sutomcat
2024 Iggy Award (ACC Tournament Record)
- Joined
- Aug 15, 2011
- Messages
- 27,717
- Like
- 124,001
Sorry for posting this late.
Yesterday was a long day, and there was no way I was gonna have time to do it after I got home. And then I had an early tee time this morning at Green Lakes, so I had to wait until I returned from there.
It was a very nice tailgate. I worked some on the big grill, and if you went to the tailgate and ate a burger, hotdog, or coney, there’s a decent chance that I cooked it. Special props to Obie9 for his work prepping the chicken for,the chicken sandwiches, and to VTAaron for grilling them. I had two of them and they were both very good. That was all I had, but I saw there were a lot of very nice, delicious looking high carb choices that I opted not to partake of.
Maybe I should’ve known things were headed into disarray when the prevailing wind kept blowing the smoke from the burgers into our eyes. It wouldn’t be the first time I cried yesterday. There was also some bad foreshadowing early when we saw Heritage Hill had stolen another parking space from our set up. Not cool, Heritage Hill.
13 tubas. Again. Very nice. The SUMB sounded great and I really like the orange berets the sousaphone players wear. Are they the only ones that don’t have to wear the fez-like caps with a giant feather? Anyway, it is a cool look. Sousaphones rule!
Pitt didn’t bring many fans. But they did bring more than most years they have visited here. Maybe 500? I hope someday they start to travel in decent numbers. It would be nice if they started acting like a big-time program sometime soon.
My sister and law and nephew went to the game with me. It was his first football game. He goes to a Syracuse public school and if he keeps his grades in order, can get free tuition to SU. Mom wanted me to start lobbying him to be Orange some day and the process has been started. I think he’s only 10 so it’s gonna take a while.
Let’s talk football.
I get it. Almost everyone has lost faith in Rickie Collins. I think at this point, it is safe to say he is not very good. And perhaps never will be. In his defense, he did make some very nice long throws, and he kept some drives alive with some very nice runs. He is athletic and we should probably take advantage of that more.
But man, he makes a disturbing number of throws directly to the other team. And there were a lot of plays where we had a receiver open, and he just was not able to get the ball where needed to go. I think he’s doing a little bit better job of looking off the primary receiver now, and I like his awareness of the rush when he’s in the pocket. But his accuracy needs to improve markedly as does his judgment.
So we finally got to see the kid play. When Carney first came in, he got a big warm ovation. People were excited to see what he could do.
But he was not able to put points on the board or even to get much yardage. Get beat to the corner by linebacker, which is not a good thing. I think he looks athletic, which is great, but the offense didn’t come to life magically upon his arrival. I don’t think we gave him a lot of chances to throw the ball, and when we did, it was conservative throws to the sideline. I believe they were afraid if he threw over the middle, he was gonna turn it over.
I think the staff knows more about the quarterback situation than we do as fans. I think they want to win as much or more than we do. They are not playing Carney for a good reason. And maybe we got a little insight into this last night. I won’t write Luke off this early, but he is clearly not Superman. True freshmen QB almost never come in and play really well. Especially at QB. This is just a fact.
I felt bad for Gill. He had a chance to make at least three long, huge catches. Now one of them would taken a spectacular catch. And he almost pulled it off. The other two, I think he should have caught. Was he interfered with the one?
I’ve jave not seen a replay, but watching it live, it was clearly interference. Huge play in the game and the gutless refs swallowed their whistle. Shameful. Much along the lines of the lineman who called a couple holds about 10 seconds after any possible holding could have happened (and after it turned out we made a huge play). Things that make you go hmmm…
Anyway, Gill must be tougher, more physical, and fight harder for the ball on the long throws that end up 50-50. He really needs to get stronger.
Thought Cook was solid, as was Villari. Wish they were targeted more often. Allen and Willis are at opposite ends of the RB as a receiver bell curve. What a big drop off.
It’s a shame the offense struggled so much last night. It’s a shame special teams also had a really bad night. Because the defense played very well for an extended period, and really gave us a chance to win props to everyone involved on the defense for making major improvements. I’m not sure if the credit goes to Don Brown, Elijah Robinson, or someone else, but I suspect a big part of it is the increased playing time for some young guns. AD and Tremble are two of our best athletes on defense and they can make plays most of the rest of the team cannot. Peal looked solid. Perry made some plays. Kerr did some good things. And we even had some safety help on some passing plays. Thanks Duce for waking up and helping out some.
Thought Jobity was a force again and Reese usually gets the job done pass rushing. Also liked what I saw of Omopariola. He needs more PT. Bryant seems to slowly getting better. I guess it was a big jump up to this level of football.
Bottom line, this defense is very young and on the rise. I think there’s much hope for the future here.
I was very disappointed with special teams again.
Why return any kick off? We don’t block at all, we don’t run hard returning it, and we seem to make a penalty despite every time we try. Just take the knee and start on the 25.
Please stop making fair catches inside the tent. I’ve asked nicely. Don’t poke the bear.
I thought Stonehouse had another fine game. I don’t blame him for the punt return touchdown. You can’t expect him to tackle a guy who runs a 4.4 40.
I think this was the first big return we’ve given up this year, but it came at such a crucial time in the game. Probably was the biggest play of the game. Did we totally screw up the last minute of the half? Yes. Was time management horrible again? Yes, but I don’t think we even got a hand on that guy returning the punt. Just lots of blown assignments and carelessness. I should note that we did convert another onside kick, with a wild line drive off a Pitt player ride to one of our guys. That was very cool. Of course we couldn’t convert it into any points but it was a very nice play by the kicker. Overall special teams must do better.
In my humble opinion, the biggest factor right now holding us back from being successful offensively is the play of our offensive line. I have been watching Syracuse football since 1972, and I think last night was the worst performance by our OL in all the games I’ve seen since then. We couldn’t pass block, we couldn’t open holes on running plays, and we committed too many penalties, most of which were legit. Yes, Pitt presents problems for ay OL but this was a terrible performance.
To be fair, we were missing Washington. Mack and Ferguson was listed as probable, and they played, but I do not think they were near 100%. Mack was even taken out for one series, replaced by Bertrand, but I think his play was so bad, Mack was brought back in and stayed in the rest of the game.
Cruz really struggled but I saw him limping all game long. He also was clearly playing hurt. I think it should be noted that while these guys struggled, many were playing hurt for the good of the team. Just as an aside, Rice wasn’t even dressed i pads for the game last night. So he was not an option.
Collins might be our best OL this year but he went down early (pretty sure it was a couple plays into our first series) and I don’t think he ever returned. Miller replaced him and it appeared he was physically dominated all game long. He just could not hold his ground again a bigger, stronger, defensive tackle.
Now we get to visit Georgia Tech and play against the team that’s playing by far the best of any ACC school. Awesome.
Yesterday was a long day, and there was no way I was gonna have time to do it after I got home. And then I had an early tee time this morning at Green Lakes, so I had to wait until I returned from there.
It was a very nice tailgate. I worked some on the big grill, and if you went to the tailgate and ate a burger, hotdog, or coney, there’s a decent chance that I cooked it. Special props to Obie9 for his work prepping the chicken for,the chicken sandwiches, and to VTAaron for grilling them. I had two of them and they were both very good. That was all I had, but I saw there were a lot of very nice, delicious looking high carb choices that I opted not to partake of.
Maybe I should’ve known things were headed into disarray when the prevailing wind kept blowing the smoke from the burgers into our eyes. It wouldn’t be the first time I cried yesterday. There was also some bad foreshadowing early when we saw Heritage Hill had stolen another parking space from our set up. Not cool, Heritage Hill.
13 tubas. Again. Very nice. The SUMB sounded great and I really like the orange berets the sousaphone players wear. Are they the only ones that don’t have to wear the fez-like caps with a giant feather? Anyway, it is a cool look. Sousaphones rule!
Pitt didn’t bring many fans. But they did bring more than most years they have visited here. Maybe 500? I hope someday they start to travel in decent numbers. It would be nice if they started acting like a big-time program sometime soon.
My sister and law and nephew went to the game with me. It was his first football game. He goes to a Syracuse public school and if he keeps his grades in order, can get free tuition to SU. Mom wanted me to start lobbying him to be Orange some day and the process has been started. I think he’s only 10 so it’s gonna take a while.
Let’s talk football.
I get it. Almost everyone has lost faith in Rickie Collins. I think at this point, it is safe to say he is not very good. And perhaps never will be. In his defense, he did make some very nice long throws, and he kept some drives alive with some very nice runs. He is athletic and we should probably take advantage of that more.
But man, he makes a disturbing number of throws directly to the other team. And there were a lot of plays where we had a receiver open, and he just was not able to get the ball where needed to go. I think he’s doing a little bit better job of looking off the primary receiver now, and I like his awareness of the rush when he’s in the pocket. But his accuracy needs to improve markedly as does his judgment.
So we finally got to see the kid play. When Carney first came in, he got a big warm ovation. People were excited to see what he could do.
But he was not able to put points on the board or even to get much yardage. Get beat to the corner by linebacker, which is not a good thing. I think he looks athletic, which is great, but the offense didn’t come to life magically upon his arrival. I don’t think we gave him a lot of chances to throw the ball, and when we did, it was conservative throws to the sideline. I believe they were afraid if he threw over the middle, he was gonna turn it over.
I think the staff knows more about the quarterback situation than we do as fans. I think they want to win as much or more than we do. They are not playing Carney for a good reason. And maybe we got a little insight into this last night. I won’t write Luke off this early, but he is clearly not Superman. True freshmen QB almost never come in and play really well. Especially at QB. This is just a fact.
I felt bad for Gill. He had a chance to make at least three long, huge catches. Now one of them would taken a spectacular catch. And he almost pulled it off. The other two, I think he should have caught. Was he interfered with the one?
I’ve jave not seen a replay, but watching it live, it was clearly interference. Huge play in the game and the gutless refs swallowed their whistle. Shameful. Much along the lines of the lineman who called a couple holds about 10 seconds after any possible holding could have happened (and after it turned out we made a huge play). Things that make you go hmmm…
Anyway, Gill must be tougher, more physical, and fight harder for the ball on the long throws that end up 50-50. He really needs to get stronger.
Thought Cook was solid, as was Villari. Wish they were targeted more often. Allen and Willis are at opposite ends of the RB as a receiver bell curve. What a big drop off.
It’s a shame the offense struggled so much last night. It’s a shame special teams also had a really bad night. Because the defense played very well for an extended period, and really gave us a chance to win props to everyone involved on the defense for making major improvements. I’m not sure if the credit goes to Don Brown, Elijah Robinson, or someone else, but I suspect a big part of it is the increased playing time for some young guns. AD and Tremble are two of our best athletes on defense and they can make plays most of the rest of the team cannot. Peal looked solid. Perry made some plays. Kerr did some good things. And we even had some safety help on some passing plays. Thanks Duce for waking up and helping out some.
Thought Jobity was a force again and Reese usually gets the job done pass rushing. Also liked what I saw of Omopariola. He needs more PT. Bryant seems to slowly getting better. I guess it was a big jump up to this level of football.
Bottom line, this defense is very young and on the rise. I think there’s much hope for the future here.
I was very disappointed with special teams again.
Why return any kick off? We don’t block at all, we don’t run hard returning it, and we seem to make a penalty despite every time we try. Just take the knee and start on the 25.
Please stop making fair catches inside the tent. I’ve asked nicely. Don’t poke the bear.
I thought Stonehouse had another fine game. I don’t blame him for the punt return touchdown. You can’t expect him to tackle a guy who runs a 4.4 40.
I think this was the first big return we’ve given up this year, but it came at such a crucial time in the game. Probably was the biggest play of the game. Did we totally screw up the last minute of the half? Yes. Was time management horrible again? Yes, but I don’t think we even got a hand on that guy returning the punt. Just lots of blown assignments and carelessness. I should note that we did convert another onside kick, with a wild line drive off a Pitt player ride to one of our guys. That was very cool. Of course we couldn’t convert it into any points but it was a very nice play by the kicker. Overall special teams must do better.
In my humble opinion, the biggest factor right now holding us back from being successful offensively is the play of our offensive line. I have been watching Syracuse football since 1972, and I think last night was the worst performance by our OL in all the games I’ve seen since then. We couldn’t pass block, we couldn’t open holes on running plays, and we committed too many penalties, most of which were legit. Yes, Pitt presents problems for ay OL but this was a terrible performance.
To be fair, we were missing Washington. Mack and Ferguson was listed as probable, and they played, but I do not think they were near 100%. Mack was even taken out for one series, replaced by Bertrand, but I think his play was so bad, Mack was brought back in and stayed in the rest of the game.
Cruz really struggled but I saw him limping all game long. He also was clearly playing hurt. I think it should be noted that while these guys struggled, many were playing hurt for the good of the team. Just as an aside, Rice wasn’t even dressed i pads for the game last night. So he was not an option.
Collins might be our best OL this year but he went down early (pretty sure it was a couple plays into our first series) and I don’t think he ever returned. Miller replaced him and it appeared he was physically dominated all game long. He just could not hold his ground again a bigger, stronger, defensive tackle.
Now we get to visit Georgia Tech and play against the team that’s playing by far the best of any ACC school. Awesome.
