Reply to thread

Message: [QUOTE="Whitey23, post: 1393880, member: 216"] 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. “[B]In my 24 years of coaching, I’ve never seen anything like it,”[/B] Shafer said on [I]SiriusXM College Sports Nation[/I]. “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. [B]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[/B].” Syracuse opens the 2015 season with home games against Rhode Island, Wake Forest, Central Michigan and LSU. [URL]http://coachingsearch.com/article?a=Scott-Shafer-In-my-24-years-of-coaching-Ive-never-seen-anything-like-it-Syracuse-injuries[/URL] [/QUOTE]

Verification: What is a Syracuse fan's favorite color?