sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
- Joined
- Aug 15, 2011
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Great tailgate before and after the game. Hard to make a good count with people coming and going but it was surely over 50 that attended. Cuban sandwiches, hot dogs, burgers, meatballs, fresh fruit on skewers, chocolate covered pretzels, half moons, cookies, cheesecake, mac and cheese, and last but not least, authentic Lousiana style jambalaya. And lots of beer and ginger ale too.
Kudos to Mark, Jeremy and everyone else who contributed. We were short a key member with CuseRegular studying new tailgating techniques in Italy but we pulled through. Jeremy somehow managed to grill burgers perfectly in the dark after the game, getting down to eye level with the grill and squinting to get the job done.
We ended up in the SE corner of the Fine Lot for the first time. Lots of congestion with parking in flux. SU has the new parking lot just east of the Fine Lot prepped but they are apparently using it for a storage area, maybe for the construction of the new Law School. The Clemson game is going to be a parking and tailgating nightmare, you should come early for that one.
Great to see so many old friends and to meet so many new people on the board. Too many to list, but it is fun to talk to all of you.
Lots of new stuff to comment on in the Dome, starting with a new team intro video that features an animated train, a takeoff on the Elmira Express nickname for SU icon Ernie Davis. They have also purchased a portable train whistle mounted on a frame with wheels. It was blasted when the team ran on the field (with steam coming out of the entrance). Nice touch. The train whistle (really more of a blasting horn) was also sounded whenever SU scored, ala Purdue. This is appropriate on a couple of levels. Railroads and Syracuse have a long history, Syracuse was a railroad town for many years, with a couple of major routes running through it. It was also known as the city where the railroads ran though the center of the city on street level. They didn't elevate the tracks until, I believe, the 1930s, shortly before the main east-west routes were rerouted north of the city proper. The infrastructure was at least used in part as the right of way for I 690 when it was built a couple of decades later.
The uniforms. All blue. Props to SU for keeping this a secret, they rarely are capable of doing this. I am not a fan of all blue, it just isn't a Syracuse uniform. We are the Orangemen and our uniforms should reflect that. We looked like a generic WAC school in them. Hope if we have to bastardize our uniforms for Nike in the future, we at least use orange as a prominent color (no, shoes don't count).
SU also made some minor cosmetic improvements to the concession areas, with more photos and color and a lot less exposed concrete. Props to them for this as well.
There were some negative things to report as well.
They still are completely dropping the ball on out of town scores. Complete and utter incompetence on this front. Didn't see a single actual score the whole 4 hours I was there. This has been a problem from the beginning of time but with the new scoreboards, they have the tools to address it and their refusal to even try is greatly disappointing.
Wireless is still a mess. Numerous people tried to get on WIFI while tailgating and during the game and no one that I found was able to. This is another of those things that is simple and cheap to do, something that is expected from any establishment these days, and something that should have been addressed years ago. Shameful.
More good stuff. The new band unis are nice. Loved their halftime program, which featured a couple of songs still being played on alterative radio stations (My Chemical Romance) and that Fun song. We still only have 10 tubas, I am hopeful we have 6 or 12 more students earnestly practicing that will be ready for the Clemson game. But the band sounded great. Nice complex formations too.
The biggest single improvement since SU joined the ACC is easy to identify. The cheerleaders have morphed to an ACC level almost overnight. Very impressive. They were selling tiny t-shirts (why only small and medium to a fan base that is 99% other sizes) before the game at the tailgates and posed for a lot of pictures, mostly with board stud and candidate for most interesting person in the world Bill From Nebraska.
Regarding the game, everyone is going to say great things about Hunt and well they should. He was terrific. Allen struggled greatly early, looked really tight and is just not getting the job done. Pocket presence is a big part of this.
Same play, same coverage, same pressure, Allen stays stationary in the pocket, has to rush his release and the ball whizzes by a covered West, who by the way is still struggling to get open even against Wagnerian CBs.
In the same situation, Hunt waits until just the right moment, senses the pressure and steps up in the pocket, buying the extra couple of seconds West needs to get free, then hits him on the fly. His mobility also allows him to rescue broken plays by running for a good gain or just running to space and throwing to a receiver from there. He showed a lot of composure, didn't screw up every 4th play this time, didn't force the ball into coverage and played a near perfect game. Including some terrific long throws.
Allen has an NFL arm strength arm but there is a lot more to playing QB than that. Further, with a mobile QB, you can run a bunch of plays you just can't do with someone who can't move that well. So count me in on the Hunt train, even if it was against really poor competition. I expect a BCS QB to dominate against this level of program. To me, it is more about how much Allen struggled than how well Hunt played, though again, Terrell was terrific.
Pretty much everyone played well on offense, so I am not going to name anyone else in particular. Was more impressed by the performance of the defense. We knew Wagner had a suspect defense but their offense was supposed to be good, and the SU defense completely dominated them. I think they only got 1 first down in the 1st half and that was with 49 seconds left. Great rebound effort after the legendary bad performance in Evanston. Zian Jones and Sugar Bear played a lot more than they have been playing, I think that helped things a lot. Everyone played well, still a big fan of Luke at the MIKE.
Have to go golfing now but I feel a lot better about the team after this game. Good reponse, can't wait for the game against Tulane next week.
Kudos to Mark, Jeremy and everyone else who contributed. We were short a key member with CuseRegular studying new tailgating techniques in Italy but we pulled through. Jeremy somehow managed to grill burgers perfectly in the dark after the game, getting down to eye level with the grill and squinting to get the job done.
We ended up in the SE corner of the Fine Lot for the first time. Lots of congestion with parking in flux. SU has the new parking lot just east of the Fine Lot prepped but they are apparently using it for a storage area, maybe for the construction of the new Law School. The Clemson game is going to be a parking and tailgating nightmare, you should come early for that one.
Great to see so many old friends and to meet so many new people on the board. Too many to list, but it is fun to talk to all of you.
Lots of new stuff to comment on in the Dome, starting with a new team intro video that features an animated train, a takeoff on the Elmira Express nickname for SU icon Ernie Davis. They have also purchased a portable train whistle mounted on a frame with wheels. It was blasted when the team ran on the field (with steam coming out of the entrance). Nice touch. The train whistle (really more of a blasting horn) was also sounded whenever SU scored, ala Purdue. This is appropriate on a couple of levels. Railroads and Syracuse have a long history, Syracuse was a railroad town for many years, with a couple of major routes running through it. It was also known as the city where the railroads ran though the center of the city on street level. They didn't elevate the tracks until, I believe, the 1930s, shortly before the main east-west routes were rerouted north of the city proper. The infrastructure was at least used in part as the right of way for I 690 when it was built a couple of decades later.
The uniforms. All blue. Props to SU for keeping this a secret, they rarely are capable of doing this. I am not a fan of all blue, it just isn't a Syracuse uniform. We are the Orangemen and our uniforms should reflect that. We looked like a generic WAC school in them. Hope if we have to bastardize our uniforms for Nike in the future, we at least use orange as a prominent color (no, shoes don't count).
SU also made some minor cosmetic improvements to the concession areas, with more photos and color and a lot less exposed concrete. Props to them for this as well.
There were some negative things to report as well.
They still are completely dropping the ball on out of town scores. Complete and utter incompetence on this front. Didn't see a single actual score the whole 4 hours I was there. This has been a problem from the beginning of time but with the new scoreboards, they have the tools to address it and their refusal to even try is greatly disappointing.
Wireless is still a mess. Numerous people tried to get on WIFI while tailgating and during the game and no one that I found was able to. This is another of those things that is simple and cheap to do, something that is expected from any establishment these days, and something that should have been addressed years ago. Shameful.
More good stuff. The new band unis are nice. Loved their halftime program, which featured a couple of songs still being played on alterative radio stations (My Chemical Romance) and that Fun song. We still only have 10 tubas, I am hopeful we have 6 or 12 more students earnestly practicing that will be ready for the Clemson game. But the band sounded great. Nice complex formations too.
The biggest single improvement since SU joined the ACC is easy to identify. The cheerleaders have morphed to an ACC level almost overnight. Very impressive. They were selling tiny t-shirts (why only small and medium to a fan base that is 99% other sizes) before the game at the tailgates and posed for a lot of pictures, mostly with board stud and candidate for most interesting person in the world Bill From Nebraska.
Regarding the game, everyone is going to say great things about Hunt and well they should. He was terrific. Allen struggled greatly early, looked really tight and is just not getting the job done. Pocket presence is a big part of this.
Same play, same coverage, same pressure, Allen stays stationary in the pocket, has to rush his release and the ball whizzes by a covered West, who by the way is still struggling to get open even against Wagnerian CBs.
In the same situation, Hunt waits until just the right moment, senses the pressure and steps up in the pocket, buying the extra couple of seconds West needs to get free, then hits him on the fly. His mobility also allows him to rescue broken plays by running for a good gain or just running to space and throwing to a receiver from there. He showed a lot of composure, didn't screw up every 4th play this time, didn't force the ball into coverage and played a near perfect game. Including some terrific long throws.
Allen has an NFL arm strength arm but there is a lot more to playing QB than that. Further, with a mobile QB, you can run a bunch of plays you just can't do with someone who can't move that well. So count me in on the Hunt train, even if it was against really poor competition. I expect a BCS QB to dominate against this level of program. To me, it is more about how much Allen struggled than how well Hunt played, though again, Terrell was terrific.
Pretty much everyone played well on offense, so I am not going to name anyone else in particular. Was more impressed by the performance of the defense. We knew Wagner had a suspect defense but their offense was supposed to be good, and the SU defense completely dominated them. I think they only got 1 first down in the 1st half and that was with 49 seconds left. Great rebound effort after the legendary bad performance in Evanston. Zian Jones and Sugar Bear played a lot more than they have been playing, I think that helped things a lot. Everyone played well, still a big fan of Luke at the MIKE.
Have to go golfing now but I feel a lot better about the team after this game. Good reponse, can't wait for the game against Tulane next week.
