sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
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- Aug 15, 2011
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Nice turnout at the tailgate. Good to see many old and new faces. Don't have time to list them but great talking to so many SU fans excited about the program. Props to CuseRegular and JeremyCuse for cooking up some wonderful vittles. SUBarney as well. I am still full.
Bad crowd, about 27K actually in the seats, but the ones that came made a lot of noise and were a factor in the game. Nice job people. If it wasn't Parents Weekend, it would have been really sad.
Band had 11 tubas, did a nice tribute to Led Zeppelin at halftime featuring extended guitar solos by some older looking dude with a blue guitar, Orange Girl was solid, the kids marched well, good arrangement of difficult material, nice show.
I expected a close game but thought it was going to be high scoring...30-28, something like that. Was pleasantly surprised by our defense, which has been improved against the run this season, but really stepped up its efforts last night against a team that is capable of running the ball well. Graham might be the best back we play all season. Dominated the inside of the line, props to Bromley, Crume, Jones and Goggins. Many running plays were met at the LOS and Pitt was often lucky to get 0 yards on carries. When they tried to run outside, they had a little more success but our improved team speed allowed us to get to the corner and take that away. Big change from past seasons, no question the speed and athletic ability on the defensive unit is the best we have had in the Marrone era.
SU played a mix of man and zone coverage on defense. We got burned blitzing a few times through the game, once they ran in the hole Cam left coming in from the outside, once they threw it long to Shanahan (3rd quarter) when we sent almost everyone, etc. It is hard to blitz with a veteran QB. I understand why we often went with 3 DL in 3rd and long situations from that perspective, but man, we did a good job rushing with 4 DL and got nothing going with 3. Props to Brandon Sharpe, who had a monster game at DE, both rushing the QB and blowing up running plays. A lot of times pass rushers do a good job getting sacks at the expense of protecting against the run but Sharpe did a great all around job at DE. We really needed to put some pressure on Sunseri and his role here was one of the keys to the game.
Was critical of the LBs in the last game or two, Thought they played a lot better last night. Part of the reason was the dominance of the Syracuse DL over the Pitt OL, but they stuck their noses in, used their speed well and made some plays in the open field.
Thought Lyn had a really good game again. Excellent coverage, they rarely threw his way, and he made some great plays against the run. One in particular when Graham kept breaking outside to try and get a seam and Lyn just ate him up. He is an emerging star. Anderson was again picked on. He plays very conservatively, gives WRs far too much room. To be fair to him, Sunseri often had too much time to throw, especially when SU was in the Okie with 3 DL, and Pitt has a couple of excellent WRs. Street will play on Sundays. That being said, I look forward to the day when we can play Reddish and Lyn together. Hope it happens next week.
Thought Shamarko was having a fine game until he got hurt. From the stands, we assume he was knocked out. Hope if it was a concussion, it was his first and he will be able to return to the field soon. He is easily our best tackler, especially in the open field. .
Wilkes had a couple of missed assignments (I think he had Shanahan on the all out blitz play where he got 20 yards behind the secondary and only ended up with a 40 yard gain because Sunseri threw the ball so poorly. Sunseri by the way has one of the weakest arms I have seen at the BCS level. But he was very accurate and threaded the needle a number of times when Pitt was in 3rd and long situations.
On offense, I think Pitt defended us borrowing heavily from Minnesota. They played zone all game long, overloaded deep and basically dared us to run or throw underneath. We took them up on the dare at times (probably did not run the ball as much as we should have again) and were usually successful. This was one of those games were the straightforward north-south approach to running was the best one so Smith, who again played well, had a lot more success than the jitterbugging style of Gulley.
Pitt rarely blitzed, relying on their 4 man front to apply pressure to Nassib. Thought our OL largely did a good job pass blocking. Aaron Donald, Pitt's AA DT, was a big factor all game long, especially on running plays but he did not dominate and I thought we did a good job with him overall. This was the coming out game for Rob Trudo, who got his first start at RG and played there the whole game (at least as far as I could tell). That gave us 3 starters on the OL from PA. Assume the staff gave Trudo the start knowing he would be playing against a lot of people from PA he knows well. Anyway, I suspect that young Rob will be starting the rest of his career. He has a lot of talent and is just going to get better over time. Thought Hickey was excellent again, did not miss a beat moving to the right side of the line. Thought Pugh did a fine job, showed no signs of rust or weakness. Our OL is coming together right now, there is potential for it to be darned good as the season progresses.
On offense, we tried to spread Pitt out and pass the ball. Used a ton of 4 WR sets and even used a 5 WR set a few times, which meant the TEs had a very reduced role. Don't think we even completed a pass to a TE, which is shocking given how much we have been relying on passing to this position in the Marrone era. We have gone from 2 TE sets most of the time to 0 TE sets most of the time (though I think last night might have been an aberration based on how mobile Pitt's LBs are compared to our slow footed TEs).
No man coverage for Pitt but their zone coverage gets very aggressive. They have one outstanding CB and a young CB who is going to be very good. Ate up Clark, tied up Sales a lot and even Lemon struggled to get open a lot. I know people are going to say Nassib was gutless, panicked in the pocket, etc. but a lot of the plays where he threw it away, was flushed out of the pocket or was sacked were because of good coverage by Pitt. Even West, who was often covered by Pitt's 4th CB, struggled to get open a lot. We need more speed and size at WR against good coverage teams and look for this to be a problem in the next 3 weeks as we play RU, UConn and USF, all of whom have fine CBs.
Still, I think when teams are playing 5 or 6 DBs against us, we have to find ways of running the ball and making them play for going so undersized. You have to take what the defense gives you and the defense is giving us the run right now. Our defense has had terrible times defending the run against spread offenses when we go small and fast. Again, a big part of the problem is that we don't have a really fast RB to take advantage of the open space in these situations. But our personnel is good and is good enough to do damage. Especially with the OL looking improved, with a greatly shored up right side.
Thought Nassib was having a good game until the point he threw the ill fated fade pass in the endzone that was picked off. You have to throw it to the outside and you have to throw it to the back of the endzone. Bad pass but like Bees says, bad idea to call that play. It is not a strength of Nassib's and is not a good play period that close to the goal line. You need more time for the WR to break free of the CB.
AAM was a big success in short yardage, which has plagued us all season. Happy for him. Not happy we benched Broyld all game long, presumably because of his fumble against UM. He is a great played in open space and there was a lot of open space out there against that Pitt defense. Damn, I think it was a big mistake to sit him. Play him instead of Clark in the slot. You will get a lot better results, I guarantee it.
Thought special teams were okay. Our coverage teams have made major strides in recent weeks. Our return teams are still pretty awful and our punter is not good, but I suspect part of the reason why is an insistence on Marrone's part to have the punter kick the ball to the sides of the field (never down the middle of the field). I dream of the day when we get a punt return for 10 yards. It will be glorious when it happens.
Good to see improved tackling. Good to see much improved discipline and greatly reduced mistakes. Wish it happened a little earlier in the season. One thing you can say about Marrone, give him some time and he does good things. I think we are 5-1 when we have more than a week to prepare for a team now (counting the bowl game).
The UConn-RU game today should be of great interest to SU fans. We got to see our next 2 opponents playing head to head. I expect a low scoring, violent hitting game with bodies flying everywhere. If you like punts, it is a must see.
Bad crowd, about 27K actually in the seats, but the ones that came made a lot of noise and were a factor in the game. Nice job people. If it wasn't Parents Weekend, it would have been really sad.
Band had 11 tubas, did a nice tribute to Led Zeppelin at halftime featuring extended guitar solos by some older looking dude with a blue guitar, Orange Girl was solid, the kids marched well, good arrangement of difficult material, nice show.
I expected a close game but thought it was going to be high scoring...30-28, something like that. Was pleasantly surprised by our defense, which has been improved against the run this season, but really stepped up its efforts last night against a team that is capable of running the ball well. Graham might be the best back we play all season. Dominated the inside of the line, props to Bromley, Crume, Jones and Goggins. Many running plays were met at the LOS and Pitt was often lucky to get 0 yards on carries. When they tried to run outside, they had a little more success but our improved team speed allowed us to get to the corner and take that away. Big change from past seasons, no question the speed and athletic ability on the defensive unit is the best we have had in the Marrone era.
SU played a mix of man and zone coverage on defense. We got burned blitzing a few times through the game, once they ran in the hole Cam left coming in from the outside, once they threw it long to Shanahan (3rd quarter) when we sent almost everyone, etc. It is hard to blitz with a veteran QB. I understand why we often went with 3 DL in 3rd and long situations from that perspective, but man, we did a good job rushing with 4 DL and got nothing going with 3. Props to Brandon Sharpe, who had a monster game at DE, both rushing the QB and blowing up running plays. A lot of times pass rushers do a good job getting sacks at the expense of protecting against the run but Sharpe did a great all around job at DE. We really needed to put some pressure on Sunseri and his role here was one of the keys to the game.
Was critical of the LBs in the last game or two, Thought they played a lot better last night. Part of the reason was the dominance of the Syracuse DL over the Pitt OL, but they stuck their noses in, used their speed well and made some plays in the open field.
Thought Lyn had a really good game again. Excellent coverage, they rarely threw his way, and he made some great plays against the run. One in particular when Graham kept breaking outside to try and get a seam and Lyn just ate him up. He is an emerging star. Anderson was again picked on. He plays very conservatively, gives WRs far too much room. To be fair to him, Sunseri often had too much time to throw, especially when SU was in the Okie with 3 DL, and Pitt has a couple of excellent WRs. Street will play on Sundays. That being said, I look forward to the day when we can play Reddish and Lyn together. Hope it happens next week.
Thought Shamarko was having a fine game until he got hurt. From the stands, we assume he was knocked out. Hope if it was a concussion, it was his first and he will be able to return to the field soon. He is easily our best tackler, especially in the open field. .
Wilkes had a couple of missed assignments (I think he had Shanahan on the all out blitz play where he got 20 yards behind the secondary and only ended up with a 40 yard gain because Sunseri threw the ball so poorly. Sunseri by the way has one of the weakest arms I have seen at the BCS level. But he was very accurate and threaded the needle a number of times when Pitt was in 3rd and long situations.
On offense, I think Pitt defended us borrowing heavily from Minnesota. They played zone all game long, overloaded deep and basically dared us to run or throw underneath. We took them up on the dare at times (probably did not run the ball as much as we should have again) and were usually successful. This was one of those games were the straightforward north-south approach to running was the best one so Smith, who again played well, had a lot more success than the jitterbugging style of Gulley.
Pitt rarely blitzed, relying on their 4 man front to apply pressure to Nassib. Thought our OL largely did a good job pass blocking. Aaron Donald, Pitt's AA DT, was a big factor all game long, especially on running plays but he did not dominate and I thought we did a good job with him overall. This was the coming out game for Rob Trudo, who got his first start at RG and played there the whole game (at least as far as I could tell). That gave us 3 starters on the OL from PA. Assume the staff gave Trudo the start knowing he would be playing against a lot of people from PA he knows well. Anyway, I suspect that young Rob will be starting the rest of his career. He has a lot of talent and is just going to get better over time. Thought Hickey was excellent again, did not miss a beat moving to the right side of the line. Thought Pugh did a fine job, showed no signs of rust or weakness. Our OL is coming together right now, there is potential for it to be darned good as the season progresses.
On offense, we tried to spread Pitt out and pass the ball. Used a ton of 4 WR sets and even used a 5 WR set a few times, which meant the TEs had a very reduced role. Don't think we even completed a pass to a TE, which is shocking given how much we have been relying on passing to this position in the Marrone era. We have gone from 2 TE sets most of the time to 0 TE sets most of the time (though I think last night might have been an aberration based on how mobile Pitt's LBs are compared to our slow footed TEs).
No man coverage for Pitt but their zone coverage gets very aggressive. They have one outstanding CB and a young CB who is going to be very good. Ate up Clark, tied up Sales a lot and even Lemon struggled to get open a lot. I know people are going to say Nassib was gutless, panicked in the pocket, etc. but a lot of the plays where he threw it away, was flushed out of the pocket or was sacked were because of good coverage by Pitt. Even West, who was often covered by Pitt's 4th CB, struggled to get open a lot. We need more speed and size at WR against good coverage teams and look for this to be a problem in the next 3 weeks as we play RU, UConn and USF, all of whom have fine CBs.
Still, I think when teams are playing 5 or 6 DBs against us, we have to find ways of running the ball and making them play for going so undersized. You have to take what the defense gives you and the defense is giving us the run right now. Our defense has had terrible times defending the run against spread offenses when we go small and fast. Again, a big part of the problem is that we don't have a really fast RB to take advantage of the open space in these situations. But our personnel is good and is good enough to do damage. Especially with the OL looking improved, with a greatly shored up right side.
Thought Nassib was having a good game until the point he threw the ill fated fade pass in the endzone that was picked off. You have to throw it to the outside and you have to throw it to the back of the endzone. Bad pass but like Bees says, bad idea to call that play. It is not a strength of Nassib's and is not a good play period that close to the goal line. You need more time for the WR to break free of the CB.
AAM was a big success in short yardage, which has plagued us all season. Happy for him. Not happy we benched Broyld all game long, presumably because of his fumble against UM. He is a great played in open space and there was a lot of open space out there against that Pitt defense. Damn, I think it was a big mistake to sit him. Play him instead of Clark in the slot. You will get a lot better results, I guarantee it.
Thought special teams were okay. Our coverage teams have made major strides in recent weeks. Our return teams are still pretty awful and our punter is not good, but I suspect part of the reason why is an insistence on Marrone's part to have the punter kick the ball to the sides of the field (never down the middle of the field). I dream of the day when we get a punt return for 10 yards. It will be glorious when it happens.
Good to see improved tackling. Good to see much improved discipline and greatly reduced mistakes. Wish it happened a little earlier in the season. One thing you can say about Marrone, give him some time and he does good things. I think we are 5-1 when we have more than a week to prepare for a team now (counting the bowl game).
The UConn-RU game today should be of great interest to SU fans. We got to see our next 2 opponents playing head to head. I expect a low scoring, violent hitting game with bodies flying everywhere. If you like punts, it is a must see.
