No sure what to think

[upperdeck]

I would be interested in the rationale behind all the lateral passes. You watch the usual high octane offenses that Gundy, Sumlin, Kingsbury, and Briles have and it's all pushing the ball downfield. I really hope some people are watching Baylor right now. They have 24 points in the 1st quarter and I have yet to see a pass that hasn't traveled at least 7 yards downfield. Even the running plays are straight ahead attacking the defense. I've never heard of an offense, or at least a successful one that wants to go laterally.

again are you watching the plays or just the results.. baylor does not throw down the field, the go wide all the time, they wait for you to overcommit and then send the guys with elite speed down the field.. they have 10 rcvrs faster than anyone on our team.. its the same plays we call, except a better faster qb/ faster rb/ faster rvcrs.. you cant run stuff you dont have the horses for.

 

[rrlbees]

We were driving when he got ejected. We score, get the ball back to start the 3rd and again put some points on the board Villanova cannot go 4 corners on us. Completely different game. One that to me makes complete sense once we get the offense going.

Was there a guarantee we would have scored? It's an assumption.

 

[tipphill]

Chris people, it's one game and we won. Any of you ever ever play golf? Maybe you bogey the first hole. Bounce back and make a birdie. Do you all really think we won't improve during the season? Do you think Shafer and co didn't realize there's work to be done?

Hunt plays the whole game we probably win by 3 TD's.

no disrespect meant, the issues go way beyond hunt. defense was horrible, offense was bad even when hunt was in the game.offensive line was bad. worst of all the coaching on defense was bad. team as a whole had no energy, instinct, desire and were complacent . not "hardnosed" at all. no running game, no enthusiasm ---hcss has his work cut out for him particularly with bullough, and adam----serious issues here. time to be the head coach---and not a member of the "band". we will see if they improve, i hope they do---but there needs to be radical changes necessary with a couple of coaches AND players attitude. they did not play HARDNOSED they have been reading to much about how good they are without proving it. i come from bethlehem pa for these games-----i don't think i will do that anymore, unless there is improvement. one of the biggest issues here is HCSS MATURITY---make no mistake, i am a hcss fan, and was very encouraged last year--- but he needs to take that hardnosed look and approach with his staff as well and make the tough decisions ---after all its not about the staff its about the players and dare i say it---THE FANS.

 

[Statesman1]

And I hate that philosophy. You are basing your system on the assumption that you will get special players. How about a system that works with good, but not special, guys? A system that would be even better with special guys in the skill positions.

2 years ago staring us in the face and still can't see it. Very discouraging.

Agreed- Good coaches create matchup problems for their opponents- I'm still waiting for this to happen with this staff.

 

[CuseOnly]

again are you watching the plays or just the results.. baylor does not throw down the field, the go wide all the time, they wait for you to overcommit and then send the guys with elite speed down the field.. they have 10 rcvrs faster than anyone on our team.. its the same plays we call, except a better faster qb/ faster rb/ faster rvcrs.. you cant run stuff you dont have the horses for.

Pretty sure we have 10 receivers on the roster faster than the DB's on Villanova.

 

[TheKid]

Listen men we played piss poor and still won (somehow). Ive watched another 10 games now, lots of bad football being played by top 25 teams. Have you seen bamas defense? God awful. Were 1-0 and have 2 weeks to get our stuff together. GO CUSE!!!

 

[anomander]

I guess I am at the point where I don't see why many thought we would be any better than last year? I hope we are but we lost bromley, spruill, Mackey and Jerome who wasn't s e xy running back but was pretty good. I just don't see why people thought we would be a lot better. Granted I didn't anticipate this game being so close but this program isn't even close to taking any opponent for granted. I still think we will be fine but the over the top stuff was just that. All because we beat Bc and Minny to finish. Our coordinators are up and down and last Friday they were both down and that is what you get.

We were so so close to being 5-7 last year with 3-4 pretty bad blow outs. That said I like Shafer a lot even when we play like we did a Friday. I get people being disappointed but people need to grasp reality. Are we seriously looming at Baylor and asking why we can't do that? Please

Big difference pointing out Baylor's offensive attack and us performing like Baylor's offense. Talk about spin.

Think it's time to flush it and move on. There are lots of reasons to think they'll get it righted. The best being last seasons finish to the season.

If you want to poke holes and find reasons for being disappointed - they are there after every win/loss. Respect the hell out of you and usually value your take - but this win is not the worst thing to ever happen to Syracuse football.

I don't know i've never been more disappointed with a performance despite a win. It didn't even feel like a win. There were so many troublesome areas I find it very hard to push it aside and say everything will be alright. I mean every aspect of the game looked terrible. Offensive play calling, defensive non-adjustments, punt coverage, offensive line getting dominated by an inferior line, poor tackling, and I could go on. That's a lot more then flush it and everything will be ok. If there aren't red flags and alarms going off for even the sanest, most positive thinker then God bless you. And again this is all because I had extremely high hopes for the talent assembled (on the field).

 

[Chip]

3 TD's. I dint think so. He wasn't doing much and if not for the PTG TD, he would have led zero TD drives. Plus, he couldn't play defense and slow Nova down who was dominating the clock.

People forget that 7 of their 17 regulation points were on a long punt return (at least I see few, if any, posts about that missed tackle festival PR). If Hunt is in, maybe we don't punt there, could have scored and made it 24-7, which changes everything. Might have scored on the drive where he was ejected too.

Not far fetched to think Hunt and the offense would have got it going and that was a 3 TD win. We'll never know but a bulk of what we prepared suddenly wasn't available. That's no excuse, I'm just saying...

 

[anomander]

again are you watching the plays or just the results.. baylor does not throw down the field, the go wide all the time, they wait for you to overcommit and then send the guys with elite speed down the field.. they have 10 rcvrs faster than anyone on our team.. its the same plays we call, except a better faster qb/ faster rb/ faster rvcrs.. you cant r have the horses for.

I have yet to see Baylor throw it laterally???

The only reason you would go east west is if you have the horses. Baylor would be better off running our offense with their horses and we would be better off running theirs with our talent. What we are "trying" to do would require us to have Baylor type athleticism.

 

[GoSU96]

I would be interested in the rationale behind all the lateral passes. You watch the usual high octane offenses that Gundy, Sumlin, Kingsbury, and Briles have and it's all pushing the ball downfield. I really hope some people are watching Baylor right now. They have 24 points in the 1st quarter and I have yet to see a pass that hasn't traveled at least 7 yards downfield. Even the running plays are straight ahead attacking the defense. I've never heard of an offense, or at least a successful one that wants to go laterally.

You have to be fair in your comparision. Briles has been developing that system of years. He has gotten Texas talent to go there now and they have amped up his system. Same goes for those other guys.

I hope they are working towards that, I just thought they'd be a little closer than 320 (in double OT) which means 270 in regulation and 17pts.

 

[GoSU96]

Just a question, have we ever broken a bubble/tunnel screen for more than 10 yards? I honestly don't recall.

Yeah

 

[Cuseregular]

no disrespect meant, the issues go way beyond hunt. defense was horrible, offense was bad even when hunt was in the game.offensive line was bad. worst of all the coaching on defense was bad. team as a whole had no energy, instinct, desire and were complacent . not "hardnosed" at all. no running game, no enthusiasm ---hcss has his work cut out for him particularly with bullough, and adam----serious issues here. time to be the head coach---and not a member of the "band". we will see if they improve, i hope they do---but there needs to be radical changes necessary with a couple of coaches AND players attitude. they did not play HARDNOSED they have been reading to much about how good they are without proving it. i come from bethlehem pa for these games-----i don't think i will do that anymore, unless there is improvement. one of the biggest issues here is HCSS MATURITY---make no mistake, i am a hcss fan, and was very encouraged last year--- but he needs to take that hardnosed look and approach with his staff as well and make the tough decisions ---after all its not about the staff its about the players and dare i say it---THE FANS.

In terms of if it's worth your trip up, the CMU game should give you a better idea and some of the answers. For me the dilemma is whether or not to go to NY for the ND game as if things aren't improved with the very things you mention (HCSS with some of his approach as you note as well), it's just too laborious to sit there, go through all the efforts to get there, etc. if it's a similar soul draining beat your head against the wall experience.

That said I'm sure my masochistic lame a$$ will be there and you at the dome as well.

 

[orangehomer]

Chris people, it's one game and we won. Any of you ever ever play golf? Maybe you bogey the first hole. Bounce back and make a birdie. Do you all really think we won't improve during the season? Do you think Shafer and co didn't realize there's work to be done?

Hunt plays the whole game we probably win by 3 TD's.

I agree that if hunt plays we probably win by more, but please stop with the "we won that's all that matters" stuff. come on man, the game was lost more than once, it took a gift from the football gods to beat villanova at home.

 

[anomander]

You have to be fair in your comparision. Briles has been developing that system of years. He has gotten Texas talent to go there now and they have amped up his system. Same goes for those other guys.

I hope they are working towards that, I just thought they'd be a little closer than 320 (in double OT) which means 270 in regulation and 17pts.

But my point is that we would need those type of athlete's to make what we are trying to do work. Maybe i'm alone, but I feel we would need the most elite of elite athletes to make our system fly.

 

[GoSU96]

I'm not overly concerned with the performance, but then again, i thought this was a 6-6 team anyway.

That being said, my concerns are pretty basic:

1. Inability for the oline to blow the villanova d-line off the ball. D-1 lineman should be moving 1-aa linemen.
2. Lack of playmakers on defense. I think it's been said, but Thompson and Johnson seem to be our most explosive DEs, and they are marginalized playing as way-undersized DTs. Davis was a no show. Welsh was a no show except for maybe one play. Someone other than Eskridge and Crume is going to have to step up.
3. Personnel groupings on offense are weird. I dont like how McDonald is so taken with spreading the ball around. As far as i can tell, the best offenses give you heavy doses of their best players. To me, that means almost every play should go to a RB, Broyld, Estime or West (downfield for that matter). Way too many rbs are used. Gulley should be getting 3/4 series.

I am less concerned about the offense because i think they intentionally kept it pretty vanilla. I think you will see more of Hunt running, and more downfield looks, once we start playing the bigger boys (i.e., after the C. Mich game).

Didn't Welsh make the tackle on the 2pt conversion? People knock him and Robinson WAY too much.

 

[GoSU96]

They said the 3-3 stack was causing problems for Miller and Wilson. That's why the run game looked bad.

The kid knew more that 10%. McDonald said the the 90% was tailored for Hunt. That combined with the weird defense compounded the usual first game jitters and mistakes.

I'm not that worried, honestly.

Did Villanova spring that defense on them in a surprise move?

 

[GoSU96]

People forget that 7 of their 17 regulation points were on a long punt return (at least I see few, if any, posts about that missed tackle festival PR). If Hunt is in, maybe we don't punt there, could have scored and made it 24-7, which changes everything. Might have scored on the drive where he was ejected too.

Not far fetched to think Hunt and the offense would have got it going and that was a 3 TD win. We'll never know but a bulk of what we prepared suddenly wasn't available. That's no excuse, I'm just saying...

Great job channeling upperdeck there.

 

[Chip]

Great job channeling upperdeck there.

Good point. The starting QB would never extend a drive if the backup QB couldn't. Everyone knows that.

 

[retro44]

I thinking the staff is spending way too much on thinking on how to game plan and worrying on what they might try to use,instead maybe we need to focus on what our strengths are and let the other teams worrying to stop our strengths.

 

[upperdeck]

I have yet to see Baylor throw it laterally???

The only reason you would go east west is if you have the horses. Baylor would be better off running our offense with their horses and we would be better off running theirs with our talent. What we are "trying" to do would require us to have Baylor type athleticism.

are you watching the baylor game at all? they have the backup qb just like we did. that QB has played last year so he has experience.. they threw 14 passes in the 3rd quarter. 2 passes were thrown over 10 yds.. thats hardly stretching the field. baylor runs the widest sets in fball. they throw shallow crosses and outs, and then threw one deep late in the quarter. the baylor high octane offense scored 7 pts with the backup in one quarter just like ours. the only reason they scored at all is because that baylor kid can run and ran a broken play for a 1st down to keep the drive going. its not like we threw 100 bubble screens, we dont even know what the play calls were. we dont know what the checkdown play calls are either. if the QB isnt reading the D maybe he checks into those safer passes? we only threw 2 bubble screens with hunt in the game so i doubt the play calls would be the same if he had stayed in all game.

 

[rrlbees]

People forget that 7 of their 17 regulation points were on a long punt return (at least I see few, if any, posts about that missed tackle festival PR). If Hunt is in, maybe we don't punt there, could have scored and made it 24-7, which changes everything. Might have scored on the drive where he was ejected too. Not far fetched to think Hunt and the offense would have got it going and that was a 3 TD win. We'll never know but a bulk of what we prepared suddenly wasn't available. That's no excuse, I'm just saying...

I mentioned in another post that their offense only scored 10 points in regulation. But look at your maybes. From the 40, maybe we score on that drive with Hunt. If we don't punt , they don't return it for a TD and maybe we score a TD with Hunt. Maybe to start the. 3rd, we score with Hunt like Wilson did. Too many maybes , especially with the way the OL was playing . You made it a blowout.

Maybe Hunt throws a pick 6 too.

 

[anomander]

are you watching the baylor game at all? they have the backup qb just like we did. that QB has played last year so he has experience.. they threw 14 passes in the 3rd quarter. 2 passes were thrown over 10 yds.. thats hardly stretching the field. baylor runs the widest sets in fball. they throw shallow crosses and outs, and then threw one deep late in the quarter. the baylor high octane offense scored 7 pts with the backup in one quarter just like ours. the only reason they scored at all is because that baylor kid can run and ran a broken play for a 1st down to keep the drive going. its not like we threw 100 bubble screens, we dont even know what the play calls were. we dont know what the checkdown play calls are either. if the QB isnt reading the D maybe he checks into those safer passes? we only threw 2 bubble screens with hunt in the game so i doubt the play calls would be the same if he had stayed in all game.

I stopped watching when it was 24-0. At that point every single pass went at least 5 yards past the line of scrimmage. Outs are fine, our passes aren't even past the line of scrimmage. And Briles offense is known for pushing it down the field. This explains it http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2013/11/7/5073520/baylor-football-offense-art-briles-2013

 

[upperdeck]

and not every pass we threw was under 5 yds but people keeping saying they were all bubble screens. the announcers in the baylor game just commented that if Baylor doesnt have the elite 2-3 rcvrs their offense becomes very limited. i dont see how baylor threw every pass over 5 yds the first half when they only avg 7 either.. they throw deep off play action, we did too, just never completed any of them.

lets see what it looks like against maryland then decide if it still sucks.

 

[Chip]

I mentioned in another post that their offense only scored 10 points in regulation. But look at your maybes. From the 40, maybe we score on that drive with Hunt. If we don't punt , they don't return it for a TD and maybe we score a TD with Hunt. Maybe to start the. 3rd, we score with Hunt like Wilson did. Too many maybes , especially with the way the OL was playing . You made it a blowout. Maybe Hunt throws a pick 6 too.

They are all maybes but the law of averages should say the starting QB will be better than the backup. Especially in our case. Given 7 of their points happened on a PR return after a 3 and out, I comfortable saying we're not in an OT rock fight if Hunt hadn't lost his head.

Either way, we have a lot of work to do.

 

[NineOneSeven]

Anyone think Dixon should start under center next game?