sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
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- Aug 15, 2011
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Flew into Chicago early Saturday morning. Big fan of this city; I think it has the best elements of small cities and big cities. Hope we are able to schedule another series with the Wildcats soon.
Northwestern has a beautiful campus. Their football stadium is on it. Old, small, plain but quaint. They do have a replay board but it is a low quality one and is pretty decrepit.. As it turned out, I didn't want to see most of the plays again anyway.
Parking is not unlike what we have at Syracuse; there isn't much near the stadium, it is distributed all over the place and they use shuttle buses and remote lots to help address the issue.
Limited food choices. One of the rare places with as limited and uninspired a menu as at the Dome. I tried a Polish sausage. The bun wasn't stale and it was still somewhat hot but it was pretty bland and did not change my life.
I have been thinking with the demotion of the ACK schools, SU probably has the fewest tubas of any BCS school but on Saturday, I found that this is not true. Northwestern only had 8 tubas (we had 10 last week). Thought their band had a lot of fresh and innovative songs though and the halftime show, which featured the Wildcat band coupled with HS bands invited from around the state, was excellent. We should do that. Perhaps we do, if so, I don't remember seeing it. There must have been well over 500 people marching and playing on the NW field. It was quite a sight.
They had an enthusiastic guy doing PA who got the crowd into making noise every time SU had a third down play. Announced all the NW first downs in formulaic fashion, as is the custom at many places. He also did play by play as fans participated in contests during breaks in the action (I think they all involved throwing footballs). NW had a bunch of these and his calls helped make it fun to watch. We could really use someone like him at the Dome to make the fan experience a little more fun.
NW also used the breaks to promote their Olympic sports and to honor past champion teams. Always had a nicely produced video to do this. And they had a great one where the NW football HC pretended to take over training the band and made screw-ups run the steps at the football stadium. Very well done. I think we occasionally mention some of our Olympic sports teams, and give them a chance to take a bow, but no nice videos, and not much promoting of future events. We could do better here.
This is another school that has Buffalo Wild Wings as a major sponsor. How could Syracuse, of all BCS schools, not have them as a sponsor? Perhaps we do this year. I am hopeful.
The NW fans were very cordial and kind. Didn't hear even a whisper of trash talk from anyone in purple; just some from a few drunk SU fans. Hard to tell how big our turnout was sitting on the SU side but I think it was around 500. Not good.
Regarding the game, I thought our defensive game plan was terrible. It looked to me as though we tried to go after Coulter every play, blitzed like crazy, and gave up a big play time after time.
When we blitzed, it looked like Coulter checked into a hot route for a big gain, or when he couldn't do that, he just broke contain and ran for days against the over pursuit.
I think we should have just tried to contain him in the pocket and make them beat us through the air and with their running game, 5 yards at a time. Coulter is too good to treat like a true frosh. Props to the NW coaches for calling a great game and props to Coulter for playing really well. But I think we made it far too easy for him.
Looked like we toned the aggression down some in the 3rd quarter, and had some success but went back to the heavy blitzing in the 4th (I think they were trying to force turnovers) to get back into the game. I understand that. I guess it is good to see some adjustments were made at halftime but it it disturbing that we went with such an ill conceived game plan in the first place.
Also was shocked at how poorly our secondary played even with all the blitzing going on. The CBs got beat badly a number of times, even in clear passing situations, they absolutely abused our linebackers (Cam Lynch has to learn to take deeper drops) and new starter Durell Eskridge was given a really rude introduction to college football in his first true road game. Didn't see any help from the FS almost all game long either. Looked like Wilkes was out for an extended period circa the 2nd quarter. Was he hurt? Benched? He sat some in the 4th quarter as well but lots of starters did then as the game got completely out of hand.
If Spruill wants to continue to play the MIKE position, he better watch out. Arciniega looked impressive in limited playing time in the 4th quarter. That kid can play.
On offense, we definitely looked better. Not sure how much of that was because NW has a worse defense than PSU had. Didn't have major issues with the play calling, thought most of the problems were with execution this game. We went after their inexperience CB, we had a good mix of passes and runs, and for the most part, the calls arrived in a timely fashion (though I continue to hate the long delays as the team looks for the call from the sideline). That makes it so much easier for the defense. NW did some of this but quick snapped a lot as well and a number of times we did not get the right personnel on the field on defense because of this. Hope we can at least get some quick calls in, at least on drives where time is of the essence. Did see a couple of times where we apparently had a couple of plays called and didn't need to 'prairie dog it' to get the next play. Want to see more of that.
Smith continues to look really good. He was good last season but now he is a man among boys out there. Might be our best RB since Reyes. We have to find a way to get him the ball more. No question his problems catching the ball are affecting his PT, as we have been in a passing situation on 3rd down just about every time we have the ball.
Thought Broyld played well; he is one of those guys that always seems to be open. I hope we feature him more as well, it looks like this is going to happen. Clark looked good as did Kobena. West has struggled greatly as our primary receiver so far, it looks like he is having struggles getting open. But he had a couple of catches and hopefully is on his way back. Really concerned over the ability of our WRs to get open against physical CBs. NW does not have them so it was easier for our finesse guys to get some room Saturday but it will be a problem once conference play begins.
GM went after the NW frosh CB with some success; good to see that. The play calling was better than last week, it was a good idea to simplify the number of plays they ran, the game right now is more about quality and execution than quantity.
Also good to see Kendall Moore, the true frosh from Chicago looking good catching balls as a TE. Had to be a thrill for him to make a big contribution back in his hometown. Not great we are in a place where we have to use him now but it is impressive he is being productive so early in his career. Hope Wales is better soon, we have gotten almost nothing out of him so far and that is a real shame; he should be a major part of our offense.
The OL played much better, especially in the 2nd half. Robinson was much better in his 2nd start. Shafer was really mad at Foy on the first half, was in his face screaming at him for extended periods. Maybe that was what he needed. I am hoping that the improvement was more because of better play by the SU linemen rather than a testament to the quality of the NW DL compared to the PSU DL.
Thought Allen did a lot of good things. He completed a lot of passes but was a little off on a bunch of them, resulting in 3 yard type gains instead of 13. That should get better over time. Looked like he was consistently on the same page with the WRs. Last week that was a huge problem that was really disturbing.
My big beef with him is that he continues to telegraph his throws. Did do a little better here, but this is a big reason DL have been so successful knocking down his passes. Thought he was really cautious throwing once a play broke down, which can be good and bad. His confidence has been shaken.
Special teams continues to be a problem but there were some good signs. IMHO, our placekicker is hurting and I hope he will be 100% again soon. Fisher had another troubled day punting. Dixon has been getting more of the work punting this season and he had a really good day, executing a nice coffin corner to the 5 and punting away from the punt returner, who couldn't get to the ball to even try a return much of the game. We have a crazy looking blocking scheme for punting and Dixon is doing an Australian rules football looking run to the side and punt thing. It looks pretty bizarre but the results have been terrific. One wonders if the better teams will try and get a block when they see this on tape. It will be interesting to see what happens here.
GM II had a nightmare game attempting to return KOs. NW had their KO guy kicking high kicks to around the 5 yard line, near the sideline. Very nice job by him, GM II kept sneaking a look at the coverage instead of just catching the ball. You can't do this, especially not twice in a row. I hope he learns from the experience because the kid has a lot of talent. To be fair to him, our blocking on KO and punt returns has been awful and somehow, to add insult to injury, we had a blocking penalty on a KO return to really put us in a hole early in the game. This is what happens when you have freshmen running around in their first games (Ben Lewis this time). I hope he also learns from the experience.
Saw the Cubs play Sunday. Sat in the bleachers. Wrigley is a special place, Carlos Gomez is a great guy who made close to a dozen fans happy tossing them balls whenever he could. Not bad for a visiting player. One girl was so happy she cried for 5 minutes after he threw her a ball. The pizza was nothing special but the Italian beef sandwich with sweet peppers was a keeper.
Hate to keep repeating myself but it is really important that we stop scheduling the way we have been and open the season like 95% of our peers, with a couple easy games at home. I have no problem playing a game or two against a tough OOC opponent but those games should be played in late September or early October (or November for that matter). Starting the season with a loss or two every year just destroys the interest of casual fans, makes it really hard for bowls to take interest in Syracuse, and makes it really hard to qualify for a bowl period. Next year with the ND game scheduled for late September, it looks it looks like we might finally schedule the way we should always schedule.
I hope so...it would be great to be 2-0 in football sometime.
Northwestern has a beautiful campus. Their football stadium is on it. Old, small, plain but quaint. They do have a replay board but it is a low quality one and is pretty decrepit.. As it turned out, I didn't want to see most of the plays again anyway.
Parking is not unlike what we have at Syracuse; there isn't much near the stadium, it is distributed all over the place and they use shuttle buses and remote lots to help address the issue.
Limited food choices. One of the rare places with as limited and uninspired a menu as at the Dome. I tried a Polish sausage. The bun wasn't stale and it was still somewhat hot but it was pretty bland and did not change my life.
I have been thinking with the demotion of the ACK schools, SU probably has the fewest tubas of any BCS school but on Saturday, I found that this is not true. Northwestern only had 8 tubas (we had 10 last week). Thought their band had a lot of fresh and innovative songs though and the halftime show, which featured the Wildcat band coupled with HS bands invited from around the state, was excellent. We should do that. Perhaps we do, if so, I don't remember seeing it. There must have been well over 500 people marching and playing on the NW field. It was quite a sight.
They had an enthusiastic guy doing PA who got the crowd into making noise every time SU had a third down play. Announced all the NW first downs in formulaic fashion, as is the custom at many places. He also did play by play as fans participated in contests during breaks in the action (I think they all involved throwing footballs). NW had a bunch of these and his calls helped make it fun to watch. We could really use someone like him at the Dome to make the fan experience a little more fun.
NW also used the breaks to promote their Olympic sports and to honor past champion teams. Always had a nicely produced video to do this. And they had a great one where the NW football HC pretended to take over training the band and made screw-ups run the steps at the football stadium. Very well done. I think we occasionally mention some of our Olympic sports teams, and give them a chance to take a bow, but no nice videos, and not much promoting of future events. We could do better here.
This is another school that has Buffalo Wild Wings as a major sponsor. How could Syracuse, of all BCS schools, not have them as a sponsor? Perhaps we do this year. I am hopeful.
The NW fans were very cordial and kind. Didn't hear even a whisper of trash talk from anyone in purple; just some from a few drunk SU fans. Hard to tell how big our turnout was sitting on the SU side but I think it was around 500. Not good.
Regarding the game, I thought our defensive game plan was terrible. It looked to me as though we tried to go after Coulter every play, blitzed like crazy, and gave up a big play time after time.
When we blitzed, it looked like Coulter checked into a hot route for a big gain, or when he couldn't do that, he just broke contain and ran for days against the over pursuit.
I think we should have just tried to contain him in the pocket and make them beat us through the air and with their running game, 5 yards at a time. Coulter is too good to treat like a true frosh. Props to the NW coaches for calling a great game and props to Coulter for playing really well. But I think we made it far too easy for him.
Looked like we toned the aggression down some in the 3rd quarter, and had some success but went back to the heavy blitzing in the 4th (I think they were trying to force turnovers) to get back into the game. I understand that. I guess it is good to see some adjustments were made at halftime but it it disturbing that we went with such an ill conceived game plan in the first place.
Also was shocked at how poorly our secondary played even with all the blitzing going on. The CBs got beat badly a number of times, even in clear passing situations, they absolutely abused our linebackers (Cam Lynch has to learn to take deeper drops) and new starter Durell Eskridge was given a really rude introduction to college football in his first true road game. Didn't see any help from the FS almost all game long either. Looked like Wilkes was out for an extended period circa the 2nd quarter. Was he hurt? Benched? He sat some in the 4th quarter as well but lots of starters did then as the game got completely out of hand.
If Spruill wants to continue to play the MIKE position, he better watch out. Arciniega looked impressive in limited playing time in the 4th quarter. That kid can play.
On offense, we definitely looked better. Not sure how much of that was because NW has a worse defense than PSU had. Didn't have major issues with the play calling, thought most of the problems were with execution this game. We went after their inexperience CB, we had a good mix of passes and runs, and for the most part, the calls arrived in a timely fashion (though I continue to hate the long delays as the team looks for the call from the sideline). That makes it so much easier for the defense. NW did some of this but quick snapped a lot as well and a number of times we did not get the right personnel on the field on defense because of this. Hope we can at least get some quick calls in, at least on drives where time is of the essence. Did see a couple of times where we apparently had a couple of plays called and didn't need to 'prairie dog it' to get the next play. Want to see more of that.
Smith continues to look really good. He was good last season but now he is a man among boys out there. Might be our best RB since Reyes. We have to find a way to get him the ball more. No question his problems catching the ball are affecting his PT, as we have been in a passing situation on 3rd down just about every time we have the ball.
Thought Broyld played well; he is one of those guys that always seems to be open. I hope we feature him more as well, it looks like this is going to happen. Clark looked good as did Kobena. West has struggled greatly as our primary receiver so far, it looks like he is having struggles getting open. But he had a couple of catches and hopefully is on his way back. Really concerned over the ability of our WRs to get open against physical CBs. NW does not have them so it was easier for our finesse guys to get some room Saturday but it will be a problem once conference play begins.
GM went after the NW frosh CB with some success; good to see that. The play calling was better than last week, it was a good idea to simplify the number of plays they ran, the game right now is more about quality and execution than quantity.
Also good to see Kendall Moore, the true frosh from Chicago looking good catching balls as a TE. Had to be a thrill for him to make a big contribution back in his hometown. Not great we are in a place where we have to use him now but it is impressive he is being productive so early in his career. Hope Wales is better soon, we have gotten almost nothing out of him so far and that is a real shame; he should be a major part of our offense.
The OL played much better, especially in the 2nd half. Robinson was much better in his 2nd start. Shafer was really mad at Foy on the first half, was in his face screaming at him for extended periods. Maybe that was what he needed. I am hoping that the improvement was more because of better play by the SU linemen rather than a testament to the quality of the NW DL compared to the PSU DL.
Thought Allen did a lot of good things. He completed a lot of passes but was a little off on a bunch of them, resulting in 3 yard type gains instead of 13. That should get better over time. Looked like he was consistently on the same page with the WRs. Last week that was a huge problem that was really disturbing.
My big beef with him is that he continues to telegraph his throws. Did do a little better here, but this is a big reason DL have been so successful knocking down his passes. Thought he was really cautious throwing once a play broke down, which can be good and bad. His confidence has been shaken.
Special teams continues to be a problem but there were some good signs. IMHO, our placekicker is hurting and I hope he will be 100% again soon. Fisher had another troubled day punting. Dixon has been getting more of the work punting this season and he had a really good day, executing a nice coffin corner to the 5 and punting away from the punt returner, who couldn't get to the ball to even try a return much of the game. We have a crazy looking blocking scheme for punting and Dixon is doing an Australian rules football looking run to the side and punt thing. It looks pretty bizarre but the results have been terrific. One wonders if the better teams will try and get a block when they see this on tape. It will be interesting to see what happens here.
GM II had a nightmare game attempting to return KOs. NW had their KO guy kicking high kicks to around the 5 yard line, near the sideline. Very nice job by him, GM II kept sneaking a look at the coverage instead of just catching the ball. You can't do this, especially not twice in a row. I hope he learns from the experience because the kid has a lot of talent. To be fair to him, our blocking on KO and punt returns has been awful and somehow, to add insult to injury, we had a blocking penalty on a KO return to really put us in a hole early in the game. This is what happens when you have freshmen running around in their first games (Ben Lewis this time). I hope he also learns from the experience.
Saw the Cubs play Sunday. Sat in the bleachers. Wrigley is a special place, Carlos Gomez is a great guy who made close to a dozen fans happy tossing them balls whenever he could. Not bad for a visiting player. One girl was so happy she cried for 5 minutes after he threw her a ball. The pizza was nothing special but the Italian beef sandwich with sweet peppers was a keeper.
Hate to keep repeating myself but it is really important that we stop scheduling the way we have been and open the season like 95% of our peers, with a couple easy games at home. I have no problem playing a game or two against a tough OOC opponent but those games should be played in late September or early October (or November for that matter). Starting the season with a loss or two every year just destroys the interest of casual fans, makes it really hard for bowls to take interest in Syracuse, and makes it really hard to qualify for a bowl period. Next year with the ND game scheduled for late September, it looks it looks like we might finally schedule the way we should always schedule.
I hope so...it would be great to be 2-0 in football sometime.
