SWC75
Bored Historian
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The coach’s show is on TK99, (FM 99.5) in the Syracuse area and can also be heard through Orange All-Access on the SU Athletic website. It’s 8PM Thursdays- or two days before each game, when they are not on Saturday. They have a link to their “Radio Mailbox” for submitting E-Mail questions on the SU Athletic website. You also can call in questions at 1-888-740-2873 or locally at 315-424-8599.
In past years it took sometimes weeks for a podcast to turn up on the SU athletics website, so I tried to do a virtual transcript of the show. This year I missed the first show and the pod cast was available the next day at this site:
http://www.suathletics.com/podcasts.aspx
This year I’ll start out by just summarizing the main points and referring people to the pod cast to listen to the whole thing. If the pod cast starts appearing later- such as after the next game, I’ll go back to doing more of a transcript.
My Question
“Coach everyone is speculating if and how the last 2 minutes and 7 seconds of regulation would have been different if the score were 29-27 instead of 30-27. You can’t speak for Toledo, obviously but how would your strategy have been different defending a two pint rather than a three point lead?”
HCDM
I asked my question shortly after the show began. Apparently the big difference between protecting a two point lead and a three point lead is that with a three point lead you aren’t actually defending against the field goal- you are defending against the touchdown because that can defeat you and the field goal can’t. You are just worried about keeping them out of the end zone. You still have a chance to win in overtime. Protecting a two point lead, you are out to prevent the field goal and will therefore take more risks to prevent the other team from getting into field goal range.
“Firstly on the kick-off we wouldn’t have kicked off left hash right. Instead we would have kicked off left to Page and challenged our runners to stop him.” (I have no idea why.)
“We would have used more pressure and come after the quarterback. We wouldn’t have been in a “prevent” zone defense. The pros play that well. We guarded the play action in the zone. We’d give them those but keep them out of the end zone.” (This is what they did with the three point lead.)
Coach went on to describe the post game confusion, saying he really didn’t know what had happened until the game was over. He backed up the way the Big east handled it. “Officials make errors just like players and coaches We try to get it right….We tell the players to go out and play hard and don’t leave anything gray.”
Matt Park noted Ross Krautman’s four field goals all tied the game or gave SU the lead. Coach also praised a great catch David Stevens made on 4th and 2. He noted that we had a play last year just like the on in which Ryan hit Alec Lemon on the “hot read” for the score and that the difference in those plays illustrated how far Ryan has come in a year. (Referring to the defender), “That player literally has no help back there because they were bringing everybody.
Matt suggested that the fact that Ryan passes to a lot of different receivers “keeps everybody interested” and makes us difficult to prepare for. Coach went through a technical discussion indicating that that’s not Ryan’s choice: that on each play we have a “Set of progressions” he’s supposed to go through and it’s dictated by the defense. He said that on some plays, we might have some progressions on one side of the field and an individual receiver running a route on the other side, “depending on how they rotate”. I think he prefers to underscore that what happens out on the field is the product of a plan, not of a player’s improvisation.
Later the Coach said he never watched football games before ours because it would only get him thinking about other things and he has to focus on our game. But after our game he loves watching other games, especially if they pit really good coaching staffs against each other. He loves it when a great offensive coordinator goes up against a great defensive coordinator. He praised Frank Cignetti and noted how much success he had had against us with Pittsburgh. He said that Greg Schiano is a defensive expert and so they will make a formidable pair. He also said that he found out over the coaching grapevine that two of his former colleagues on the Jets had been helping Cignetti at Rutgers, (they were also Cignetti’s former colleagues with the 49ers.
Matt noted that under Cignetti they were no longer using the wildcat they used so much last season. Coach said that that didn’t mean he won’t use it. “We’ve got three checks for the wildcat- two with pressure and one with coverage. If they did it more, we’d have more checks for it.”
He was given credit by “Dave in Minnesota” for “changing the culture of the team”. Coach said that was something of a cliché and that “changing the culture”: isn’t that easy. “We’ve been through a lot of adversity. We must never take it for granted. We need to stress leadership and making players accountable. We tell the players that how you play this game will effect your character in the future.”
He said that when he graduated he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do so he applied to law school. He figured that if became a lawyer at least he could still keep score and know where he stood. He finally got into coaching when he got the opportunity to be an unpaid assistant at Cortland State. He was glad he’d saved up his money as an undergraduate. He was also glad he didn’t get married until later or he’d have had to give up coaching to earn a living. His first paying coaching job had a salary of $3,000.
A caller asked what this was the anniversary of and coach answered without hesitation: NEBRASKA. He said he’ll never forget that game and had a scrap book with every article about it and had decorated his room with pictures from that game until he got married. Even today, he’s still “looking for a room in his house where I can put all that stuff.”
He has a picture of Coach Mac in his office, looking down from the practice field tower. He often looks at that picture and asks what Coach Mac would do. “It doesn’t take long to get an answer.” he remembers when Mac brought Ben Schwartzwalder in to address the team and made him part of the program again and it’s great he’s been able to do that with Coach Mac as well. Mac told them before that Nebraska game not to do anything other than normal and that “the Nebraska players put their pants on the same way we do“. (And one pair of those pants hit the Carrier Dome turf in a hurry, as I recall.)
Matt mentioned that we already have more home wins than all of last year and Coach was happy about that because the SU fans hadn’t been able to share in the glory last year because of all of our big victories were on the road.
He was asked about injuries and said it’s been tough because we’ve had some “influential” players out and especially on defense. Things aren’t happening as fast as we’d like them to.”
The difference between Sanu and the other top receivers they’ve faced is that Sanu is “fearless” in catching passes over the middle. Chas Dodd is like Nassib, a quarterback who keeps improving as he plays. “They are very big up front and they use three running backs each of whom is getting better every week.” They had 9 sacks against North Carolina Central and “that’s a lot against anybody”.
In past years it took sometimes weeks for a podcast to turn up on the SU athletics website, so I tried to do a virtual transcript of the show. This year I missed the first show and the pod cast was available the next day at this site:
http://www.suathletics.com/podcasts.aspx
This year I’ll start out by just summarizing the main points and referring people to the pod cast to listen to the whole thing. If the pod cast starts appearing later- such as after the next game, I’ll go back to doing more of a transcript.
My Question
“Coach everyone is speculating if and how the last 2 minutes and 7 seconds of regulation would have been different if the score were 29-27 instead of 30-27. You can’t speak for Toledo, obviously but how would your strategy have been different defending a two pint rather than a three point lead?”
HCDM
I asked my question shortly after the show began. Apparently the big difference between protecting a two point lead and a three point lead is that with a three point lead you aren’t actually defending against the field goal- you are defending against the touchdown because that can defeat you and the field goal can’t. You are just worried about keeping them out of the end zone. You still have a chance to win in overtime. Protecting a two point lead, you are out to prevent the field goal and will therefore take more risks to prevent the other team from getting into field goal range.
“Firstly on the kick-off we wouldn’t have kicked off left hash right. Instead we would have kicked off left to Page and challenged our runners to stop him.” (I have no idea why.)
“We would have used more pressure and come after the quarterback. We wouldn’t have been in a “prevent” zone defense. The pros play that well. We guarded the play action in the zone. We’d give them those but keep them out of the end zone.” (This is what they did with the three point lead.)
Coach went on to describe the post game confusion, saying he really didn’t know what had happened until the game was over. He backed up the way the Big east handled it. “Officials make errors just like players and coaches We try to get it right….We tell the players to go out and play hard and don’t leave anything gray.”
Matt Park noted Ross Krautman’s four field goals all tied the game or gave SU the lead. Coach also praised a great catch David Stevens made on 4th and 2. He noted that we had a play last year just like the on in which Ryan hit Alec Lemon on the “hot read” for the score and that the difference in those plays illustrated how far Ryan has come in a year. (Referring to the defender), “That player literally has no help back there because they were bringing everybody.
Matt suggested that the fact that Ryan passes to a lot of different receivers “keeps everybody interested” and makes us difficult to prepare for. Coach went through a technical discussion indicating that that’s not Ryan’s choice: that on each play we have a “Set of progressions” he’s supposed to go through and it’s dictated by the defense. He said that on some plays, we might have some progressions on one side of the field and an individual receiver running a route on the other side, “depending on how they rotate”. I think he prefers to underscore that what happens out on the field is the product of a plan, not of a player’s improvisation.
Later the Coach said he never watched football games before ours because it would only get him thinking about other things and he has to focus on our game. But after our game he loves watching other games, especially if they pit really good coaching staffs against each other. He loves it when a great offensive coordinator goes up against a great defensive coordinator. He praised Frank Cignetti and noted how much success he had had against us with Pittsburgh. He said that Greg Schiano is a defensive expert and so they will make a formidable pair. He also said that he found out over the coaching grapevine that two of his former colleagues on the Jets had been helping Cignetti at Rutgers, (they were also Cignetti’s former colleagues with the 49ers.
Matt noted that under Cignetti they were no longer using the wildcat they used so much last season. Coach said that that didn’t mean he won’t use it. “We’ve got three checks for the wildcat- two with pressure and one with coverage. If they did it more, we’d have more checks for it.”
He was given credit by “Dave in Minnesota” for “changing the culture of the team”. Coach said that was something of a cliché and that “changing the culture”: isn’t that easy. “We’ve been through a lot of adversity. We must never take it for granted. We need to stress leadership and making players accountable. We tell the players that how you play this game will effect your character in the future.”
He said that when he graduated he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do so he applied to law school. He figured that if became a lawyer at least he could still keep score and know where he stood. He finally got into coaching when he got the opportunity to be an unpaid assistant at Cortland State. He was glad he’d saved up his money as an undergraduate. He was also glad he didn’t get married until later or he’d have had to give up coaching to earn a living. His first paying coaching job had a salary of $3,000.
A caller asked what this was the anniversary of and coach answered without hesitation: NEBRASKA. He said he’ll never forget that game and had a scrap book with every article about it and had decorated his room with pictures from that game until he got married. Even today, he’s still “looking for a room in his house where I can put all that stuff.”
He has a picture of Coach Mac in his office, looking down from the practice field tower. He often looks at that picture and asks what Coach Mac would do. “It doesn’t take long to get an answer.” he remembers when Mac brought Ben Schwartzwalder in to address the team and made him part of the program again and it’s great he’s been able to do that with Coach Mac as well. Mac told them before that Nebraska game not to do anything other than normal and that “the Nebraska players put their pants on the same way we do“. (And one pair of those pants hit the Carrier Dome turf in a hurry, as I recall.)
Matt mentioned that we already have more home wins than all of last year and Coach was happy about that because the SU fans hadn’t been able to share in the glory last year because of all of our big victories were on the road.
He was asked about injuries and said it’s been tough because we’ve had some “influential” players out and especially on defense. Things aren’t happening as fast as we’d like them to.”
The difference between Sanu and the other top receivers they’ve faced is that Sanu is “fearless” in catching passes over the middle. Chas Dodd is like Nassib, a quarterback who keeps improving as he plays. “They are very big up front and they use three running backs each of whom is getting better every week.” They had 9 sacks against North Carolina Central and “that’s a lot against anybody”.
