My Take | Syracusefan.com

My Take

sutomcat

No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
Joined
Aug 15, 2011
Messages
25,010
Like
107,436
Not the best turnout for the tailgate but TM was in midseason form on the grill and a good time was had by all. Good to see everyone and talk about the recent program changing major events.

Small crowd, maybe 30K actually there. But the people that came were loud. The crowd appeared to rattle the Rockets in the 2nd half. Toledo did not bring many fans...I counted 24. But Mark thought it was 40 and I value his judgement.

What a wild game. I thought Toledo had a great game plan on offense. Nice mix of draws, screens, short sideline passes and drag routes over the middle. We could use Fluellen...impressive player.

As was WR Page, who dominated the game at times and was every bit as good as advertised. That kid will play on Sundays. We tried to cover him with an LB, a DB, zones...nothing really worked.

The defense seemed to get better as the game went on. Shafer made his typical effective changes at halftime, we shut down the run and maybe got a little more pressure on the QB and their WRs. I think we ended up gutting them down as well as OSU or Boise did, which portends well for the future.

We obviously had some injury issues. No Shamarko, no Chandler (though both dressed). No fisher, Lyn and Anderson played but were clearly not 100%. Thought Phil did a fine job filling in at SS and Wilkes had a tough day starting at FS. We were forced to use Anene at Okie. Not pretty but somehow the guys got it done.

Lots of PT for Diet Tab...thought he did okay. For missing dozens of tackles, and a couple blown assignments, it was a heck of an effort. Liking what I see from Googins and Ball. Those 2 are really coming on. Lynch is another emerging player. Vaughn might be the best tackler on the team.

On offense, thought Nassib had another big game. Sure, he missed a couple of guys open for possible TDs. Had a couple bad throws too. He was not perfect. However, he made a number of clutch throws, was at his best again when we needed him most and is showing me a lot with his audibles and ability to rescue broken plays. The TD to Lemon in the face of a blitz was just beautiful to see.

Thought Bailey played fine but he is getting pressed hard by Gulley, who has the makings of a special player. Thought his great first down on a second and long down ten in the first half was one of the biggest plays in the game. Competition is a good thing.

The gameplan on offense seemed good in the first half (when SU could get their mitts on the ball). Toledo was blitzing up the middle a lot, especially in the second half and it looked like we tried to take advantage, with some success, with delayed runs. Kind of surprised that with so many players on or near the LOS we didn't throw it more, as we had people open a lot. I suspect a lot of that was because of respect for the Toledo pass rush. That big DT was a force out there.

Good to see Foster and West get more snaps and good to see West take advantage with a couple of big plays.

Thought special teams, while not special, were okay. We knew Page was a first team AA at KOR and he showed why. Our KO coverage team needs a lot of work. On the positive side, I liked what we did with our KOR team, at least for the most part. We had good blocking on our punting team, good coverage there too. Fisher was kind of up and down, as frosh punters tend to me, but he can get the ball a lot higher in the air than Raupers, which really helps the coverage team. Couldn't really tell what was happening with Krautman and the bad kicks. Some of the snaps looked suspect. Some did not.

The SUMB appears to have reworked its version of the Star Spangled Banner. I thought it was nice. Speaking of the band, only 8 tubas there today...one tuba had urgent family business and could not attend. They unveiled an ambitious new show today that was pretty crazy. Included snippets of around 20 songs, ranging across the board. Just about every music genre was represented, from Motown, to Country, to pop, to rock, climaxing with a version of Hey Jude highlighted by the SUMB singing the song itself. Bold, aggressive, visionary. This is the kind of thing that would someday lead to us getting in the ACC. Oh wait. Anyway, I enjoyed it very much.

Was mad when DM did not go for it on 4th with 7 minutes or so to go in the game but he again proved me and many other fans wrong but punting and having his confidence in his defense rewarded with a quick out. I can't say how much I enjoy watching DM teams play late in games, seeng how confident they are and how they seem to play better the later the game gets. It is so good to have confidence as a fan that not only can we win close games, but to feel almost certain we are going to win any close game we might play in.

It is great to continue to win these types of games, and to gain confidence, because I suspect we are going to see a lot more of them down the road. This was a big game towards getting bowl eligible.

Even though Rutgers is a bad team, they need to be taken seriously. It is their last chance to play their daddy, and they will be sky high to try and pull an upset. This is the biggest game any of their players will ever play and I think we all know it is Schiano's Last Stand. Let's hope they will make a game of it.
 
Watched Gulley in pre-game and this kid was pumped up and doing his best to get his teammates going. His play today showed the same fire he did in pre-game. Nice to see.
 
PTG is an explosive player. He's got exactly the dynamism we really desperately need on offense, and I hope he continues to see the field more and more. His role needs to expand.
 
There is just something about DM - He is a winner & he instills it in the kids.

It is still a process to get the talent upgraded, but we seem to recruit just a little bit better each year than we did the year before under DM. Hopefully he can keep that trend going...if so we should be back into the top 25 in just a couple of more years & hopefully we can stay there consistantly once it happens.
 
There is just something about DM - He is a winner & he instills it in the kids.

It is still a process to get the talent upgraded, but we seem to recruit just a little bit better each year than we did the year before under DM. Hopefully he can keep that trend going...if so we should be back into the top 25 in just a couple of more years & hopefully we can stay there consistantly once it happens.
I think we crack the top 25 next season. If we can stay healthy, it could be a big year...
 
Maybe the biggest call for Marrone today was when Toledo had first and goal for the win. He called a time out to settle down the defense and let them know that the game wasn't over. They held and we eventually won in OT. This hasn't been mentioned anywhere, but if they don't stop that final drive we would all be singing a different tune.
 
gulley is quick...i think we need to see more of him..he appeared very effective when he in there
 
just home from the game, which was a hard one to watch

"On offense, thought Nassib had another big game. Sure, he missed a couple of guys open for possible TDs." ---The one that got me was in the second half; I think we had scored and then stopped them. I told the guy next to me that the first play would be a TD pass to Van Chew; he broke open downfield on the right side all alone. We ended up gaining 5 yds on the play, but I am still not sure how it happened because I was watching Chew and getting ready to celebrate the TD. That would have broken the game open. Oh, well.

0 tubas, 8 sousaphones
 
I think we crack the top 25 next season. If we can stay healthy, it could be a big year...

I agree. The depth next year and the experience coming back will be fun to watch.

It's exciting to watch Nassib grow now. He is a good QB right now, and I believe he has considerable room for growth. He could be very good by the end of the season. This offense is designed for the QB to shine. I think we saw that with the Paulus experiment when he set records in efficiency after playing basketball for 4 years. I was happy to see Nassib use pump fakes today, he forced fewer deep throws, and at least once he stepped up in the pocket when he was under pressure and he made the play.

This is a great win especially after making the trip back from L.A. Taking the redeye back can be brutal, and Toledo played at home last week on Friday night. If I had known the offense would struggle to put up points like this I would have predicted 1-3 instead of 3-1. The defense plays hard, and the offense could do them more favors. They needed to get a TD before the half and ended up with a FG and gave Toledo the ball with enough time to drive, and they needed to come out of half time and drive down the field. Instead, they were 3 and out and had to burn a time out.

3-1 is awesome right now. Time to get to work and put together a complete game.
 
Amazing watching PTG find success where Bailey was not. I've always been a huge Bailey fan and have been scratching my head as to why he can seem to get past the line. He's hesitant looking for the perfect hole. PTG doesn't hesitate, he just picks a side and runs hard. He either has real good instincts on which way to run or he just got lucky today. Let's hope it's the former.

Thanks for the post TC.
 
what is up with Gulley going to the locker so many times during a game?
 
The TD to Lemon in the face of a blitz was just beautiful to see.

Thanks for your nice post as usual. The TD to Lemon showed Nassib's improvement as a QB, reading the pressure and finding a quick outlet but putting some finesse on the throw. That was one of our plays of the day.
 
PTG just has better vision and takes what the play gives him. Doesn't have the game breaking speed though.
 
PTG just has better vision and takes what the play gives him. Doesn't have the game breaking speed though.
You are absolutely wrong. Ptg has great speed
 
Amazing watching PTG find success where Bailey was not. I've always been a huge Bailey fan and have been scratching my head as to why he can seem to get past the line. He's hesitant looking for the perfect hole. PTG doesn't hesitate, he just picks a side and runs hard. He either has real good instincts on which way to run or he just got lucky today. Let's hope it's the former.

Thanks for the post TC.
i liked that they had them both in the backfield once or twice. i was thinking perfect time for fake "scissors play" and tight end throw.
 
You are absolutely wrong. Ptg has great speed

To add onto that, PTG hits the hole at full speed... Bailey seems to dance around at the line looking for a gap... by the time he decides someone gets a hand on him. I can't count the number of times that he had open holes yesterday and was tripped up going through the line. If he's running full speed ahead through the hole instead of dancing then he has big gains just like PTG.
 
It appeared Bailey missed a lot of open running lanes. They may not have been where then play wasndesigned but he needs to use his vision. Think he left a lot of extra yards on the field.
 
i liked that they had them both in the backfield once or twice. i was thinking perfect time for fake "scissors play" and tight end throw.

I've said it before and will say it again- when you have two guys in the backfield who are running threats it's just like having more than one receiver to throw to- it complicates things for the defense. And you can still throw to either one of them. It mystifies me that modern football coaches don't see this. A power running fullback, a swift halfback, a sure-handed tight end and two wideouts is still the ideal football line-up. We don't have the power runner we need but if we get what I'll call the "Syracuse 6" next year- Adonis Ameen-Moore and Prince-Tyson Gulley, (six names for two guys who will get a lot of "6's"- touchdowns for us), we will have the ideal line-up for the old fashioned pro attack. And you know how things are cyclical in football- bring back somehting from the past and modern defense won't be ready for it.
 
gulley is quick...i think we need to see more of him..he appeared very effective when he in there

Our running backs seem to slow up as they mature. Walter Ryees and Delone Carter both seemed faster as underclassmen than as upperclassmen. Too much time in the weightroom?

I also think they are using Bailey too much like Carter- between the tackles. Antwon needs space. Gulley is being used more like Antwon was last year.
 
what is up with Gulley going to the locker so many times during a game?

I was sitting right next to the Cuse locker room when he came off during the third quarter. He had his glove off his right hand. I'm assuming he busted up a finger.
 

Forum statistics

Threads
167,128
Messages
4,681,761
Members
5,900
Latest member
DizzyNY

Online statistics

Members online
302
Guests online
2,138
Total visitors
2,440


Top Bottom