sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
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- Aug 15, 2011
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It has been a long day and I am pretty tired but I will do my best to throw something together here.
Was on duty as the backup guy manning the Blackstone at the tailgate. Walshjfii was the lead guy. I have one and have done a lot of grilling on it but not breakfast. We did a ton of bacon, breakfast sausage and scrambled eggs. John showed me some tricks and we ended up splitting cooking duties. Big fan of Blackstones. They are awesome.
Tailgate was cool. Good turnout considering the weather (cold and rainy) and the disaster that happened in southwest PA last week. Props to Nell, Jeremy and all the people who helped make the tailgate happen. There are a lot. Putting on a giant tailgate is not easy.
Headed up to the dome a little before 11. Saw a bunch of people in Hokie gear. They might have had 500 people. Maybe even 1000 counting everyone scattered throughout the building. They brought their cheerleaders and mascot too, which happens less and less these days.
Not a big crowd but it was loud. Disappointed with th townies and alums but even more so with the students. This was an awful effort by them. Not many came, most of the ones that did come,came late and they made little noise.
8 tubas. Not good Bob. Props to the band for their Thriller based halftime show, where they all learned a long piece of Michael’s Thriler dance and performed it really well. Got a big hand from the fans. Sounded good too.
Someone with a great voice led the singing of the alma mater and NA. I think it was a former member of SUMB back for Homecoming. She had a really nice voice and sounded really familiar.
Let’s talk about the game some.
SU opened in the 3-3-5 defense they played the last couple of years under Tony White and then Rocky Long. Like under those guys, they sometimes moved a LB up to the line and rushed him. I think the defense was expecting Drones and was not really prepared for the backup, who was really mobile, not super accurate throwing and who did a lot of rollouts and designed runs to take advantage of his legs and make it easier for him to complete passes. That was sucessful in the first half but we made some adjustments in the second half and they had a harder time moving the ball after that.
Nice to have Wax back. He has quickly become our best pass rusher, something he has always been good at. Lots of problems tackling. Lots of weird tackling techniques.. I think the big VT back hit hard and that had something to do with it. And I think some of our guys have bad shoulders they are trying to protect. But it was ugly at times.
Diggs picked a good time to start contributing again. Thought Simmons had the best game of his career. We have to get more from our DEs and today we did. Even The Nigerian Nightmare had some moments.
.The offense started badly and did almost nothing in the first half. Not completely true. We were on our way to two TDs but we threw it long to Hatcher, who was clearly getting interfered with but he broke out his route and stopped trying, which stopped the refs from calling PI and gave the DB an uncontested interception. This keeps happening with Umari. Unacceptable.
And they we threw it to our other skinny outside WR, Gill. He made the catch but got stripped by a much stronger DB. We were, I believe, inside the VT 25 at the time. Unacceptable.
We got the ball to start the second half and could do nothing. VT ended up scoring another TD to extend the lead to 21-3. The whole season was no on the line. Sink or swim time.
We really needed someone to make a play and we got it from a guy who I don’t think had made a reception all season. Justus Ross-Simmons was going against press coverage on a little bubble screen thrown to the LOS. He slipped the tackle and was off to the races. Got it in even though he was battling his long standing hamstring injury and a calf injury suffered babying his hamstring. We finally made a team pay for using press coverage on us.
Not long after, McCord threw it over the middle to JRS and he again broke a tackle and scored. I want to take second to stress how important I think the emergence of JRS is. I think he makes defenses a lot more reluctant to play press against us. I hope so anyway.
We started going more to Gadsden as well and kept running Allen up the midddle. Didn’t have much success running it in the first half but once we started to hurt the Hokies with our passing game, the inning game started to open up and VT really struggled to stop us. The dome kept getting louder and VT started to get more conservative with their play calling and pretty soon we had the lead.
Of course, nothing is that easy in a VT-Syracuse football game. VT came back with 10 straight points and suddenly we were down 7 late in the game, needing a long TD drive to tie the game up. Props by the way to the defense for holding the Hokies to a field goal that last drive so SU at least had a chance to tie it.
We all know SU was able to convert that drive into a TD. Props to everyone for stepping up but gotta call out LeQuint for his leadership during the comeback. That kid is a winner and would not let us lose. Even after that weird unsportsmanlike conduct call on him, apparently by the female line judge. Props to OC Nixon, who found ways to attack the VT defense. Mostly with WR screens and a variety of runs up the middle. I think McCord finally had a game where he threw for lass than 300 yards but I think he had a solid game nonetheless.
The TD run by LeQuint in OT was almost as remarkable as the TD run against UNLV to tie the game up at the end of regulation.
There were a lot of recruits at the game today. Seeing the team stay together and come back has to be a good thing. I suspect we end up with a couple of studs largely as a result of them seeing what it is like in the dome in a big game.
What else? Another disaster OSU game for special teams. It seems like we can never get a decent return but we can still find a way to make a penalty to send us backwards anyway. Another blocked PAT. From what I saw, the block was on the OL, which allowed two VT played to jump over them, right in front of the kicker, and raise their arms for an easy block. Not sure that is legal either.
Wanted to give props to Stonehouse, who had a really good game punting and when the kick got blocked, hustled his butt off and ran down the VT defender to make the tackle. Great hustle on his part. I think the mustache makes him faster.Should mentioned Kennedy, who has been the place kicker for Cornell the last couple of years, has apparently taken over as the kicker for SU now. He did okay today. Wonder why it has taken so long to go to him.
I am hopeful that today’s result is going to make the difference between a warm weather and a cold weather bowl. So much depends on the BC game now. Somehow the ACC gave them a bye while we had to play a tough opponent. Not good. We gotta overcome that treatment and find a way to play them. I believe they have lost 3 in a row. Time to extend that losing streak.
Was on duty as the backup guy manning the Blackstone at the tailgate. Walshjfii was the lead guy. I have one and have done a lot of grilling on it but not breakfast. We did a ton of bacon, breakfast sausage and scrambled eggs. John showed me some tricks and we ended up splitting cooking duties. Big fan of Blackstones. They are awesome.
Tailgate was cool. Good turnout considering the weather (cold and rainy) and the disaster that happened in southwest PA last week. Props to Nell, Jeremy and all the people who helped make the tailgate happen. There are a lot. Putting on a giant tailgate is not easy.
Headed up to the dome a little before 11. Saw a bunch of people in Hokie gear. They might have had 500 people. Maybe even 1000 counting everyone scattered throughout the building. They brought their cheerleaders and mascot too, which happens less and less these days.
Not a big crowd but it was loud. Disappointed with th townies and alums but even more so with the students. This was an awful effort by them. Not many came, most of the ones that did come,came late and they made little noise.
8 tubas. Not good Bob. Props to the band for their Thriller based halftime show, where they all learned a long piece of Michael’s Thriler dance and performed it really well. Got a big hand from the fans. Sounded good too.
Someone with a great voice led the singing of the alma mater and NA. I think it was a former member of SUMB back for Homecoming. She had a really nice voice and sounded really familiar.
Let’s talk about the game some.
SU opened in the 3-3-5 defense they played the last couple of years under Tony White and then Rocky Long. Like under those guys, they sometimes moved a LB up to the line and rushed him. I think the defense was expecting Drones and was not really prepared for the backup, who was really mobile, not super accurate throwing and who did a lot of rollouts and designed runs to take advantage of his legs and make it easier for him to complete passes. That was sucessful in the first half but we made some adjustments in the second half and they had a harder time moving the ball after that.
Nice to have Wax back. He has quickly become our best pass rusher, something he has always been good at. Lots of problems tackling. Lots of weird tackling techniques.. I think the big VT back hit hard and that had something to do with it. And I think some of our guys have bad shoulders they are trying to protect. But it was ugly at times.
Diggs picked a good time to start contributing again. Thought Simmons had the best game of his career. We have to get more from our DEs and today we did. Even The Nigerian Nightmare had some moments.
.The offense started badly and did almost nothing in the first half. Not completely true. We were on our way to two TDs but we threw it long to Hatcher, who was clearly getting interfered with but he broke out his route and stopped trying, which stopped the refs from calling PI and gave the DB an uncontested interception. This keeps happening with Umari. Unacceptable.
And they we threw it to our other skinny outside WR, Gill. He made the catch but got stripped by a much stronger DB. We were, I believe, inside the VT 25 at the time. Unacceptable.
We got the ball to start the second half and could do nothing. VT ended up scoring another TD to extend the lead to 21-3. The whole season was no on the line. Sink or swim time.
We really needed someone to make a play and we got it from a guy who I don’t think had made a reception all season. Justus Ross-Simmons was going against press coverage on a little bubble screen thrown to the LOS. He slipped the tackle and was off to the races. Got it in even though he was battling his long standing hamstring injury and a calf injury suffered babying his hamstring. We finally made a team pay for using press coverage on us.
Not long after, McCord threw it over the middle to JRS and he again broke a tackle and scored. I want to take second to stress how important I think the emergence of JRS is. I think he makes defenses a lot more reluctant to play press against us. I hope so anyway.
We started going more to Gadsden as well and kept running Allen up the midddle. Didn’t have much success running it in the first half but once we started to hurt the Hokies with our passing game, the inning game started to open up and VT really struggled to stop us. The dome kept getting louder and VT started to get more conservative with their play calling and pretty soon we had the lead.
Of course, nothing is that easy in a VT-Syracuse football game. VT came back with 10 straight points and suddenly we were down 7 late in the game, needing a long TD drive to tie the game up. Props by the way to the defense for holding the Hokies to a field goal that last drive so SU at least had a chance to tie it.
We all know SU was able to convert that drive into a TD. Props to everyone for stepping up but gotta call out LeQuint for his leadership during the comeback. That kid is a winner and would not let us lose. Even after that weird unsportsmanlike conduct call on him, apparently by the female line judge. Props to OC Nixon, who found ways to attack the VT defense. Mostly with WR screens and a variety of runs up the middle. I think McCord finally had a game where he threw for lass than 300 yards but I think he had a solid game nonetheless.
The TD run by LeQuint in OT was almost as remarkable as the TD run against UNLV to tie the game up at the end of regulation.
There were a lot of recruits at the game today. Seeing the team stay together and come back has to be a good thing. I suspect we end up with a couple of studs largely as a result of them seeing what it is like in the dome in a big game.
What else? Another disaster OSU game for special teams. It seems like we can never get a decent return but we can still find a way to make a penalty to send us backwards anyway. Another blocked PAT. From what I saw, the block was on the OL, which allowed two VT played to jump over them, right in front of the kicker, and raise their arms for an easy block. Not sure that is legal either.
Wanted to give props to Stonehouse, who had a really good game punting and when the kick got blocked, hustled his butt off and ran down the VT defender to make the tackle. Great hustle on his part. I think the mustache makes him faster.Should mentioned Kennedy, who has been the place kicker for Cornell the last couple of years, has apparently taken over as the kicker for SU now. He did okay today. Wonder why it has taken so long to go to him.
I am hopeful that today’s result is going to make the difference between a warm weather and a cold weather bowl. So much depends on the BC game now. Somehow the ACC gave them a bye while we had to play a tough opponent. Not good. We gotta overcome that treatment and find a way to play them. I believe they have lost 3 in a row. Time to extend that losing streak.
