Success! Postgame thoughts #1 | Syracusefan.com

Success! Postgame thoughts #1

Finwad32

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We played very solid football as a team last night! 1-0, flip the banner!!!

No real big mistakes that cost us, turnover free and basically penalty free on the offensive side. No false starts, no delay of games, we were prepared. This is great, especially for the first game. Kudos to the staff.

Offensively - 7 rushers carried the ball 44 times for 283 yards / 6.4 ypc. If you’d told me Friday that we were gonna rush for almost 3 bills, there’d be no anxiety. We HANDLED the LOS. That’s a very good sign for a team as woeful offensively as we were in 2020.

Sean Tucker is our best football player, he plays on Sunday.

The remaining 3 RB’s, I think it’s safe to say we’re all pretty comfortable with them getting the ball. That’s so much fun, deepest the position’s been for us in a very long time.

Not much to discuss with the WR’s as they didn’t have nearly as many opportunities. We ran 71% of the time last night, which is a great thing.

Taj does Taj things, sticky hands, hard to tackle. He’ll get fed the most this year. Queeley is very sure-handed. Great complimentary player, more of a possession WR, which is always welcome. We will see more from this unit next week.

TE - Mang did the thing from a blocking standpoint. We’ve got to get these guys targets though, have to. They need to be involved.

OL - Game ball with Tucker. I haven’t checked PFF grades yet, but they played competently. Everyone’s concerns eased a bit? I don’t know what their ceiling is, but the floor’s definitely higher. Great job boys. Enough said

Defensively - We did not allow a TD. When is the last game we could say that, does anyone remember? 2019, more than once. We were 112th in the country last year in Total Defense and gave up over 32 per game. This is a great start and we showed resolve.

DL - solid/unspectacular. We’re going to need to get home more and do a better job against the run. Nice stand late in the 1st half. I’m not down on the group at all, but for as much experience as we have, I’m expecting this group to do a lot of leading.

LB - Mikel Jones did Mikel Jones things. Wax/Cantin-Arku and squad performed admirably. They created pressure and finished tackles.

Did you see any missed arm tackles last night? Nope, you really didn’t. We played so much better fundamentally.

DB - Duce! Amiright?!?! Wow, what a steal, 4.9 and all. We’ve found the next in what is turning into a long line of very good DB’s. Williams will not have as much showtime this year because he won’t be targeted, but man, do I feel better with who’s lined up across from him. Great job by a really young secondary last night.

ST’s - we hardly knew ye, and that’s a great sign. They came out and did their job without error. Hey, our Fr Punter Williams can punt Dropped two Dimes inside the 10 his first two times at the plate. I’m not sure if he’s got a boomer for a leg yet, but he can certainly drop it in there…

QB - TD was accurate and hit his first read. He also ran well when given the opportunity. He’s quicker than he might get credit for. He almost hit a couple deeps but didn’t, he will, and I hope he hits more than he misses.

Concerns: I’m not sure I saw a pass within the hashes, almost everything was outside the numbers. We also did not really see TD get through progressions. 95% of what came out was Quick Game / RPO / Zone read. I’d like to see a bit more touch on the short and intermediate throws, almost everything was a rocket ball, Nassibesque but with a bit more speed on it if you ask me.

I still don’t have much evidence that he’s settled in enough to play calm and work to 2nd & 3rd reads. We will find out next week, as we will not bully Rutgers at the LOS like we did the boobercats.

GS got a handful of plays in closer duty and was trying too hard to make the most of those plays. I’m disappointed he didn’t get run, but I understand why that happens. He didn’t look happy after the game, but what competitor would’ve been? We’ll need him at some point, and he can move. I’m just interested to see how he throws/pocket presence.

We beat a solid MAC team tonight that was prepared to play football. We should’ve dominated like we did, we’re a P5 program with many more resources. That’s what you’re supposed to do and we did it. Gold star on the checkbox.

But we need to get back and keep it moving for Rutgers. Their score was a bit misleading against Temple, but, they’ll still be a more formidable foe.

ONWARDS & UPWARDS!
 
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Great summary. We did have one slant to (Harris?). I was a little concerned at how well they moved the ball on the ground between the 10's. I know that's what they do, but it's only Ohio. I wanted to ask you or another of the coaches on here, how vanilla did we keep our defensive play calling? It seemed pretty basic to me, which gives me hope that we have more to dial up as the competition improves.
 
Great summary. We did have one slant to (Harris?). I was a little concerned at how well they moved the ball on the ground between the 10's. I know that's what they do, but it's only Ohio. I wanted to ask you or another of the coaches on here, how vanilla did we keep our defensive play calling? It seemed pretty basic to me, which gives me hope that we have more to dial up as the competition improves.
What we saw was very basic… not sure what they have installed or what capabilities we have, but it’s a natural progression throughout the season.

Not surprised at all. They key is to keep seeing development. I’d say mission was accomplished very well last night.
 
Two biggest concerns (aside from Garrett Williams absence in 2nd half) was lack of a pass rush and Tommy unable/unwilling to work through his progressions.

With Tommy, he’s still operating a bit too quickly which I understand why. Hopefully with continued OL improvement he can learn to trust his protection and work through those reads. Improvisation is not his strong suit but would do wonders for this offense.

Pass rush will hopefully come with playcalls but need more consistent push. Didn’t see it last night. Stefon Thompson is our best blitzer. I almost wish they would send a middle linebacker on an up the middle blitz on every play both to insert pressure and to stop runs up the gut.
 
All I have been able to see have been highlights. Recognizing what they are, I still could not believe the size of the wholes the OLine was creating for Tucker. Can't give that man those to run through or he will punish the second level. Nice job against a very experienced DLine.

Nice to see Lutz score.

Have to wonder what plays were left on the white board.

I am sure we have lots to clean up but. As they say, the biggest improvement comes from game 1 to game 2.

Something tells me we are going to see GS on the field next week.

LGO!
 
Two biggest concerns (aside from Garrett Williams absence in 2nd half) was lack of a pass rush and Tommy unable/unwilling to work through his progressions.

With Tommy, he’s still operating a bit too quickly which I understand why. Hopefully with continued OL improvement he can learn to trust his protection and work through those reads. Improvisation is not his strong suit but would do wonders for this offense.

Pass rush will hopefully come with playcalls but need more consistent push. Didn’t see it last night. Stefon Thompson is our best blitzer. I almost wish they would send a middle linebacker on an up the middle blitz on every play both to insert pressure and to stop runs up the gut.
I agree - I think he moves just a step too quick and I too understand why.

I don’t know that he had a lot of opportunity to work through progressions last night. Most of the stuff was quick hit. But he’s going to need to throughout the year. And almost certainly next week. I think Schiano will absolutely attack and take away quick with some man press.
 
I don't agree with this progression thing at all. On at least 3 completed passes he progressed down. Rewatch the film. At least one, from the camera replay angle, you can see him look down field then completely swing his head to the right, throw and complete. That was a progression read. And, he did have at least one within the hashes, 3rd quarter, the long drive. But that could be a result of playcalling or WR's not getting separation.

My biggest issue was the D line. They looked slow off the ball at times and rarely got push. Too many times, Ohio got 5+ yards up the middle, and their small RB dragged our linemen with him. Super Seniors should not be pushed around.

One thing no one has mentioned is I didn't see one dropped ball. Everything that landed in a hand was caught. That was nice to see.
 
Two biggest concerns (aside from Garrett Williams absence in 2nd half) was lack of a pass rush and Tommy unable/unwilling to work through his progressions.

With Tommy, he’s still operating a bit too quickly which I understand why. Hopefully with continued OL improvement he can learn to trust his protection and work through those reads. Improvisation is not his strong suit but would do wonders for this offense.

Pass rush will hopefully come with playcalls but need more consistent push. Didn’t see it last night. Stefon Thompson is our best blitzer. I almost wish they would send a middle linebacker on an up the middle blitz on every play both to insert pressure and to stop runs up the gut.

Yeah my thoughts on Tommy were that he didn’t do bad…..but he certainly didn’t show me anything to make me go “he’s undoubtedly our starter.”

For awhile when our offense was spinning it’s wheels I was a little disappointed Dino didn’t put Shrader in and give him a run and see what he could do.

Most of this game was on the back of Tucker who is going to be absolutely amazing to watch the rest of this season. He is a threat to take it to the end zone on every single touch

I do wonder if Shrader didn’t get any runtime because TD was managing the game very well and Dino didn’t want to have anyone get tape on him

Shrader spent most of the game it seemed away from the team on the sideline and not exactly thrilled to not be in the game until the last moment.
 
Good write up.

There was at least 3-4 times TD worked through some progression. Another couple throws on the run, which was nice. And at least 2 play action slants - one was to Sharrod and the other to Queely. He moved well in the pocket.

For me, it’s going to be important to keep him upright and confident in his OL. The deep throws will come - if it’s anything I’m the most confident in, it’s those shots
 
Good recap, I fully expect GS to get a lot of run against Rutgers, they will blitz TD all day long and I expect him to struggle against it. To me this game gave me little to take away from the QB position. Other take always, I’m very concerned with our DL, little push or pass rush. They did get better as the game went on. Lot of positives to take away though, looking forward to the Rutgers game
 
Post game Dino reached out to Shred as he walked to mid field im sure they will be talking this week as the kid is probobly a little miffed that he didnt get any run
 
TD had a bad first 40 mins. He did finish the game strong. It is a bit shocking that Shrader did not play during that bad stretch. I thought the perfect time to give him PT was after the PR. We were already in FG range and just needed to run and not fumble. Very little risk.

My fear going into the season was TD looking decent vs Ohio (check), bad vs Rutgers, getting the majority of PT vs Albany to "fix" him, and then bad vs Liberty. But I never thought we wouldn't see Shrader at all vs Ohio. Rex had packages vs both UNC and Pitt with the game still in striking distance. Yet vs Ohio with us in control the whole time we only see Shrader in garbage time? It makes zero sense. Dino seems to be going all in on TD which is dangerous for himself and the program.
 
TD had a bad first 40 mins. He did finish the game strong. It is a bit shocking that Shrader did not play during that bad stretch. I thought the perfect time to give him PT was after the PR. We were already in FG range and just needed to run and not fumble. Very little risk.

My fear going into the season was TD looking decent vs Ohio (check), bad vs Rutgers, getting the majority of PT vs Albany to "fix" him, and then bad vs Liberty. But I never thought we wouldn't see Shrader at all vs Ohio. Rex had packages vs both UNC and Pitt with the game still in striking distance. Yet vs Ohio with us in control the whole time we only see Shrader in garbage time? It makes zero sense. Dino seems to be going all in on TD which is dangerous for himself and the program.
“Bad” is stretch. “Fine” is a better descriptive.

Not sure we need to theorize his demise into the future. We’ve not seen him with an ok OL ever, until tonight - and the offense was vanilla and dedicated to running the ball.

With good blocking, a running game that keeps the D honest - the throws will be there. I expect steady progression.
 
I think HCDB had a hard time determining if getting Shrader in in the first half was a good idea or not. It was a really odd first 2 quarters. SU jumped on Ohio early but didn’t establish any real separation as it stayed a 1 score game for a long while. And TD wasn’t playing badly, still the offense just didn’t get the ball much. Three possessions? I know the fans thing TD should have had a seat after missing TH in the end zone, but that’s a knee jerk overreaction IMO.

Babers’ job this week is to encourage Shrader to keep his head on straight. There will be lots of opportunities ahead.
 
I think HCDB had a hard time determining if getting Shrader in in the first half was a good idea or not. It was a really odd first 2 quarters. SU jumped on Ohio early but didn’t establish any real separation as it stayed a 1 score game for a long while. And TD wasn’t playing badly, still the offense just didn’t get the ball much. Three possessions? I know the fans thing TD should have had a seat after missing TH in the end zone, but that’s a knee jerk overreaction IMO.

Babers’ job this week is to encourage Shrader to keep his head on straight. There will be lots of opportunities ahead.

we had the ball a total of 7 times excluding the end of half let’s run the clock out ones. 3 TDs, 2 FGs and 2 punts. I’ll take it.
 
This won’t happen next week but running Schrader out first ahead of TD would sure be intriguing. Shady wouldn’t have a clue what to do and would force adjustments. Then you can go back to TD and hopefully by that point Schrader has had success, we have momentum and Rutgers is on its heels.
 
I know it was just Ohio U., but if our OL holds and Tucker does Tucker-things, we can live with a good, not great QB. Ironically, that is what Ohio is/was supposed to be. We flipped the script on them. They had to pass because of the deficit whereas we just kept pounding the ball…because we could.
if…big if…Rutgers has similar trouble with our OL/Tucker, we can get the same game from TD and still win. But I feel that at some point, we will need more from the QB, and that is the big question mark that remains after Week 1.
 
worst thing that could have happened is changing up the offense for a new QB that wants to prove he can bet the 1 in a game thats not in control. We didnt have many possessions and when we did we moved the ball with very few chunk plays so that game just bled away, if TD throws a hair better passes on the 2 to Taj we score 40 and throw for 200 and no one says a thing. cant miss all the deep shots going forward though.
 
“Bad” is stretch. “Fine” is a better descriptive.

Not sure we need to theorize his demise into the future. We’ve not seen him with an ok OL ever, until tonight - and the offense was vanilla and dedicated to running the ball.

With good blocking, a running game that keeps the D honest - the throws will be there. I expect steady progression.
Look at his numbers the first 2.5 Qs. They were not good. We kept stalling on O and were not putting points on the board. He threw it better the next couple of drives and we put the game away. The game could have been over earlier if he played "fine" the whole game.

We haven't played a MAC team since Western Michigan in 2019. The OL and passing game looked good that game too. We will see next week how they handle P5 talent and complex constant blitzing. What we see next week will be night and day. The fact that it took till late 3rd Q for the O to get going against an inferior opponent isn't a good sign for next week.
 
My biggest issue was the D line. They looked slow off the ball at times and rarely got push. Too many times, Ohio got 5+ yards up the middle, and their small RB dragged our linemen with him. Super Seniors should not be pushed around.
Roscoe and Black didn’t play a ton. Lots of Darton and Lockett in the middle, especially in the 2nd half.
 

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