Scott Shafer: 'In my 24 years of coaching, I've never seen anything like it'

[Whitey23]

Scott Shafer refers to last year’s 3-9 record as a perfect storm of injuries. The Orange have put together better corrective and preventative methods, but more than anything, he says it was bad luck.

The Orange went 7-6 in Shafer’s first season before last year’s stumble. When you’re down to your fourth-string quarterback behind a banged-up offensive line, you’re just not going to have success.

As Shafer heads into his third season, he remains positive, simply because of last year’s unprecedented experience.


“In my 24 years of coaching, I’ve never seen anything like it,” Shafer said on SiriusXM College Sports Nation. “We’ve had situations where we’ve had to play a third-string quarterback, but never get down to four, and a true freshman four. Juggling the offensive line and wide receivers. You’ve got a young quarterback with a beat-up line throwing to some newbies at wide receiver.”

The Syracuse offense was No. 111 in yards per play, but the defense finished No. 26.

“I was really proud of the fact the kids stayed together,” Shafer said. “No finger-pointing. Everybody owned it. I thought our defense did an admirable job. I think we finished No. 26 in the country, and they were on the field a bunch. (Defensive coordinator Chuck) Bullough and the defensive staff should be applauded for what they did.”

Syracuse has developed a sports performance team to work with players as soon as they arrive on campus. The hope is to provide better preventative and corrective measures.

But you can’t prevent everything. In football, injuries just happen, and Shafer is hoping for a lot fewer in 2015.

“When a freshman comes in, we test them on movement skills and have measurements for a baseline, so we can see where they are and where they aren’t,” Shafer said. “We have with that, a remediation system where we say, this young man is at a lower percentage than he should be with his hamstring strength or his shoulders. That’s one way we’re trying to do a good job being corrective, with how we start the kids in the program.

“The toughest thing for me was, as a coach, you’re always looking for patterns on consistency or inconsistency. We did that with our injury report through the season. At the end of the year, I had people far brighter than I am look at it. The one thing we couldn’t come up with was a true pattern. It wasn’t like we had 10 shoulders or ankles. It was all over the map.”

Syracuse opens the 2015 season with home games against Rhode Island, Wake Forest, Central Michigan and LSU.

http://coachingsearch.com/article?a...never-seen-anything-like-it-Syracuse-injuries

 

[Scooch]

Syracuse has developed a sports performance team to work with players as soon as they arrive on campus. The hope is to provide better preventative and corrective measures.

But you can’t prevent everything. In football, injuries just happen, and Shafer is hoping for a lot fewer in 2015.

“When a freshman comes in, we test them on movement skills and have measurements for a baseline, so we can see where they are and where they aren’t,” Shafer said. “We have with that, a remediation system where we say, this young man is at a lower percentage than he should be with his hamstring strength or his shoulders. That’s one way we’re trying to do a good job being corrective, with how we start the kids in the program.

This is encouraging to read. Who knows where this program is headed, but it's good to see that they're identifying problems and trying to find solutions methodically. Beats the usual "we're just going to keep working hard" B.S.

 

[JrodCuse]

Yea we were extremely unlucky with injuries. I think Maryland had a similar set of injuries a few years back that was insane where they ended up playing their 3rd/4th string QB. They had a bad season and the last 2 years they've had 7 win seasons.

 

[OttoMets]

This is encouraging to read. Who knows where this program is headed, but it's good to see that they're identifying problems and trying to find solutions methodically. Beats the usual "we're just going to keep working hard" B.S.

I think Shafer's an introspective and curious guy. Those are good attributes for a coach; hope he's able to have some success.

 

[Cuse_Albs]

Yea we were extremely unlucky with injuries. I think Maryland had a similar set of injuries a few years back that was insane where they ended up playing their 3rd/4th string QB. They had a bad season and the last 2 years they've had 7 win seasons.

They started a Linebacker at QB at one point that season...at least we didn't have to resort to that, although they probably got more production out of him than we did with Kimble/Wilson. One thing they did not have that year was a line that was beat up though, allowing for a decent run game, if I remember correctly.

 

[javadoc]

Scott Shafer refers to last year’s 3-9 record as a perfect storm of injuries. The Orange have put together better corrective and preventative methods, but more than anything, he says it was bad luck.

The Orange went 7-6 in Shafer’s first season before last year’s stumble. When you’re down to your fourth-string quarterback behind a banged-up offensive line, you’re just not going to have success.

As Shafer heads into his third season, he remains positive, simply because of last year’s unprecedented experience.


“In my 24 years of coaching, I’ve never seen anything like it,” Shafer said on SiriusXM College Sports Nation. “We’ve had situations where we’ve had to play a third-string quarterback, but never get down to four, and a true freshman four. Juggling the offensive line and wide receivers. You’ve got a young quarterback with a beat-up line throwing to some newbies at wide receiver.”

The Syracuse offense was No. 111 in yards per play, but the defense finished No. 26.

“I was really proud of the fact the kids stayed together,” Shafer said. “No finger-pointing. Everybody owned it. I thought our defense did an admirable job. I think we finished No. 26 in the country, and they were on the field a bunch. (Defensive coordinator Chuck) Bullough and the defensive staff should be applauded for what they did.”

Syracuse has developed a sports performance team to work with players as soon as they arrive on campus. The hope is to provide better preventative and corrective measures.

But you can’t prevent everything. In football, injuries just happen, and Shafer is hoping for a lot fewer in 2015.

“When a freshman comes in, we test them on movement skills and have measurements for a baseline, so we can see where they are and where they aren’t,” Shafer said. “We have with that, a remediation system where we say, this young man is at a lower percentage than he should be with his hamstring strength or his shoulders. That’s one way we’re trying to do a good job being corrective, with how we start the kids in the program.

“The toughest thing for me was, as a coach, you’re always looking for patterns on consistency or inconsistency. We did that with our injury report through the season. At the end of the year, I had people far brighter than I am look at it. The one thing we couldn’t come up with was a true pattern. It wasn’t like we had 10 shoulders or ankles. It was all over the map.”

Syracuse opens the 2015 season with home games against Rhode Island, Wake Forest, Central Michigan and LSU.

http://coachingsearch.com/article?a...never-seen-anything-like-it-Syracuse-injuries

Thanks - fantastic read. Every glimpse we get at what is really going on behind the scenes is encouraging, and something that we fans should keep in mind.

bcubs, is this the kind of thing you were hearing from the staff during Steven's recruitment?

 

[AgentOrange]

This article implies that Long became a starter because he was the only healthy QB on the roster. I thought that Kimble's terrible play lead to Long seeing the field, no?

 

[shandeezy7]

They started a Linebacker at QB at one point that season...at least we didn't have to resort to that, although they probably got more production out of him than we did with Kimble/Wilson. One thing they did not have that year was a line that was beat up though, allowing for a decent run game, if I remember correctly.

Wasn't that against us actually? Or maybe the week before or after us?

 

[RMH44]

This article implies that Long became a starter because he was the only healthy QB on the roster. I thought that Kimble's terrible play lead to Long seeing the field, no?

Kimble has a chronic back problem that really stifled his development. The coaches really liked what they saw during his redshirt year but he reinjured his back the next spring.

 

[anomander]

This article implies that Long became a starter because he was the only healthy QB on the roster. I thought that Kimble's terrible play lead to Long seeing the field, no?

Long may have technically been 4th string on the depth chart, but he was pretty much the back-up qb. They didn't plan on blowing his redshirt, but Kimble was banged up, and Wilson got banged up. Otherwise AJ was the true backup.

 

[SoBristol]

Rash of injuries to the starters -- also exposed a lack of depth, and the state of SU recruiting.
Take OT or QB as examples.
It was unlucky to have injuries to Hunt and Foy. And, as it turns out, we entered the season without a capable back-up for either position.

 

[Finwad32]

Long may have technically been 4th string on the depth chart, but he was pretty much the back-up qb. They didn't plan on blowing his redshirt, but Kimble was banged up, and Wilson got banged up. Otherwise AJ was the true backup.

I disagree with this one. They may not have planned on blowing his red-shirt, but, all things being equal I still think Wilson's ahead of him from the coaches standpoint.

 

[bcubs9497]

Thanks - fantastic read. Every glimpse we get at what is really going on behind the scenes is encouraging, and something that we fans should keep in mind.

bcubs, is this the kind of thing you were hearing from the staff during Steven's recruitment?

Pretty much.