sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
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- Aug 15, 2011
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Drove from Syracuse to Saginaw on Friday in a convoy led by TexanMark. No issues getting there, took just under 8 hours. Upon arriving, we went to BWWs and watched Baylor destroy an overmatched UB team. Sorry Trueblue.
After a good night of sleep, we headed to Mount Pleasant for the CMU campus and their football stadium. We saw a lot of corn on the way (more on that later), and arrived at our tailgating location early, one of the first groups to get there.
The campus was kind of undistinguished but not bad. There were some big parking lots near the stadium that were excellent for tailgating. We were in one of them. TexanMark did a great job organizing things and the 'locals' did a terrific job bringing stuff. Special props to DickinMichigan and CuyahogaCuse and their families for their substantial contributions to the tailgate.
Many Hofmann products were cooked and eaten and many adult beverages (and some GA too) were quaffed. After a time, we headed to the stadium to watch the game. The CMU fans were generally cool and good natured and we had some fun talking with them. Their stadium holds about 32K. It is small and kind of spartan, but it had good sight lines. Reminded me a lot of The Rent in East Hartford. They did a lot of prompting for fans to cheer for the team and had a lot of interaction with a super-excited special announcer, which was also very UConn-like. They have a small replay board of low resolution, similar to the original ones installed at the Dome.
The CMU fans were quiet, even the mostly drunk students. I didn't try any of the food. Looked mostly low rent; Domino's pizza, BWW, candied nut cones, short, fat, scary looking hot dogs and giant bags of corn. Kettle corn, candied corn, corn, corn and more corn.
We ended up with good seats close to the field, behind the team and cheerleaders. Good place to watch a game, with one small exception: the CMU fans, many of whom arrived late for the game and many of whom sat between us and the field. Growl.
The game started poorly for us as CMU took the opening series and made a series of first downs, taking advantage of a very soft zone defense SU was trying to play. The defense finally stiffened in the red zone and the Chips had to settle for a FG.
We didn't get off to a good start on offense. I think we again went to too many bubble screens early, which played into the hands of the CMU defense, which was undersized but fast, and featured at least 5 defensive backs. As the game progressed, GM made some adjustments, ran more running plays featuring power backs Hunt and AAM and threw the ball enough to keep the Chips defense honest.
Wanted to single out Broyld, who was open all day and made a number of big plays again, and Erv Phillips, who looked really impressive at RB in the second half, where he consistently beat CMU defenders in the open field. Looks really good as a true frosh.
So both coordinators made good adjustments as the game progressed, which was great to see. But this game wasn't won with coaching. It was won in the trenches, where Syracuse dominated the CMU offensive and defensive lines all game long. Props to all the linemen.
Palmer returned and played all game long, and was very effective. Trudo got banged up but returned and did well. Robinson filled in for Trudo and played well. Miller was much better in his second start. Hickey and Foy were solid as well.
We played more players on defense today than in any SU game I can ever remember. Welch, Robinson and Simmons played most of the snaps at DE. Crume, Coleman, Sloan and Williams, along with swing man Johnson, played most of the snaps at DT. Whigham, Reddish and Morgan rotated at CB, Eskridge, Kelly and Desire got most of the snaps at the safety positions and surprisingly, Bullough rotated a number of players at LB, where Lynch, Davis and Hodge were augmented with Arciniega, Kirkland and Zaire Franklin. All looked good to me. Unusual to see a true frosh playing a lot (and making his share of good plays too). It is very early in his career, but at this point, all signs point to Franklin being a special player.
Great to see so many old friends and great to meet so many new ones. Had a great time at CMU and would do it again in a minute. This was nice win. I don't think the Chips are great but they aren't bad either. Beating teams like them on the road is a good accomplishment, especially as dominating as this win was.
Can't wait for the Maryland game.
After a good night of sleep, we headed to Mount Pleasant for the CMU campus and their football stadium. We saw a lot of corn on the way (more on that later), and arrived at our tailgating location early, one of the first groups to get there.
The campus was kind of undistinguished but not bad. There were some big parking lots near the stadium that were excellent for tailgating. We were in one of them. TexanMark did a great job organizing things and the 'locals' did a terrific job bringing stuff. Special props to DickinMichigan and CuyahogaCuse and their families for their substantial contributions to the tailgate.
Many Hofmann products were cooked and eaten and many adult beverages (and some GA too) were quaffed. After a time, we headed to the stadium to watch the game. The CMU fans were generally cool and good natured and we had some fun talking with them. Their stadium holds about 32K. It is small and kind of spartan, but it had good sight lines. Reminded me a lot of The Rent in East Hartford. They did a lot of prompting for fans to cheer for the team and had a lot of interaction with a super-excited special announcer, which was also very UConn-like. They have a small replay board of low resolution, similar to the original ones installed at the Dome.
The CMU fans were quiet, even the mostly drunk students. I didn't try any of the food. Looked mostly low rent; Domino's pizza, BWW, candied nut cones, short, fat, scary looking hot dogs and giant bags of corn. Kettle corn, candied corn, corn, corn and more corn.
We ended up with good seats close to the field, behind the team and cheerleaders. Good place to watch a game, with one small exception: the CMU fans, many of whom arrived late for the game and many of whom sat between us and the field. Growl.
The game started poorly for us as CMU took the opening series and made a series of first downs, taking advantage of a very soft zone defense SU was trying to play. The defense finally stiffened in the red zone and the Chips had to settle for a FG.
We didn't get off to a good start on offense. I think we again went to too many bubble screens early, which played into the hands of the CMU defense, which was undersized but fast, and featured at least 5 defensive backs. As the game progressed, GM made some adjustments, ran more running plays featuring power backs Hunt and AAM and threw the ball enough to keep the Chips defense honest.
Wanted to single out Broyld, who was open all day and made a number of big plays again, and Erv Phillips, who looked really impressive at RB in the second half, where he consistently beat CMU defenders in the open field. Looks really good as a true frosh.
So both coordinators made good adjustments as the game progressed, which was great to see. But this game wasn't won with coaching. It was won in the trenches, where Syracuse dominated the CMU offensive and defensive lines all game long. Props to all the linemen.
Palmer returned and played all game long, and was very effective. Trudo got banged up but returned and did well. Robinson filled in for Trudo and played well. Miller was much better in his second start. Hickey and Foy were solid as well.
We played more players on defense today than in any SU game I can ever remember. Welch, Robinson and Simmons played most of the snaps at DE. Crume, Coleman, Sloan and Williams, along with swing man Johnson, played most of the snaps at DT. Whigham, Reddish and Morgan rotated at CB, Eskridge, Kelly and Desire got most of the snaps at the safety positions and surprisingly, Bullough rotated a number of players at LB, where Lynch, Davis and Hodge were augmented with Arciniega, Kirkland and Zaire Franklin. All looked good to me. Unusual to see a true frosh playing a lot (and making his share of good plays too). It is very early in his career, but at this point, all signs point to Franklin being a special player.
Great to see so many old friends and great to meet so many new ones. Had a great time at CMU and would do it again in a minute. This was nice win. I don't think the Chips are great but they aren't bad either. Beating teams like them on the road is a good accomplishment, especially as dominating as this win was.
Can't wait for the Maryland game.
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