sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
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- Aug 15, 2011
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I am writing this from the Raleigh-Durham airport, waiting for a 7:45 pm flight to get me to Charlotte, and from there to Syracuse.
Busy but very enjoyable weekend in the Raleigh and Winston-Salem areas. I caught a late flight out of Syracuse to Raleigh on Friday night. By the time my flight arrived in Raleigh, I retrieved my clubs, got my rental car and checked into my hotel,i t was 1:15am. Not good.
Got up at 7:30 am, which gave me just enough time to get showered, shaved, dressed, grab breakfast and drive to Winston-Salem to get there by 9:30 am. I regrettably saw almost nothing of the Wake campus, which I have heard is gorgeous. The little I saw of the neighborhood surrounding the stadium was not good. It looked kind of industrial but also impoverished. I did see a tall, white, bullet shaped building from the highway that was impressive. My guess is that it houses a tobacco company though I am not sure.
Kudos to JackBauer and TexanMark for getting us a great tailgate location just across the street from the stadium. Jack and his crew, featuring Crusty and Mrs Crusty, did a great job getting food out to the masses. Hoffman products were again featured and I heard a number of people express great excitement at the chance to enjoy Hoffman products for the first time in a long time. The crew also deployed the grills for a most excellent post game celebration afterwards.
After some time at the JB tailgate, a bunch of us headed to the SU tailgate, which was located at the WF baseball stadium, close by their football stadium. It was a nice, intimate facility we enjoyed hanging out at. They had some bling; SU towels and SU sunglasses, and provided a nice catered BBQ lunch as well. It was only pulled pork, green beans and coleslaw, but it was good. They have BBQ skills in these parts, no doubt about it. Not sure it was worth the $30 they charged but hey, I was trying to support the home town team.
Around 11:15 am, some of us headed for the football stadium. Not much of a tailgating scene there; it was very laid back and relaxed and the area close to the stadium was remarkably uncrowded. We entered on the visitor's side of the stadium. It was kind of remarkable in that you have the big single level of seats overhead, some concession stands underneath it, a fence to only allow people to enter the stadium through a gate, and that is it. It is very open and homey. Hard to believe it houses a school in the ACC.
Don't get me wrong, I LIKE the stadium. The seats are relatively close to the field, the sight lines are among the best I have ever seen for a D1 stadium (though not as good as those in the Carrier Dome), and the who,e experience was rather charming. It felt almost like going back in a time machine to 1954, when college football was by and large not a big business.
I liked that they rarely used piped in music to 'entertain' the crowd. The WF band filled that role, though WF had a bunch of contests I found fresh and original to entertain folks during some timeouts. Among these were a sumo wrestling contest featuring two kids wearing those huge inflatable wrestling suits, and a contest were two people vied to throw the most rubber chickens into a hole in a board. Good stuff, I wish the Dome would do more of this. Another nice thing about the stadium was the replay board, which was new, with good quality resolution, and which was much larger than the ones in the Carrier Dome.
On the negative side, the food selection in the stadium was, as best I could determine, very pedestrian. Hot dogs, burgers, nachos, pop corn, etc. Though I did see a number of fans eating ice cream cones featuring yellow ice cream...not sure what flavor it was but it looked interesting.
The Wake band came out and marched. It was the smallest college band I have seen. It believe Cayahoga Cuse counted 71 members in their band. I know for sure they only had 4 sousaphones. The field looked kind of empty and forlorned with so few band members out there. They did sound good to me though and I want to give them special props for preparing and playing the SU fight song as part of the pre game festivities. Nice.
On to the game. Let's break it down unit by unit.
Special Teams
Riley Dixon had another good day though he did kick one really bad punt, low and directly at the Wzf return guy. He almost took it back for a TD. But Riley also hit a couple of terrific efforts that bottled Wake inside their 10 yards line. Cole Murphy had a good day, making all his FG and PAT attempts and kicking off relatively well. All his kick offs with the wind were touchbacks and he generally was able to get the ball inside the 10 kicking into the wind. Still needs to do some work here but he appears to be doing better as the season progresses.
Phillips did not have a good day returning KOs, nor did PTG returning punts. It was a windy dsy, which didn't help, and the absence of some key players on there turn teams did't help either. That was probably a reason the coverage units strolled some as well. Understandable but worrisome.
Offense
Weird game, very untypical for this team. The offense only got about 360 total yards, but the team, aided by a couple big plays by the defense (more on that shortly), scored 30 points. We did really well in 3rd and long situations and not so great in third and short situations. Not sure why, but it is pretty strange.
Thought the game plan was good. The actual plays called are, imho, a little better than they were under GM, we are moving the ball maybe a little better and maybe playing a little better in the red zone but we continue to have problems there. But the general approach appears to be better and things seem to click earlier and the in game adjustment made seem to be a little more effective.
Thought AJ did relatively well for his first start. Made some terrific throws...really seems to have a nice touch on middle length routes down the sideline. Looked to me as though he did a reasonable job with his reads and checks. Wake blitzed us a lot and AJ was rarely caught in a position where he got caught up in a heavy rush (though he did take a sack, which hasn't happened much this season). He also did a little damage with his legs, where he flashed some impressive speed in the open field, and took on a Deacon near the sideline at one point. I think he will be allowed to run more once the desperate situation with depth at QB is addressed. Continues to throw the screens and short passes to the flat with excellent accuracy too.
To date, he has shown little ability to complete passes over the middle...that will become a problem as defenses move to take away his strengths. I am assuming this is happening in part because he isn't the biggest guy in the pocket and partly because the staff was afraid Emmerich would not be able to block the middle well on passing plays. Hence many of the passes were thrown on roll outs. I think his work on faked handoffs is really bad now and needs a lot of work. Not a surprise for a guy who has been running with the scout team most of the season.
While he has a quick release and decent zip on his throws, he can't throw the ball a long way on a line and currently can't make certain types of throws. You could really tell watching him throw into the wind Saturday. With hard work, that can be addressed over time.His respect for the ball remains a problem. He had at least 3 passes that should never have been thrown and also had a shockingly bad pitch on an option play. Young players make those kinds of decisions. The smart ones learn from it and stop doing it. The others see their playing time disappear.
The thing I like best about him is that he appears to have that intangible 'it' that all good QBs have. He just has a knack for making something happen, and best of all, he seems at his best when he is under the most pressure. The sample size is small, and it is probably premature to make sweeping generalizations, but I think it is fair to say the kid has some promise.
Thought Ish had another excellent game. I have come to the conclusion he is our top play maker and we need to throw him the ball at least 10 times per game. It's great to finally have a receiver who is going to get the ball 95% of the time as long as he can get to it. When you have a cannon, fire it as much as possible. Give Steve the rock!
West had his usual couple of big plays though he didn't get the yardage he has been getting. After suffering through so many injuries during his career at SU, Flemming is having a nice senior season, and I am happy for him. Parris had a couple of good plays too. It will be great to get some of the other WRs back in a couple of weeks...the guys that are left have to be getting very tired and beat up.
Thought the OL did a good job run and pass blocking against a veteran Wake defense. Still too many penalties but it was tough with WF blitzing so much. Thought Hickey and Trudo in particular were effective Saturday.
Great to have McFarland back. He looks like our fastest RB right now and proved it on that long run. PTG did a fine job getting what he could running between the tackles and made a nice catch on that long gain when he ran a wheel route down the sideline after Long faked the handoffs to him. He is having a solid senior season. Morris again looked to have a chance to get a TD on a pass but appeared to alligator arm it. He is running pretty hard but seems to be playing hurt. AAM didn't get much work, had a big collision early that might have hurt him more than the guy he ran over.
Defense
Thought the game plan was fine. We got burned blitzing some early and I think got away from that more as the game progressed. Our ability to stop the run was key as WF had little chance to convert 3rd and long situations.
Eskridge continues to play at a level lower than we have come to expect from him. Continues to miss some playing time each game. I am pretty sure he is playing with a separated shoulder. Props to him for doing that. I hope it doesn't cost him some money in the spring. Desir and Kelly have also struggled some...this has not been a banner year for safety play.
Continue to be impressed by Reddish, who again played a great game. Hope he gets recognized by the ACC for the season he is having. I am pretty sure the NFL will be giving him props down the line...
Thought the defense played well except for the awful series early when Wake rumbled 92 yards. Their weak armed QB completed a disturbing number of high arching powder balls over the middle that our defenders struggled to cover. We made adjustments thankfully and better yet, Davis made perhaps the play of the game when he crushed the Wake QB, knocking him out of the game and forcing him to rush his throw, which enabled Rob Welsh, who had filled Davis' spot when he blitzed, to run for the big TD that pretty much put the game out of reach.
Raymon comes back just in time to replace an injured Crume. Crume comes back just in time to replace an injured Williams. The musical chairs game at DT continues. It would be great to have these 3 all back and healthy at the same time. Robinson and Welsh have had good but pretty quiet careers. Good to see them having their best seasons as seniors and good to see both get TDs on Saturday. They both deserve some recognition. Sugar Bear and Zeke Johnson look like their replacements next season. Too far this season, Thompson has played DT, DE and even a little TE. Now that Welsh and Robinson are in the books, Ron also gets my MLDETNSATD.
Lynch continues to be a force all over the field. Great senior leader. Davis had the play of the game and probably had his best game of the season. Hodge did pretty well but I think he needs to be looking over his shoulder. First Arciniega started to steal his playing time. He got hurt so that threat is gone for now but he better not sleep on Zaire Franklin, who continues to impress in limited playing time.
The second team defense played a lot late in the game, and I think the future is a bright one.
Some random comments:
I would guess the actual crowd was 13 to 14k. I think SU brought close to 2k of fans to the game, which isn't great but was impressive, I thought, given we had lost 4 games in a row.
The Wake fans were very polite, kind of reserved, and the quietest fans I have ever seen. They were the definition of downtrodden. The only fans I have seen that reminded me of them were Tulane fans.
First time I have gone to an away game and not been able to identify the student section. I know Wake has a really small enrollment, but I am not sure if any students went to the game.
4 tubas. Really?
I liked the ambience of the WF stadium. One end zone was left covered with grass and a bunch of fans brought blankets and watched the game lying on them. It had more character than other small stadia I have visited, like Northwestern, CMU, Akron or UConn. It wasn't as plain and vanilla looking.
Not to blow our own horn, but the Syracusefsn.com section was easily the loudest section at the stadium Saturday. The line between enthusiastic/passionate and obnoxious/boorish is a fine one and I hope we didn't cross it.
Played Pine Hollow in Clayton, near Raleigh, on Sunday afternoon. Nice tract with some fast greens that were hard to hold. Thought it was nice, would play it again someday (and I just might next year when we play NC State).
Busy but very enjoyable weekend in the Raleigh and Winston-Salem areas. I caught a late flight out of Syracuse to Raleigh on Friday night. By the time my flight arrived in Raleigh, I retrieved my clubs, got my rental car and checked into my hotel,i t was 1:15am. Not good.
Got up at 7:30 am, which gave me just enough time to get showered, shaved, dressed, grab breakfast and drive to Winston-Salem to get there by 9:30 am. I regrettably saw almost nothing of the Wake campus, which I have heard is gorgeous. The little I saw of the neighborhood surrounding the stadium was not good. It looked kind of industrial but also impoverished. I did see a tall, white, bullet shaped building from the highway that was impressive. My guess is that it houses a tobacco company though I am not sure.
Kudos to JackBauer and TexanMark for getting us a great tailgate location just across the street from the stadium. Jack and his crew, featuring Crusty and Mrs Crusty, did a great job getting food out to the masses. Hoffman products were again featured and I heard a number of people express great excitement at the chance to enjoy Hoffman products for the first time in a long time. The crew also deployed the grills for a most excellent post game celebration afterwards.
After some time at the JB tailgate, a bunch of us headed to the SU tailgate, which was located at the WF baseball stadium, close by their football stadium. It was a nice, intimate facility we enjoyed hanging out at. They had some bling; SU towels and SU sunglasses, and provided a nice catered BBQ lunch as well. It was only pulled pork, green beans and coleslaw, but it was good. They have BBQ skills in these parts, no doubt about it. Not sure it was worth the $30 they charged but hey, I was trying to support the home town team.
Around 11:15 am, some of us headed for the football stadium. Not much of a tailgating scene there; it was very laid back and relaxed and the area close to the stadium was remarkably uncrowded. We entered on the visitor's side of the stadium. It was kind of remarkable in that you have the big single level of seats overhead, some concession stands underneath it, a fence to only allow people to enter the stadium through a gate, and that is it. It is very open and homey. Hard to believe it houses a school in the ACC.
Don't get me wrong, I LIKE the stadium. The seats are relatively close to the field, the sight lines are among the best I have ever seen for a D1 stadium (though not as good as those in the Carrier Dome), and the who,e experience was rather charming. It felt almost like going back in a time machine to 1954, when college football was by and large not a big business.
I liked that they rarely used piped in music to 'entertain' the crowd. The WF band filled that role, though WF had a bunch of contests I found fresh and original to entertain folks during some timeouts. Among these were a sumo wrestling contest featuring two kids wearing those huge inflatable wrestling suits, and a contest were two people vied to throw the most rubber chickens into a hole in a board. Good stuff, I wish the Dome would do more of this. Another nice thing about the stadium was the replay board, which was new, with good quality resolution, and which was much larger than the ones in the Carrier Dome.
On the negative side, the food selection in the stadium was, as best I could determine, very pedestrian. Hot dogs, burgers, nachos, pop corn, etc. Though I did see a number of fans eating ice cream cones featuring yellow ice cream...not sure what flavor it was but it looked interesting.
The Wake band came out and marched. It was the smallest college band I have seen. It believe Cayahoga Cuse counted 71 members in their band. I know for sure they only had 4 sousaphones. The field looked kind of empty and forlorned with so few band members out there. They did sound good to me though and I want to give them special props for preparing and playing the SU fight song as part of the pre game festivities. Nice.
On to the game. Let's break it down unit by unit.
Special Teams
Riley Dixon had another good day though he did kick one really bad punt, low and directly at the Wzf return guy. He almost took it back for a TD. But Riley also hit a couple of terrific efforts that bottled Wake inside their 10 yards line. Cole Murphy had a good day, making all his FG and PAT attempts and kicking off relatively well. All his kick offs with the wind were touchbacks and he generally was able to get the ball inside the 10 kicking into the wind. Still needs to do some work here but he appears to be doing better as the season progresses.
Phillips did not have a good day returning KOs, nor did PTG returning punts. It was a windy dsy, which didn't help, and the absence of some key players on there turn teams did't help either. That was probably a reason the coverage units strolled some as well. Understandable but worrisome.
Offense
Weird game, very untypical for this team. The offense only got about 360 total yards, but the team, aided by a couple big plays by the defense (more on that shortly), scored 30 points. We did really well in 3rd and long situations and not so great in third and short situations. Not sure why, but it is pretty strange.
Thought the game plan was good. The actual plays called are, imho, a little better than they were under GM, we are moving the ball maybe a little better and maybe playing a little better in the red zone but we continue to have problems there. But the general approach appears to be better and things seem to click earlier and the in game adjustment made seem to be a little more effective.
Thought AJ did relatively well for his first start. Made some terrific throws...really seems to have a nice touch on middle length routes down the sideline. Looked to me as though he did a reasonable job with his reads and checks. Wake blitzed us a lot and AJ was rarely caught in a position where he got caught up in a heavy rush (though he did take a sack, which hasn't happened much this season). He also did a little damage with his legs, where he flashed some impressive speed in the open field, and took on a Deacon near the sideline at one point. I think he will be allowed to run more once the desperate situation with depth at QB is addressed. Continues to throw the screens and short passes to the flat with excellent accuracy too.
To date, he has shown little ability to complete passes over the middle...that will become a problem as defenses move to take away his strengths. I am assuming this is happening in part because he isn't the biggest guy in the pocket and partly because the staff was afraid Emmerich would not be able to block the middle well on passing plays. Hence many of the passes were thrown on roll outs. I think his work on faked handoffs is really bad now and needs a lot of work. Not a surprise for a guy who has been running with the scout team most of the season.
While he has a quick release and decent zip on his throws, he can't throw the ball a long way on a line and currently can't make certain types of throws. You could really tell watching him throw into the wind Saturday. With hard work, that can be addressed over time.His respect for the ball remains a problem. He had at least 3 passes that should never have been thrown and also had a shockingly bad pitch on an option play. Young players make those kinds of decisions. The smart ones learn from it and stop doing it. The others see their playing time disappear.
The thing I like best about him is that he appears to have that intangible 'it' that all good QBs have. He just has a knack for making something happen, and best of all, he seems at his best when he is under the most pressure. The sample size is small, and it is probably premature to make sweeping generalizations, but I think it is fair to say the kid has some promise.
Thought Ish had another excellent game. I have come to the conclusion he is our top play maker and we need to throw him the ball at least 10 times per game. It's great to finally have a receiver who is going to get the ball 95% of the time as long as he can get to it. When you have a cannon, fire it as much as possible. Give Steve the rock!
West had his usual couple of big plays though he didn't get the yardage he has been getting. After suffering through so many injuries during his career at SU, Flemming is having a nice senior season, and I am happy for him. Parris had a couple of good plays too. It will be great to get some of the other WRs back in a couple of weeks...the guys that are left have to be getting very tired and beat up.
Thought the OL did a good job run and pass blocking against a veteran Wake defense. Still too many penalties but it was tough with WF blitzing so much. Thought Hickey and Trudo in particular were effective Saturday.
Great to have McFarland back. He looks like our fastest RB right now and proved it on that long run. PTG did a fine job getting what he could running between the tackles and made a nice catch on that long gain when he ran a wheel route down the sideline after Long faked the handoffs to him. He is having a solid senior season. Morris again looked to have a chance to get a TD on a pass but appeared to alligator arm it. He is running pretty hard but seems to be playing hurt. AAM didn't get much work, had a big collision early that might have hurt him more than the guy he ran over.
Defense
Thought the game plan was fine. We got burned blitzing some early and I think got away from that more as the game progressed. Our ability to stop the run was key as WF had little chance to convert 3rd and long situations.
Eskridge continues to play at a level lower than we have come to expect from him. Continues to miss some playing time each game. I am pretty sure he is playing with a separated shoulder. Props to him for doing that. I hope it doesn't cost him some money in the spring. Desir and Kelly have also struggled some...this has not been a banner year for safety play.
Continue to be impressed by Reddish, who again played a great game. Hope he gets recognized by the ACC for the season he is having. I am pretty sure the NFL will be giving him props down the line...
Thought the defense played well except for the awful series early when Wake rumbled 92 yards. Their weak armed QB completed a disturbing number of high arching powder balls over the middle that our defenders struggled to cover. We made adjustments thankfully and better yet, Davis made perhaps the play of the game when he crushed the Wake QB, knocking him out of the game and forcing him to rush his throw, which enabled Rob Welsh, who had filled Davis' spot when he blitzed, to run for the big TD that pretty much put the game out of reach.
Raymon comes back just in time to replace an injured Crume. Crume comes back just in time to replace an injured Williams. The musical chairs game at DT continues. It would be great to have these 3 all back and healthy at the same time. Robinson and Welsh have had good but pretty quiet careers. Good to see them having their best seasons as seniors and good to see both get TDs on Saturday. They both deserve some recognition. Sugar Bear and Zeke Johnson look like their replacements next season. Too far this season, Thompson has played DT, DE and even a little TE. Now that Welsh and Robinson are in the books, Ron also gets my MLDETNSATD.
Lynch continues to be a force all over the field. Great senior leader. Davis had the play of the game and probably had his best game of the season. Hodge did pretty well but I think he needs to be looking over his shoulder. First Arciniega started to steal his playing time. He got hurt so that threat is gone for now but he better not sleep on Zaire Franklin, who continues to impress in limited playing time.
The second team defense played a lot late in the game, and I think the future is a bright one.
Some random comments:
I would guess the actual crowd was 13 to 14k. I think SU brought close to 2k of fans to the game, which isn't great but was impressive, I thought, given we had lost 4 games in a row.
The Wake fans were very polite, kind of reserved, and the quietest fans I have ever seen. They were the definition of downtrodden. The only fans I have seen that reminded me of them were Tulane fans.
First time I have gone to an away game and not been able to identify the student section. I know Wake has a really small enrollment, but I am not sure if any students went to the game.
4 tubas. Really?
I liked the ambience of the WF stadium. One end zone was left covered with grass and a bunch of fans brought blankets and watched the game lying on them. It had more character than other small stadia I have visited, like Northwestern, CMU, Akron or UConn. It wasn't as plain and vanilla looking.
Not to blow our own horn, but the Syracusefsn.com section was easily the loudest section at the stadium Saturday. The line between enthusiastic/passionate and obnoxious/boorish is a fine one and I hope we didn't cross it.
Played Pine Hollow in Clayton, near Raleigh, on Sunday afternoon. Nice tract with some fast greens that were hard to hold. Thought it was nice, would play it again someday (and I just might next year when we play NC State).
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