sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
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- Aug 15, 2011
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Let's start by apologizing for the late post. Was up until after 12:30 AM celebrating the win in the Fine Lot with the crew, had an early tee time, lots of chores, went to the SU hockey game, etc.
We had a good turnout at the Fine Lot last night. Maybe 100 people over the course of the night. Some new faces, lots of familiar ones, great to see everyone, as always. Want to again be sure all know that everyone is welcome to attend these tailgates. Doesn't matter if you are a heavy poster, a lurker or even a fan for the other team. $5 to eat, $10 to eat and drink. Take the leap of faith and join the crowd. I am pretty sure you will be happy you did.
Haven't read any posts yet, there will surely be a lot of redundant info, sorry in advance for that.
The post Orange Madness issues have already had ramifications on the entry process to the Dome. People were wanded with a metal detector, the line I was in was told to remove everything in our pockets, and to take off our belts. Really slowed down the entry process. Was told this is a permanent change. They are going to need to improve this process if this is to continue...my line was backed up 50 people back and it took 5 minutes to get through. Given the awful crowd, this wasn't a big deal last night. But it will in the future. Someone work on it.
The crowd was bad. I do not believe there were 25K in the seats. UConn fans have never traveled to the Dome in significant numbers and in their last trip here, they continued that tradition. I would say they had perhaps 50 fans in the visitor's section. No UConn band, I don't think they brought Jonathan, a cheerleader or even a UConn flag. SU-UConn developed a nice rivalry in basketball. That was not the case in football. No one seems to care about this series going away. I guess this is one of the reasons the Big East is where it is today.
When UConn took the field, Coach P was introduced on the PA system. The overwhelming reaction of the Syracuse crowd was to boo. SU did not recognize Coach P in any other way; there was not video, not recognition that he was once the coach here, nothing.
Before I get into the game, a little on the band. The SUMB did their Led Zeppelin tribute, an electric guitar was featured prominently. Perhaps in response to the OSU video game tribute, the SUMB did a lot more marching than normal. Could not tell what their formations were most of the time (they were performing to the north side of the stadium, opposite from where I sit) but at the end, they clearly formed a zeppelin. I appreciate the ambition and the work the kids did, nice job. 11 tubas, holding strong at that number. Orange Girl has a nice outfit and does a really good job out there. She has mad skills.
Speaking of numbers, we have a enormous number of cheerleaders this year. I bet there are at least 36. They have new uniforms this year that I really like, because they are mostly orange and look good.
More minutia: was really unhappy with the utilization of the new scoreboards in the first game. They have come a long way since then...there are a lot more stats up these days, you can see how the QBs are doing statistically, as well as the RBs, the WRs and there are team stats up too. This is greatly appreciated. I think they still have major issues with out of town scores but the last 2 games have been on Friday nights, so this will be unknown until the next Saturday game.
While the numbers of the crowd were bad, the people that came were solid fans, that did a fine job making noise and supporting the team. Props to them.
Let's get to the game now...
Was impressed with the UConn defense in earlier games this year. They have good players on the DL, at LB and at DB. Hackett used a 4 WR set as his base formation for the game, and used 4 WRs at least 80% of the time. This had the effect of forcing UConn to replace LBs with DBs. When they did this, SU often ran out of the formation, using mostly counters, mostly to the right side, where Trudo and Hickey dominated and huge holes were often open for Smith, who attacked them with great aggression. Jerome's north south style was really effective for SU, and he continues to distance himself from PTG as the RB of choice.
When UConn realized what SU was doing, they started putting LBs back in against the 4 WR sets and then SU passed, usually with success. UConn has a couple of good CBs, they played a lot of man coverage and overall did a pretty good job covering our WRs. Sales, West and Clark had a hard time getting open, and as usual, Lemon was the one WR most able to get open. Thought Lemon set the tone early running very hard for extra yards. The Huskies had no answer for him all game long. His career numbers against UConn must be amazing.
Thought Nassib had a fine game, made a lot of good throws, took good care of the ball (finally), had a couple of terrific plays to keep plays alive under duress.
Thought the SU OL did a fine job both run blocking and pass blocking. UConn has a great pass rushing DE (named Tavardo or something like that) that Pugh drew and he had his hands full at times with him but overall did a reasonably good job with him. The SU WRs had some nice blocks as well on running plays to spring RBs into daylight past the UConn DL.
On defense, SU opened up uncharacteristically attacking with its DL, shooting its DL into the gaps, blowing up running play after running play, with UConn RBs struggling to get possession of the ball before getting tackled. SU was determined to take away the run and force the Huskies to pass, and did just that. UConn did not pass block really well, especially early and SU put some hard hits on the UConn QB early, mostly with a variety of blitzes. Was impressed with the toughness of their QB; he was crushed a number of times.
UConn was eventually able to hurt SU by attacking the free safety position, which has become the achilles heel of the SU defense in recent weeks. This is by far the biggest concern I have with the defense now; Anderson has improved his play (and is playing less with Reddish back anyway) and Diabate has been major strides as the season has progressed as well. The whole DL had a great game (Crume coming on now), Spruill was excellent and I thought Davis was terrific, probably our best player last night on D.
Norton has been a great addition to special teams, and has neutralized good KO returners like Nick Williams all season. Good to see Ross Krautman emerge from his first extended slump with a solid game. Fisher, so shaky early in the season, is improving by leaps and bounds. And best of all, it was great to see Desir doing a fine job returning punts, looking like a threat to break a return everytime he touches the ball. Special teams are getting special again. At least when we play someone other than Rutgers.
Nice win. Good to break a long losing streak against Pitt and UConn this season. Good to keep the season meaningful for another week. The game against USF is going to be a big one. Can't wait to see it, always nice to visit Tampa.
We had a good turnout at the Fine Lot last night. Maybe 100 people over the course of the night. Some new faces, lots of familiar ones, great to see everyone, as always. Want to again be sure all know that everyone is welcome to attend these tailgates. Doesn't matter if you are a heavy poster, a lurker or even a fan for the other team. $5 to eat, $10 to eat and drink. Take the leap of faith and join the crowd. I am pretty sure you will be happy you did.
Haven't read any posts yet, there will surely be a lot of redundant info, sorry in advance for that.
The post Orange Madness issues have already had ramifications on the entry process to the Dome. People were wanded with a metal detector, the line I was in was told to remove everything in our pockets, and to take off our belts. Really slowed down the entry process. Was told this is a permanent change. They are going to need to improve this process if this is to continue...my line was backed up 50 people back and it took 5 minutes to get through. Given the awful crowd, this wasn't a big deal last night. But it will in the future. Someone work on it.
The crowd was bad. I do not believe there were 25K in the seats. UConn fans have never traveled to the Dome in significant numbers and in their last trip here, they continued that tradition. I would say they had perhaps 50 fans in the visitor's section. No UConn band, I don't think they brought Jonathan, a cheerleader or even a UConn flag. SU-UConn developed a nice rivalry in basketball. That was not the case in football. No one seems to care about this series going away. I guess this is one of the reasons the Big East is where it is today.
When UConn took the field, Coach P was introduced on the PA system. The overwhelming reaction of the Syracuse crowd was to boo. SU did not recognize Coach P in any other way; there was not video, not recognition that he was once the coach here, nothing.
Before I get into the game, a little on the band. The SUMB did their Led Zeppelin tribute, an electric guitar was featured prominently. Perhaps in response to the OSU video game tribute, the SUMB did a lot more marching than normal. Could not tell what their formations were most of the time (they were performing to the north side of the stadium, opposite from where I sit) but at the end, they clearly formed a zeppelin. I appreciate the ambition and the work the kids did, nice job. 11 tubas, holding strong at that number. Orange Girl has a nice outfit and does a really good job out there. She has mad skills.
Speaking of numbers, we have a enormous number of cheerleaders this year. I bet there are at least 36. They have new uniforms this year that I really like, because they are mostly orange and look good.
More minutia: was really unhappy with the utilization of the new scoreboards in the first game. They have come a long way since then...there are a lot more stats up these days, you can see how the QBs are doing statistically, as well as the RBs, the WRs and there are team stats up too. This is greatly appreciated. I think they still have major issues with out of town scores but the last 2 games have been on Friday nights, so this will be unknown until the next Saturday game.
While the numbers of the crowd were bad, the people that came were solid fans, that did a fine job making noise and supporting the team. Props to them.
Let's get to the game now...
Was impressed with the UConn defense in earlier games this year. They have good players on the DL, at LB and at DB. Hackett used a 4 WR set as his base formation for the game, and used 4 WRs at least 80% of the time. This had the effect of forcing UConn to replace LBs with DBs. When they did this, SU often ran out of the formation, using mostly counters, mostly to the right side, where Trudo and Hickey dominated and huge holes were often open for Smith, who attacked them with great aggression. Jerome's north south style was really effective for SU, and he continues to distance himself from PTG as the RB of choice.
When UConn realized what SU was doing, they started putting LBs back in against the 4 WR sets and then SU passed, usually with success. UConn has a couple of good CBs, they played a lot of man coverage and overall did a pretty good job covering our WRs. Sales, West and Clark had a hard time getting open, and as usual, Lemon was the one WR most able to get open. Thought Lemon set the tone early running very hard for extra yards. The Huskies had no answer for him all game long. His career numbers against UConn must be amazing.
Thought Nassib had a fine game, made a lot of good throws, took good care of the ball (finally), had a couple of terrific plays to keep plays alive under duress.
Thought the SU OL did a fine job both run blocking and pass blocking. UConn has a great pass rushing DE (named Tavardo or something like that) that Pugh drew and he had his hands full at times with him but overall did a reasonably good job with him. The SU WRs had some nice blocks as well on running plays to spring RBs into daylight past the UConn DL.
On defense, SU opened up uncharacteristically attacking with its DL, shooting its DL into the gaps, blowing up running play after running play, with UConn RBs struggling to get possession of the ball before getting tackled. SU was determined to take away the run and force the Huskies to pass, and did just that. UConn did not pass block really well, especially early and SU put some hard hits on the UConn QB early, mostly with a variety of blitzes. Was impressed with the toughness of their QB; he was crushed a number of times.
UConn was eventually able to hurt SU by attacking the free safety position, which has become the achilles heel of the SU defense in recent weeks. This is by far the biggest concern I have with the defense now; Anderson has improved his play (and is playing less with Reddish back anyway) and Diabate has been major strides as the season has progressed as well. The whole DL had a great game (Crume coming on now), Spruill was excellent and I thought Davis was terrific, probably our best player last night on D.
Norton has been a great addition to special teams, and has neutralized good KO returners like Nick Williams all season. Good to see Ross Krautman emerge from his first extended slump with a solid game. Fisher, so shaky early in the season, is improving by leaps and bounds. And best of all, it was great to see Desir doing a fine job returning punts, looking like a threat to break a return everytime he touches the ball. Special teams are getting special again. At least when we play someone other than Rutgers.
Nice win. Good to break a long losing streak against Pitt and UConn this season. Good to keep the season meaningful for another week. The game against USF is going to be a big one. Can't wait to see it, always nice to visit Tampa.
