Random Thoughts | Syracusefan.com

Random Thoughts

sutomcat

No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
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If this team gets to 6 victories, no question it goes bowling. Syracuse is a brand name and a lot more attractive than many of the other schools that would end up with 6-6 records. We would go in front of a number of schools with 7-5 records.

The most improved player on the team is Durell Eskridge. He got off to a rough start, starting the season with a series of games where he played really well but made one or two major gaffes that usually led to a touchdown for the opposition. The second half of the year, he has been terrific. Good to see him emerge as a major force on this team.

Has anyone in college football finished the season facing 3 players better than Winston, Donald and Williams? All 3 should be locks for AA honors. Winston and Williams are surely the best QB and RB in college football this year, and Donald, for my money, is the best player on defense.

Williams by the way, has a shoulder injury that appears to be really bothering him. Amazing what he is doing this season every week against defenses stacked to stop him. BC is going to use a double TE set just about every play, with a FB and one wide out, and just run the ball right down the middle every play. No trickery, no deception. Just old fashioned power football.

Really wish we had Raymon for this one. I guess we are down to Welsh and Robinson at DE. Injuried dEs include Donnie Simmons, Zeke Jonson, Tyler Marona and Sugar Bear Thompson. Not sure what who we are going to use as a backup here. Trejo or Manley? They might have to move Arciniega or a reserve OL to DE temporarily. We might need to use Arciniega some today at LB; at least to give the LBs a breather.

The cave man like power approach is most effective late in the game, when defenses get worn down. With our lack of depth at the DL, LB and DB, we are certainly going to be prone to this.

It would be terrific to get an early lead and force BC to have to change from their game plan. The good news is that BC does not have a great defense and in fact has one of the worst pass defenses in the country. The bad news is that Lasker was as bad as any OT we have ever had attempting to pass block last week. He won't have to block Donald; that should help. Maybe just getting a week of game experience will help him too. But man, it would be great if Hickey could somehow find a way to play this game. I don't know if we can move the ball and get any points with Sweet Lou Alexander II playing a tackle position for us.

This has been a strange team to watch play. They have a ton of heart, no question about it. They have been prone to mental mistakes all season, special teams has been pretty bad all year, we have almost no passing game, but still, we have two victories on the road in conference play and a chance to go to a bowl with a victory today. Right now, I think the jury is still out on this team. If they win, they will be looked upon fondly as the SS's first team, the team that made it to a second consecutive bowl for the first time since the 1990s. If they don't, they will be looked upon much like the 2012 team that go to 5 wins but hampered by injuries, just could not finish the deal and get bowl eligible.

The sheer fury that this defensive unit plays with has been a joy to watch. As others have said, this might be the hardest hitter team in the history of Syracuse football. Teams need when they have played this Syracuse team by the black and blue marks and the expanded injury list after the game. And it is great to have a team that can consistently put pressure on the QB in passing situations.

Today is Judgement Day for this team. I hope they are up for the challenge because it is going to take a special effort to defeat a good BC team that is playing their best ball of the season.
 
Tons of great stuff.

Esk is a keeper and has been great since the first few games where he was only good in run support. I have to think some of that has to do with Wilkes diminished role as other teams key on him and Esk was left with a lot of extra ground to cover.

Defensively, with our personnel issues, we should go base 3-4 with Spruill and Arceniega on the field and 1 of the 2 walking to the line between the de and bromley at the snap. Spruill has been great in this role when used and perhaps we could run Crume at DE to set the edge and crash down a bit.

RT issues always seem to show up for us. Hopefully the game slows down a bit for Lasker and he gives us reason for optimism. The easy answer would be moving the pocket. The answer we'll likely use instead is keeping a TE and/or RB in to block.

Hopefully we use some trick plays like the forward pass on first down. Hell I'd consider running actual trick plays on our first 3 plays to throw the defense off. Win lose or turnover lets run a hb option pass, wr option pass, and flea flicker to open the game. Throw in a few onsides kicks and fake punts as well. If we aren't stopping them from 50 yards out, we probably wouldn from 70 yards.

Score first, score td's, go for 2. That should be our main objective.
 
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Injuried dEs include Donnie Simmons, Zeke Jonson, Tyler Marona and Sugar Bear Thompson.

Thompsomn is not out.
 
Don't know whether it's true or not but to me Eskridge looks like the fastest guy on the team. In the Florida State game on one of their long plays for a TD, he was Closing on the dude who was some freak high school track athlete. Granted he was coming in on an angle - but still.
 
Big chance for Ryan Sloan as OPA mentioned above. He's a big boy and they need someone to clog the middle.
 
Wish our entire DL was healthy, because with fast but undersized LBs, I'm not sure we're built to stop a power running team. Wonder if we'll open with a 3-4, with Arciniega sharing the middle?
 
Wish our entire DL was healthy, because with fast but undersized LBs, I'm not sure we're built to stop a power running team. Wonder if we'll open with a 3-4, with Arciniega sharing the middle?

I thought they went with the 3-4 to better attack spread offenses? Not sure using the 3-4 today will be good against a power run team? We all saw how bad it was vs GT
 
Wish our entire DL was healthy, because with fast but undersized LBs, I'm not sure we're built to stop a power running team. Wonder if we'll open with a 3-4, with Arciniega sharing the middle?
Oh boy. Changing our base defense hasn't worked out well for us this year.
 
We did finish the last regular season with a win against Addazio. Seems kind of odd we can do that again with him at a different school. I hope to see him as frustrated as he was last year!​
 
Don't switch to a 3-4. Sloan and Trejo have sckolorships give them a chance. Sloan is the biggest tackle Cuse has. Trejo had a commitable offer from Michigan State, he must hav some talent.
 
Right now, I think the jury is still out on this team. If they win, they will be looked upon fondly as the SS's first team, the team that made it to a second consecutive bowl for the first time since the 1990s. If they don't, they will be looked upon much like the 2012 team that go to 5 wins but hampered by injuries, just could not finish the deal and get bowl eligible.
For me personally the way that season ended was crushing. We had that high point win against WFVU right after that really bad loss to Rutgers, and you would have thought with five (5!) more chances we could have scratched out one more to keep the train rolling, and we just didn't do it. I just don't want to see that happen again, but that's the risk you run when you choose or are forced to white knuckle wins. I envision a brighter future, but these losses aren't just set backs for the program, they're set backs for the fans committing their support too.
 
i don't mean to set the bar too high but frankly finishing 6-6 (assuming we win) and qualifying for some minor cheese bowl is hardly my definition of success. in fact it's more the definition of mediocrity.
 
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