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Message: [QUOTE="sutomcat, post: 3366566, member: 27"] Here is my second spring game post. The topic for this one is the Syracuse defense. Let’s start by talking about the change in scheme, which is a major one. We are going from a pretty conservative Tampa 2 type based defense, using mostly zone coverages, with some blitzing but almost no movement or player switches. Our defense has been largely reactive during the Ward era. The new 3-3-5 scheme is about as radical a change as you can make. Even under the best of circumstances, it would have been a great challenge to get the new defense fully installed and all the players on board with their reads, responsibilities, switches, in time for the first game in early September. Only getting 3 of the 15 practices in is going to make getting the new defense in place even harder. I know there is talk about not only playing this fall but starting preseason camp early, so teams can get those missing spring practices in. That would be awesome if it happened but at this point, it seems really unlikely. Maybe the best scenario for this team is the proposal to push football to the late winter/spring. Even then there would be great challenges but the added time might help, even if most of it will be spent doing nothing with the staff, or maybe a bit of on line learning. I heard a report last night that college football gets about 75% of its revenue from ticket and concession sales. Fannies in the seats. Pro sports might be able to cut cost by 50% by negotiating special agreements with player unions. That isn’t the case with college football. The more time that passes, the more it looks like the games are tied to the fans attending, and tied to the students being on campus. If I had to guess today, my guess is that college football will be played in the spring semester, which is likely when the students will return to the campuses. But I don’t think anyone knows for sure. While we wait for progress beating COVID-19, let’s move to something more interesting to talk about. SU football. And the SU defense. Even with the 3-3-5 defense, I think it is safe to write in the starters at some positions in ink. Surely McKinley Williams is going to start at NT. Josh Black is surely going to be one of the DEs. Kingsley Jonathan is surely going to be the other starter. Curtis is probably going to be the backup NT. Drew and Caleb are probably going to be the top backups. I think this is a good group. We lost a couple of terrific DEs but Kingslley has been very productive and played a lot, and Caleb and Drew look really promising. There are a bevy of other talented young DL, mostly DEs now, that also look like they are going to be good. This unit should be good. Better at stopping the run than last season. Probably not as good rushing the QB. Though I think with the 3-3-5, we might be getting more pressure from other positions than we have in the recent past. DE Josh Black 6’3 277 NT McKinley Williams 6’4 283 DE Kingsley Jonathan 6’3 256 At linebacker, things really get interesting. The one guy everyone thought was a lock to start, Malik Jones, is listed as a backup. We have, if the depth chart can be believed, suddenly gone big. Bigger than any Syracuse team ever, at linebacker. WLB Tyrell Richards 6’4 236 MLB Geoff Cantin-Arku 6’4 230 SLB Steve Lipton 6’5 226 We have for years been an undersized team, everywhere, but more so at linebacker than anywhere else. That has, I think, made us very prone to getting beaten down by bigger teams running a power attack. If nothing else, that should end if these guys end up starting. I can of expect to see the ‘book’ on how to beat Syracuse change, and see teams go small and fast and use a lot of 4 WR sets to try and stretch us out and beat our relatively big and slow LBs with speed. I expect Jones will end up playing a lot, and that we will move our personnel around depending on the sets and schemes we are facing on offense. Guys like Kpogba, Thompson and Kinsler might also see playing time depending on what our needs are. I doubt we will get into a situation where we play the 3 starters, whoever they are, all the time. The secondary has a little more we probably can bank on. I have to believe Iffy and Trill are going to start at CB. Their backups are a whole other matter but these guys are surely going to start, and I think we have to hope they stay healthy. There is likely going to be a major drop off from the first team at CB. We basically have a bunch of smallish, skinny frosh to pick from. They look promising but could really use a year or two in the weight room before they get on the field. The boundary safety position, a hybrid safety/linebacker/nickel, looks like it is the position Andre Cisco is going to play. At San Diego State, they call this position the Aztec. It is a key position for this defense, a position the scheme is designed to keep free of blockers. Sounds like it calls for a physical player with size and speed. That would seem to fit Andre well. Cam Jonas, another DB with size and speed, looks to be the backup. The rover position, which as far as I can tell is the 3-3-5 name for the strong safety, looks to be filled by Eric Coley, who has played a lot over the past 2 years and should be ready to step in and do a good job. His backup is Allen Strizinger, another player who has played a lot over the past couple of seasons. The last position in the secondary is free safety. This is the first position where a new name heads up the depth chart. Aman Greenwood is penciled in as the starter. Neil Nunn, another highly regarded player, is currently the backup. If there is a position in the secondary where a surprise may pop up, it is probably here. Maybe someone like Devon Clarke, Ben LaBrosse or Robert Hanna will emerge here. CB Trill Williams 6’2 196 CB Iffy Melifonwu 6’3 206 Boundary Andre Cisco 6’0 206 Rover Eric Coley 6’2 196 Free Aman Greenwood 5’10 183 Overall this is an athletic group of DBs who have a lot of experience and the size and talent to be very good. That said, there have been quite a few injuries here and a lot of mental mistakes and missed assignments, which led last season to a disturbing number of long gains. Playing a new system isn’t going to help them reduce mental errors. Let’s hope the new scheme and better coaching and more experience will led to improvement in 2020. Special Teams Andre Szmyt is an AA candidate at placekicker and is the most likely guy on the team to get all conference and/or all American honors. James Williams is a true frosh being asked to play immediately as a punter. That normally would led to some inconsistency and issues. The good news is that the long snapper (Aaron Bolinsky is a solid veteran and most of the core guys for special teams are running on the coverage and return units. There will definitely be a drop off from the punting Sterling did but we should be okay here. On the return side, we have a lot of talented players. Jawhar Jordan will surely return kickoffs. Nykeim Johnson is expected to join him as a KO returned. Nykeim is expected to split time at punt returner with Trill Williams. We should be good here. We might be great here. I am said there was no spring game. I don’t remember the last time I missed a spring game. It was a long time ago. Probably before 1980. The special teams should be good. If James Williams has a good season, they might be great. Overall, I think the defense will have more size than we have had on defense in many years. There is a lot of inexperience and of course, a new scheme to deal with. We will probably start pretty slow, especially with all the lost time, and hopefully get measurably better as the season progresses. If nothing else, it will be interesting to see how the new approach works. The bad news is that I suspect we are going to have to outscore teams to win games most of the year. The good news is that I think we are very capable of putting up a lot of points. Get ready for a lot of yards, a lot of first downs and a lot of points scored. [/QUOTE]

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