant to everyone (lots of fist bumps, winks, smiles and high fives), they were especially receptive to children. If you have a kid and want them to have a chance to see and possibly briefly interact with SU players or coaches, get them to this.

It doesn't take long. 5 minutes top from when the police started the procession to when the last player came through. Very nice. The best part was seeing the players genuinely enjoying the interaction and appreciating the support.

We headed back down to the tailgate. It is a pretty long walk. When I headed back up 30 or 40 minutes later, my legs were not happy with having to make that climb two times.

I love that we are doing the walk and am hoping there is a way to make it more convenient for tailgaters to tailgate and attend the walk. A shuttle (maybe use the trolleys SU has) from the west parking lots to near the quad would be a boon towards getting more people to attend the walk. And if it could also be used for people to get up to the dome to attend the game, I think it would make attending football games a lot more practical and attractive for many fans with mobility issues.

I think once the Miron Victory Court (MVC) is finished, you should have trolleys ride up Forestry Drive to MVC, drop fans off there or at Gate A then head back down to the west parking lots. People could enter MVC and come out the other side where they would be close to the Quad and where the walk is staged. Not practical until MVC is finished but I think this is something that should be considered by SUAD for the future. If cost is a problem, I am quite sure people would pay if a shuttle was made available. Better yet, make it available as another way to improve the fan experience on game day. Charge extra for parking in the west lots to offset the expense and everyone wins.

I digress.

Stanford did not bring a ton of fans. My guess is they had about 500 in the visitor's seating area. That said, the ones they brought made some noise and were very enthusiastic. I was hoping to see the Stanford tree mascot but he?she?zim?zir? did not make the trip. No cheerleaders came either. And of course, the Stanford band was a no show as well. Bummer. But I understand. Not many random Stanford fans sitting in the stands either. It is far away though so this was expected.

We saw a bunch of players not dressed for the game beforehand. Weird to have a worse situation with injuries after a bye week than we had before the bye week. Maybe we practiced too hard? Maybe something the staff learned here for the future? Not sure, hope it doesn't happen again for the second bye in October.

8 tubas. Not what you want. Doesn't look like this is going to improve the rest of the season. If I could give 10 kids $50 each to play sousaphone for the rest of the season, I would. That said, the band sounded good and was sharp marching.

I think the dome was darkened more for this night game than ones last year. Some funky colors were used to gentlely light the seating areas. The field itself was pretty dark. Made for a pretty cool look.

The game itself was a dog fight from the start. I give the Stanford coaching staff credit. They saw how much GT bothered us with their blitzing in the second half of that game and emulated that. They brought pressure on seemingly every pass play. Many types of blitzes were used. They did stunts, they moved players late, they did everything they could to make McCord uncomfortable. They played press coverage pretty much all game, and they doubled OG.

We could normally attack deep with Haynes but he was not available, which was a big loss. Hatcher and Gill are good but not the same at Zeed.

And to make things worse, we couldn't run the ball. The OL was dominated by the Stanford DL to a shocking extent. It wasn't just one player. The OTs looked slow and struggled to stop basic speed rushes. Didn't get push on running plays. The inside guys might have been even worse. Someone got past them all game long. Bradford was a mess and Reed really struggled. To be fair to Reed, you can could him limping around and it looked like he got more and more hobbled as the game progressed. He couldn't even get the ball to Kyle on shotgun snaps well. Surprised the staff did not give some of the backups a shot at the inside positions. They did bring in Enrique Cruz for a series at LT and it looked like he did okay but they went back to Big Spoon after that. I thought Washington was even a bigger problem (he was really not moving well) and I don't think he ever came out.

I suspect the staff was reluctant to pull Reed because I believe he calls the blocking assignments and with all the funky stuff Stanford was doing, you want the most experienced guy you can get out there to make those calls. It was another situation where exactly the wrong guy got marginalized at exactly the wrong time. It looked like the SU OL was confused by all the stuff Stanford was doing. They really got into the player's heads. So props to Stanford.

But we have to do a better job of taking advantage of press coverage and doubles on OG. That allowed them to stay heavy on the run and take away our run game. The turnovers made a huge role in allowing Stanford to have a chance to win and couple that with all the stupid penalties (largely unforced) and it is a minor miracle we had a very good chance to win the game.

Really concerned about Reed. We need him 100%. If he was in a boot after the game, I am thinking he is probably going to be held out of the Holy Cross game so he can hopefully get back to close to full health for the last 8 games. The other positions, I think we have capable guys and will be okay if changes are needed. Center, I am not so sure. Josh should be fine for Holy Cross though.

Hopefully we get better at handling the disrupting stuff defenses are throwing at us the rest of the season. Because you know we are going to see it the rest of the year now.

Thought Kyle played pretty well considering how much pressure he was under all game. He had a few poor throws and made a couple questionable decisions but you have to give a QB time to get his throws off and we struggled to do that.

Props to Pena for another excellent game. He benefits from the doubles on OG and has become the go to guy. Surprised to see OG have a game like this. Stanford played him physical, had a couple defenders all over him most of the time (the refs missed a few pass interference calls I think) and he was not able to make a couple catches under pressure. Other WRs and TEs was asked to step up and sometimes were not up to the challenge. Props to Gill in particular for playing tough, even though he is still a skinny guy. It is a shame the Hatcher long pass was called back. I haven't seen any replays other than at the dome and don't know if there was holding there. From the one angle they showed at the dome, I didn't see any obvious hold.

Speaking of holds, I have watched a lot of football over the years and I think there was more holding called Friday night than I have ever seen in a football game. Maybe I am crazy but watching the game live, Stanford seemed to hold on every pass play. We had guys getting tackled routinely. Things that make you go hmmmm.

Ayomanor is terrific. Cisse was solid. We gave Stanford the underneath routes most of the game and they were happy to take advantage. Kind of disconcerting to make it so easy for them to move the ball.

It looked like we went back to our base 4-2-5 defense for Stanford. Did not see Diggs play LB at all. Instead, it was Barron who Wax's spot at linebacker. And I have to say, this looked like a good move. Justin looked a lot more comfortable and for the first time this year, was his dominant self on defense, making a lot of tackles and big hits. I think he stays there at least until Marlowe gets back (if he does).

I think we also moved Grant to Barron's safety spot. Which worked out well. He also looks more comfortable there than at CB and he certainly was more effective at safety. Great pick for him. Barnes got hurt, which is unfortunate because I think he is already our best press defender and probably would have been the guy assigned to Ayomanor on that key fourth down play. However we learn from that play and do better now that the players are assigned to the positions they are best suited to.

Wanted to give LeQuint props. He didn't have a big game statistically but he never had holes to run through, and he played really hard all game long. I wish all the SU players played as passionately as he does.

Also props to the special teams units, which while they didn't do anything great, managed to stop Stanford from doing anything great as well. Good performance other than Malachi running that one KO back that he shouldn't have and the awful late hit by OG. What happened there? Did he just not realize the Stanford returner was done? Didn't he hear the whistle? Sigh.

It will be interesting to see what happens with the OL for the Holy Cross game. If the staff is going to make a change, it should happen before this game.

Hoping Haynes is back playing on Saturday. Hoping our banged up guys (definitely The General and we missed Tank Wilson a lot) are back 100% for Holy Cross. The season is young and great things are still possible.

Sometimes you learn the most and improve the most after the first loss. Let's hope that is the case for Syracuse here.
Outstanding. Thank you!
 
A couple of the key things I saw. 3 Big Plays did not go our way. Despite everything else, that was the game.

1. The holding on Gadsden on Hatchers 2nd long pass appeared to be just a pancake block. That call was highly questionable and took away our momentum.

2. McCord had a “off game” (with 339 and three touchdowns!!!), but we saw what he did the first two games and this was not quite the same. Unfortunately, the interceptions (and some bad passes) were not because he was hurried. I think the Villari one, was still not thrown where he would’ve caught it if he went the correct way to the corner. To me it looked like the ball still would’ve been underthrown and behind him if he was cutting left. Only a stop route would’ve resulted in a completion (or PI) in my opinion. The announcers were pontificating that he should’ve broken off to the left, but perhaps he was just supposed to sit down in that area.

3. The other interception was the same pattern that Peña scored a touchdown on the previous game. I thought at the time (last week) it was a great play, but very dangerous pass pattern that necessitated the receiver getting inside of the defender. This time either the defender got inside position, or the receiver did not make an attempt to get inside position, or McCord did not throw it 5 yards further down the sideline to lead the receiver, (which would’ve been a different pattern than Peña's touchdown). I’m still not sure if it was an underthrown ball or the receiver was in the wrong position . Either way I would prefer they take that one out of the playbook.

Things went about as bad as they could for us, but without the pick six would’ve been a 31-19 type game. Other than the speed rush issues with Washington, I thought we handled the rush/blitz OK. 27/42 - 339 aren't really numbers that show pressure was a huge problem for us. It just looked like Kyle was a little off, but still brought his B game.

i’m not so much worried about other teams emulating Stanford‘s game plan as I am just us executing better.
 
A couple of the key things I saw. 3 Big Plays did not go our way. Despite everything else, that was the game.

1. The holding on Gadsden on Hatchers 2nd long pass appeared to be just a pancake block. That call was highly questionable and took away our momentum.

2. McCord had a “off game” (with 339 and three touchdowns!!!), but we saw what he did the first two games and this was not quite the same. Unfortunately, the interceptions (and some bad passes) were not because he was hurried. I think the Villari one, was still not thrown where he would’ve caught it if he went the correct way to the corner. To me it looked like the ball still would’ve been underthrown and behind him if he was cutting left. Only a stop route would’ve resulted in a completion (or PI) in my opinion. The announcers were pontificating that he should’ve broken off to the left, but perhaps he was just supposed to sit down in that area.

3. The other interception was the same pattern that Peña scored a touchdown on the previous game. I thought at the time (last week) it was a great play, but very dangerous pass pattern that necessitated the receiver getting inside of the defender. This time either the defender got inside position, or the receiver did not make an attempt to get inside position, or McCord did not throw it 5 yards further down the sideline to lead the receiver, (which would’ve been a different pattern than Peña's touchdown). I’m still not sure if it was an underthrown ball or the receiver was in the wrong position . Either way I would prefer they take that one out of the playbook.

Things went about as bad as they could for us, but without the pick six would’ve been a 31-19 type game. Other than the speed rush issues with Washington, I thought we handled the rush/blitz OK. 27/42 - 339 aren't really numbers that show pressure was a huge problem for us. It just looked like Kyle was a little off, but still brought his B game.

i’m not so much worried about other teams emulating Stanford‘s game plan as I am just us executing better.

The 2nd INT was a dumb throw. You could see it coming. They were in Zone and he threw the ball as if the defender wouldn't be underneath. It was an awful read.
 
The Stanford crowd size will go down in the annals of SyracuseFan.
Dougie Payne Fingers GIF by Travis
 
Saying that Zeed has a family issue. Always tough for a player away from home if , for ex. someone in his family is ill.
They need to be doing everything they can to bring him back in the fold. If he’s out for another week it’s gonna be hard to get him back up to speed for UNLV.
 

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