SWC75
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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. This year it’s 7PM 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 1-888-746-2873 or locally at 315-424-8599. You can also tweet them at hash tag CDMS. The show is broadcast from the Red Robin in Fayetteville.
It can take a while but pod casts of the show are eventually posted here:
http://www.suathletics.com/podcasts.aspx
MY QUESTIONS/COMMENTS
"Coach, last year, we struggled to win some early season games and then played lights-out against West Virginia. Coach Mac used to say that the players listen to you better after a win. I thought the West Virginia game would give the players a vision of what can be accomplished when you do things the way the coaches want you to and that we'd play at or close to that level the rest of the season. Why didn't that happen and what are the reasons to think it will happen this year?"
COACH MARRONE
(I’ve re-arranged the order of some of the comments based on the subject. Also, I have decided to abbreviate “I have to do a better job“ as “IHTDABJ“- BJ means “better job”, nothing else- and “I have to put the players in a better position to succeed“ as “IHTPTPIABPTS“ because he says these things more than Bill Fuccillo says “It’s Huge!”)
Matt Park congratulated the coach on the big win over Connecticut. HCDM: We’ve been working all season to not turn the ball over and to create turnovers. We were +2. Being positive on the turnovers has been our biggest challenge. We are 13-4 since I came here when we are.
I called in and introduced my question with a baseball story, which I thought the coach would appreciate, since he’s a baseball fan. When Willie Mays was a rookie, he made a great catch and ran back to the dugout to sit next to Leo Durocher to see if he would say something nice about Willie’s catch. He said nothing and Willie finally asked if he he’d seen the catch. “No, you’ll just have to do it again.” I told the coach that SU fans kinds of have the same feeling: that it was a great performance against the Huskies but we’d like the team to do it again this week vs. South Florida. I then asked the above question.
HCDM: “I did a poor job managing the team and coaching staff last year. This year my goal is to do a better job. We made adjustments in a lot of areas. Some worked out some did not. You have to live with that. At times I’ve done a good job and hopefully the players will respond next week so we can have the kind of consistent performance Steve and everybody wants. IHTDABJ.” I tried to tell him that I was asking about the attitude of the players, (not whether he’d done a good job or not), but I’d already been cut off by Matt Park. :blah::bang: Maybe I should have skipped the baseball story.
Instead, Matt wanted to talk about the field they would be playing on. He said the field in Tampa has an excellent reputation, comparing it to a golf fairway. HCDM: Low-cut Bermuda. Very fast. We practice on the lacrosse field, (I think he called it “Hookman Field”?). There was a soggy area. The weather may not be good Saturday night, (Hurricane Sandy has a small potential to hit Florida), so we had our kickers practicing there.” He went on to praise Dr. Gross and also Pete Sala, who is in charge of the fields, for the facilities the team has to practice on. “We can practice indoors, outdoors, on field turf or on grass.”
Matt wanted to know at point the wind becomes a factor in the game. HCDM: “18 miles an hour. You have to start thinking about it. But it doesn’t always work out the way you expect.. When we played the Giants, we knew it was going to be windy. We decided when the had the wind we’d throw long. When we didn’t, we’d throw short and run the ball. But Drew Brees got crazy and started throwing passes and we blew them out.” (12/24/06 at Giants Stadium 30-7.)
Matt asked if the coach preferred touchbacks or to have the other team kick the ball, since we’ve done such a great job covering kickoff returns. Coach said he prefers touchbacks but “our coverage units have been great. We may in a certain match-up decide to kick it to the goal line.” Matt noted that Syracuse was one of the top teams in covering kick-offs, allowing only 16.3 yards a return and USF is one of the worst teams at returning kick-offs, getting only 15.1 yards per return. (That’s last among 120 teams in the NCAA stats: Rutgers is #1 with 35.2. SU is #7 in defending returns. Don’t be surprised if Ryan Norton isn’t kicking the ball quite as far in this game.
John, (they seemed to be doing just E-mails, tweets and questions from the restaurant after my call), wanted to know why certain teams excel at special teams, especially blocking kicks. HCDM: It comes down quite a bit to logistics. The days of getting off kicks in 2.2, 2.3 seconds are gone. Now they get them off in 1.96, 1.88, (they also calibrate it to the next digit), with blocker sin front. Rutgers was one of those teams, (that blocks kicks) and they didn’t even come after us. With PATs and field goals you can create double-teams. Someone’s got to win or you’ve, (they’ve) got to kick the ball low.” Matt said that it helps to get the breaks, such as Justin Pugh slipping against Rutgers.
Matt asked if Coach Marrone’s familiarity with Paul Pasqualoni and George DeLeone helped him in the Connecticut game. “Knowledge of Coaches Pasqualoni and DeLeone is not an advantage. What it does do is make you go back over what you do 2-3 times to see what weaknesses they are going to see because they will certainly find any. You do get a feel for what someone is going to call if you played them before. You create a file about what they thought was going to work against us. Sometimes you don‘t see anything in films of their last four games but you remember what they used against us. It‘s hard to change. It‘s hard for me to go in the direction we are going It‘s not an easy transition.” Matt pointed out there’s also a level of familiarity with Chris Cosh, the USF defensive coordinator, who had the same job with Kansas State in the Pinstripe Bowl. (And we all hope he does just as great a job this time.)
They talked about the upcoming opponent, South Florida. HCDM: South Florida has a high level of talent . Of our opponents, only USC has more. USF was picked to be #2 in the conference and they should have beaten Louisville, who is #1. They have manhandled us virtually every time we have played them, beating us by an average of 24 points. We were fortunate to beat them two years ago. They have the first real running quarterback we have played this year. He can make the reads, fake the jet sweep, fake the power run. He can go laterally or down the field. We have a lot of looks for him, a couple of things he hasn’t seen us do in the past. When his completion percentage is under 57% and he runs for less than 50 yards, they lose. He can make some big plays but he’s got a good supporting cast. His receivers are good. The tight end is good. He can make some big plays but we’ve got to worry about those other cats.”
Matt talked about “those other cats”. Demetris Murray if “a load” at 6 feet, 215 pounds, (lindy’s lists him at 224). Lindsay Lamar at 5-9 190 is a “scatback”. The tight end, Evan Landi, is a former quarterback. He has 8 catches. Andre Davis is their leading receiver with 30 catches. Terrence Mitchell is averaging 15 yards a catch. HCDM: They run a lot of wheel routes. We’ve been hurt with wheel route before.
Matt asked about the pre-game schedule. “We want players to get familiar with their surroundings: the locker room, the rest rooms, which side of the field they are on. Then they don’t have to think about these things. They can concentrate on what they have to do to win.” Matt wondered what changes technology has brought about in coaching. HCDM: “You still need to watch film and look at situations. You can look at computer results to see if what you saw was real. (?!?) John Sandusky, (John, not Jerry!), was probably the greatest offensive line coach I ever saw. He used to write and write and write on a blackboard. Now we use power-point presentations and I-pads.”
Dave from Queens said he admired the new offense but wondered whether we would be running it next year with an inexperienced quarterback. “Absolutely. The players we’ve got are used to it and the two kids we’ve recruited play in the same style.
Matt praised Ryan Nassib for getting “not just another academic honor”: He’s a National Football Foundation Scholar-Athlete, one of 15 chosen from all levels of college football. He gets an $18,000 post graduate scholarship. HCDM: “He’s worked hard on the field, in the classroom and in the community. He’s got a 3.6 grade point average. Charley Loeb is a smart one, too. They, Mackie McPherson and Rob Trudo are our top students.” Matt said a coach of another sport at SU said he’d have had to add two of his own GPAs together to get to 3.6. (Hmmm…I wonder who said that?)
The subject of red zone offense came up again. “We like to spread the field out and make then defend it. But it gets harder as you get closer to the goal line. We’ve tried slowing it down, especially when we got to the 5-6 yard line. It’s all about match-ups. We have to execute, win be better than the other team. We haven’t done a very good job, (not IHTDABJ- we!). It don’t think it’s the scheme. It think it is winning.” (He means players winning the match-ups).
A caller asked if Shamarko Thomas was OK. Coach said he was “Ok but banged up.”, which means he’s not 100% but will play. Matt decided an overall injury report was in order. Adonis Ameen More and Ashton Broyld are “banged up”. He’s not sure about whether they will play. Ritchie Desir is banged up but will be Ok.” He said the same thing about “Wilcy”, according to my notes. I looked over the roster and I think he probably said “Wilkes”. He’s excited that Jeremiah Kobena is back to return kick-offs. He said that they will use the “Tank” formation with Jerome Smith and Prince-Tyson Gulley. They didn’t discuss who would play if one of them got hurt.
A fan named Gary wanted to know what the most memorable game from Doug’s career here as a player was. “That’s a great question….We beat BC when to go 5-5 and they were supposed to be going to the Cotton Bowl. They wound up in the Liberty Bowl. Then we beat West Virginia to finish 6-5. The next year we beat Nebraska.” Matt remarked that he hadn’t made the obvious choice- the Nebraska game. HCDM: “It was a sense of commitment by a lot of young men to get this thing turned around. BC got us even. It was a big turning point in the program to get back to more wins than losses. (On 11/12/83 we beat Boston College, which did go to the Cotton Bowl the next season, 21-10 in the Dome and then did the same thing to West Virginia the next week, 27-16. BC had been ranked #13/#12 in the writers and coaches polls respectively, West Virginia #14/#15. That BC game may have been on Doug’s mind because if we can beat South Florida, we’ll be 4-4, just like we were 5-5 after that BC game. This guy can taste it.)
Coach was asked what his favorite movie was. He said he had two favorites. He used to watch the afternoon movie when he was growing up and Ben-Hur was always his favorite. Then he saw Patton and became a big fan of that one, too. He doesn’t watch football movies. (He sees enough of them at work.) Animal House didn't make the cut, either.
It can take a while but pod casts of the show are eventually posted here:
http://www.suathletics.com/podcasts.aspx
MY QUESTIONS/COMMENTS
"Coach, last year, we struggled to win some early season games and then played lights-out against West Virginia. Coach Mac used to say that the players listen to you better after a win. I thought the West Virginia game would give the players a vision of what can be accomplished when you do things the way the coaches want you to and that we'd play at or close to that level the rest of the season. Why didn't that happen and what are the reasons to think it will happen this year?"
COACH MARRONE
(I’ve re-arranged the order of some of the comments based on the subject. Also, I have decided to abbreviate “I have to do a better job“ as “IHTDABJ“- BJ means “better job”, nothing else- and “I have to put the players in a better position to succeed“ as “IHTPTPIABPTS“ because he says these things more than Bill Fuccillo says “It’s Huge!”)
Matt Park congratulated the coach on the big win over Connecticut. HCDM: We’ve been working all season to not turn the ball over and to create turnovers. We were +2. Being positive on the turnovers has been our biggest challenge. We are 13-4 since I came here when we are.
I called in and introduced my question with a baseball story, which I thought the coach would appreciate, since he’s a baseball fan. When Willie Mays was a rookie, he made a great catch and ran back to the dugout to sit next to Leo Durocher to see if he would say something nice about Willie’s catch. He said nothing and Willie finally asked if he he’d seen the catch. “No, you’ll just have to do it again.” I told the coach that SU fans kinds of have the same feeling: that it was a great performance against the Huskies but we’d like the team to do it again this week vs. South Florida. I then asked the above question.
HCDM: “I did a poor job managing the team and coaching staff last year. This year my goal is to do a better job. We made adjustments in a lot of areas. Some worked out some did not. You have to live with that. At times I’ve done a good job and hopefully the players will respond next week so we can have the kind of consistent performance Steve and everybody wants. IHTDABJ.” I tried to tell him that I was asking about the attitude of the players, (not whether he’d done a good job or not), but I’d already been cut off by Matt Park. :blah::bang: Maybe I should have skipped the baseball story.
Instead, Matt wanted to talk about the field they would be playing on. He said the field in Tampa has an excellent reputation, comparing it to a golf fairway. HCDM: Low-cut Bermuda. Very fast. We practice on the lacrosse field, (I think he called it “Hookman Field”?). There was a soggy area. The weather may not be good Saturday night, (Hurricane Sandy has a small potential to hit Florida), so we had our kickers practicing there.” He went on to praise Dr. Gross and also Pete Sala, who is in charge of the fields, for the facilities the team has to practice on. “We can practice indoors, outdoors, on field turf or on grass.”
Matt wanted to know at point the wind becomes a factor in the game. HCDM: “18 miles an hour. You have to start thinking about it. But it doesn’t always work out the way you expect.. When we played the Giants, we knew it was going to be windy. We decided when the had the wind we’d throw long. When we didn’t, we’d throw short and run the ball. But Drew Brees got crazy and started throwing passes and we blew them out.” (12/24/06 at Giants Stadium 30-7.)
Matt asked if the coach preferred touchbacks or to have the other team kick the ball, since we’ve done such a great job covering kickoff returns. Coach said he prefers touchbacks but “our coverage units have been great. We may in a certain match-up decide to kick it to the goal line.” Matt noted that Syracuse was one of the top teams in covering kick-offs, allowing only 16.3 yards a return and USF is one of the worst teams at returning kick-offs, getting only 15.1 yards per return. (That’s last among 120 teams in the NCAA stats: Rutgers is #1 with 35.2. SU is #7 in defending returns. Don’t be surprised if Ryan Norton isn’t kicking the ball quite as far in this game.
John, (they seemed to be doing just E-mails, tweets and questions from the restaurant after my call), wanted to know why certain teams excel at special teams, especially blocking kicks. HCDM: It comes down quite a bit to logistics. The days of getting off kicks in 2.2, 2.3 seconds are gone. Now they get them off in 1.96, 1.88, (they also calibrate it to the next digit), with blocker sin front. Rutgers was one of those teams, (that blocks kicks) and they didn’t even come after us. With PATs and field goals you can create double-teams. Someone’s got to win or you’ve, (they’ve) got to kick the ball low.” Matt said that it helps to get the breaks, such as Justin Pugh slipping against Rutgers.
Matt asked if Coach Marrone’s familiarity with Paul Pasqualoni and George DeLeone helped him in the Connecticut game. “Knowledge of Coaches Pasqualoni and DeLeone is not an advantage. What it does do is make you go back over what you do 2-3 times to see what weaknesses they are going to see because they will certainly find any. You do get a feel for what someone is going to call if you played them before. You create a file about what they thought was going to work against us. Sometimes you don‘t see anything in films of their last four games but you remember what they used against us. It‘s hard to change. It‘s hard for me to go in the direction we are going It‘s not an easy transition.” Matt pointed out there’s also a level of familiarity with Chris Cosh, the USF defensive coordinator, who had the same job with Kansas State in the Pinstripe Bowl. (And we all hope he does just as great a job this time.)
They talked about the upcoming opponent, South Florida. HCDM: South Florida has a high level of talent . Of our opponents, only USC has more. USF was picked to be #2 in the conference and they should have beaten Louisville, who is #1. They have manhandled us virtually every time we have played them, beating us by an average of 24 points. We were fortunate to beat them two years ago. They have the first real running quarterback we have played this year. He can make the reads, fake the jet sweep, fake the power run. He can go laterally or down the field. We have a lot of looks for him, a couple of things he hasn’t seen us do in the past. When his completion percentage is under 57% and he runs for less than 50 yards, they lose. He can make some big plays but he’s got a good supporting cast. His receivers are good. The tight end is good. He can make some big plays but we’ve got to worry about those other cats.”
Matt talked about “those other cats”. Demetris Murray if “a load” at 6 feet, 215 pounds, (lindy’s lists him at 224). Lindsay Lamar at 5-9 190 is a “scatback”. The tight end, Evan Landi, is a former quarterback. He has 8 catches. Andre Davis is their leading receiver with 30 catches. Terrence Mitchell is averaging 15 yards a catch. HCDM: They run a lot of wheel routes. We’ve been hurt with wheel route before.
Matt asked about the pre-game schedule. “We want players to get familiar with their surroundings: the locker room, the rest rooms, which side of the field they are on. Then they don’t have to think about these things. They can concentrate on what they have to do to win.” Matt wondered what changes technology has brought about in coaching. HCDM: “You still need to watch film and look at situations. You can look at computer results to see if what you saw was real. (?!?) John Sandusky, (John, not Jerry!), was probably the greatest offensive line coach I ever saw. He used to write and write and write on a blackboard. Now we use power-point presentations and I-pads.”
Dave from Queens said he admired the new offense but wondered whether we would be running it next year with an inexperienced quarterback. “Absolutely. The players we’ve got are used to it and the two kids we’ve recruited play in the same style.
Matt praised Ryan Nassib for getting “not just another academic honor”: He’s a National Football Foundation Scholar-Athlete, one of 15 chosen from all levels of college football. He gets an $18,000 post graduate scholarship. HCDM: “He’s worked hard on the field, in the classroom and in the community. He’s got a 3.6 grade point average. Charley Loeb is a smart one, too. They, Mackie McPherson and Rob Trudo are our top students.” Matt said a coach of another sport at SU said he’d have had to add two of his own GPAs together to get to 3.6. (Hmmm…I wonder who said that?)
The subject of red zone offense came up again. “We like to spread the field out and make then defend it. But it gets harder as you get closer to the goal line. We’ve tried slowing it down, especially when we got to the 5-6 yard line. It’s all about match-ups. We have to execute, win be better than the other team. We haven’t done a very good job, (not IHTDABJ- we!). It don’t think it’s the scheme. It think it is winning.” (He means players winning the match-ups).
A caller asked if Shamarko Thomas was OK. Coach said he was “Ok but banged up.”, which means he’s not 100% but will play. Matt decided an overall injury report was in order. Adonis Ameen More and Ashton Broyld are “banged up”. He’s not sure about whether they will play. Ritchie Desir is banged up but will be Ok.” He said the same thing about “Wilcy”, according to my notes. I looked over the roster and I think he probably said “Wilkes”. He’s excited that Jeremiah Kobena is back to return kick-offs. He said that they will use the “Tank” formation with Jerome Smith and Prince-Tyson Gulley. They didn’t discuss who would play if one of them got hurt.
A fan named Gary wanted to know what the most memorable game from Doug’s career here as a player was. “That’s a great question….We beat BC when to go 5-5 and they were supposed to be going to the Cotton Bowl. They wound up in the Liberty Bowl. Then we beat West Virginia to finish 6-5. The next year we beat Nebraska.” Matt remarked that he hadn’t made the obvious choice- the Nebraska game. HCDM: “It was a sense of commitment by a lot of young men to get this thing turned around. BC got us even. It was a big turning point in the program to get back to more wins than losses. (On 11/12/83 we beat Boston College, which did go to the Cotton Bowl the next season, 21-10 in the Dome and then did the same thing to West Virginia the next week, 27-16. BC had been ranked #13/#12 in the writers and coaches polls respectively, West Virginia #14/#15. That BC game may have been on Doug’s mind because if we can beat South Florida, we’ll be 4-4, just like we were 5-5 after that BC game. This guy can taste it.)
Coach was asked what his favorite movie was. He said he had two favorites. He used to watch the afternoon movie when he was growing up and Ben-Hur was always his favorite. Then he saw Patton and became a big fan of that one, too. He doesn’t watch football movies. (He sees enough of them at work.) Animal House didn't make the cut, either.
