SWC75
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Every Thursday night of the football season at 7PM, Head Coach Scott Shafer does a call0in show with Matt Park on TK99, (99.5 FM) in Syracuse. To submit a question during the show, you can call 1-888-746-2873 or, locally 315-424-8599. You can send a question to Matt Park via Twitter at Matt Park 1. You can also send one in ahead of time with this link:
http://suathletics.syr.edu/sb_output.aspx?form=4
MY QUESTION
“Coach, there’s a saying in football that if you have two quarterbacks, you don’t have a quarterback. Most coaches prefer a situation where everything is organized around one guy, like we had last year when Ryan Nassib threw 471 passes and Charley Loeb threw 1. But Northwestern effectively used two quarterbacks with different skill sets. Could that work at Syracuse with Drew Allen and Terrell Hunt?”
COACH SHAFER
Matt suggested it was “good to be back home”. Coach Shafer: “The team is ready to get back home and play in the Dome and put on a good show. They’ll show the improvement of week 1 to week 2 to week 3 and get our students cranked up.” (I thought the ‘greatest improvement’ was week 1 to 2: now it’s week 3?)
I called in my question. Coach said it was a great question which made me feel good until he said that to every other caller, as well. “The biggest difference is that they’ve been using those quarterbacks for a couple of years now. Your comment about two quarterbacks being no quarterbacks is very accurate. These too kids haven’t had the opportunity to play college football yet. We have to look at all the pieces and parts and develop a formula and part of that is the quarterback position.
Our goal is to gain at least four yards on first down and we move our percentage up to 57% so there was improvement form game #1 to Game #2. Sometimes Drew has a muddy picture to look at and when you get that you have to check down or throw it to your Mom in the bleachers. (A muddy picture = coverage.) I liked the way he came back from an interception to lead that touchdown drive. You wouldn’t know it was the same kid.”
He didn’t describe how Allen looked on the next drive after that when he again threw an interception. He did like the way Terrell Hunt performed when he got in there. “There were a couple of missed assignments. The touchdown was supposed to be a hand-off and I liked his fight in getting into the end zone.”
“It’s idealism vs. realism. (?) I just want to see increased productivity at the quarterback position. When we had Max Suter at safety he was backed up by Shamarko Thomas who was a better athlete but his productivity level was down. I challenged them to make the safety position better and give the team a better chance to win, regardless of who was playing at any one time. That’s what we’re doing with Drew and Terrell. Aside from turnovers, the position was improved. We’ve got to get rid of the turnovers. They’ve been the difference between winning or losing since football began.”
“Our defense handed them some opportunities. We had some young people in the secondary who were extremely poor with their eyes and discipline.” Matt credited the coach with taking over a defense that “ranked in the 100’s” into one that was “the calling card of our bowl teams. Coach: “That was a veteran Northwestern team with lots of weapons. They were very good on offense and we didn’t play very well on defense. The breakdowns involved poor communication. The safety and cornerback were repeating calls.” (I’m not sure what that meant.) “We’ve had some good games defensively where we got away with things- guys streaking open. Northwestern just hit ‘em all. I have all the confidence in the coaches and the players.”
Matt said “It’s about 22 positions, not just one- really 24 with the specialists. “ Coach: The formula we believe in is to chip away at controlables. We need to start faster on both offense and defense. We’ve put up a clock to put pressure on them in practice. Nobody is as disappointed as me but not discouraged. We have some young people in marquee positions who haven’t played much at this level.”
A caller, (didn’t get his name), asked how the freshman were doing and which ones we will see more of this year. Coach praised Brisley Estime for coming back from his drop vs. Penn State to catch 4 passes for 54 yards. “We decided we had to get him the ball and not wait until mid-season to work him into the offense.” He also had good words for Kendall Moore, and was pleased he had a good game as he’s from the south side of Chicago. Coach recalled recruiting there for Northern Illinois, “when we didn’t have any money”. He’d spend the whole day in the area, going from school to school. He was amazed at how many good basketball players were there, saying that Chicago has probably the second best high school basketball in the country to New York. Moore comes from Simeon High, which produced Derek Rose and Jabari Parker, among others and the 6-6 Moore played there as well. “6-6 250 pound kids who can run like that are hard to find. I’ve always liked big, rangy tight ends because I always hated them when I had to defend against them.” (That’s the concept coach: recruit the sort of guys you used to hate so the other DC can hate them.)
Coach likes the fact that both Estime and Moore played both ways in high school. “My best secondary players were usually offensive standouts in high school. Have you seen Brisley’s highlight film? If you do, you may well wonder why we have him of offense. The coaches are fighting over these guys. That’s what you want. You have 2-fors and 3-fors. 2-fors can play on both offense and defense and 3-fors can play in the kicking game, too. You want as many of those as you can get.”
Coach also likes two quarterbacks we won’t see this year: Austin Wilson and Mitch Kimble. “Great skill sets and big strong kids.” But…”hopefully we won’t have to use too many freshmen. Woody Hayes said that for every freshman you use there will be a loss in you record. I’m not so sure he wasn’t right.”
Kyle in Baldwinsville asked about the schedule- start out with two Big Ten powers and then playing two weak teams in Wagner and Tulane. Coach: We used to start out with a couple of tough games when I was in the Mid-American conference. It gives you a chance to assess your team early and improve later. You could start out with cupcakes but it could give you a false sense of power. You have to manage it, (differing levels of completion) and maintain your focus”.
They talked about ways to increase attendance and concluded “Winning games always helps boost attendance. We have to fill the loud house. It’s a special place, loud even when it’s not full. When I coached at Michigan in the Big House, it wasn’t half as loud as the Carrier Dome. Two years ago we got in West Virginia’s head and last year Louisville couldn’t audible. The administration has done a great job of thinking outside the box- like putting that ribbon around the stands. We have to focus on the staff, the players and the recruiting. If I try to focus on something else, I can’t do someone else’s job. We have to get the team winning so people will want to come to the Dome and make it a blast.”
Alonzo called in wondering if we have adequate receiving talent. Coach Shafer thinks we do. “We have talented kids but lack experience. Jarrod West hasn ‘t been a #1 receiver. Ashton Broyld was playing in the backfield. Fleming, unfortunately, broke his foot. Estime has plenty of talent.”
John, a patron at Red Robin wondered why we had so many balls batted won. Coach: “When you have 22 guys trying to knock the hell out of each other it’s never about one guy. Sometimes it is the quarterback’s fault, if he stares down a guy. Sometimes the route doesn’t develop and the quarterback is waiting for the receivers- and the defensive lineman sees that and looks where he is looking.”
Frank in Liverpool asked what the differences were between coaching on the sidelines and coaching from the booth. Coach said he’d only been on the field once before this year-0 Jim Harbaugh asked him to coach one game from the field at Stanford. “I love that guy. I had a blast out there. But I couldn’t see what I used to see from the booth and to fix something you have to relay it through someone else. You don’t really know what happened until you see the film after the game. (That’s why coaches are always saying “I have to look at the film”). The good thing, is I don’t have to. I’ve got Chuck Bullough up there to do that.
He talked about Wagner. “They beat Colgate in the playoffs last year and were a couple of plays away from making the Final Four, (they lost to Eastern Washington 19-29- EW upset Oregon State two weeks ago when the Beavers were ranked #25). They are averaging 34 points a game Dominqiue Williams, (#25), is averaging 136 rushing yards a game and they are averaging 220 yards per game as a team. They have a Duke transfer who’s made some great catches, (Tyree Watkins, #3), and a Purdue transfer playing corner, (Jarrett Dieudonne, #1), so they have some good players. You have to weather the storm. When we played Maine a couple of years ago they pulled out every trick in the playbook. If the other team comes on or makes a surge, we have to step on them like a bug.”
http://suathletics.syr.edu/sb_output.aspx?form=4
MY QUESTION
“Coach, there’s a saying in football that if you have two quarterbacks, you don’t have a quarterback. Most coaches prefer a situation where everything is organized around one guy, like we had last year when Ryan Nassib threw 471 passes and Charley Loeb threw 1. But Northwestern effectively used two quarterbacks with different skill sets. Could that work at Syracuse with Drew Allen and Terrell Hunt?”
COACH SHAFER
Matt suggested it was “good to be back home”. Coach Shafer: “The team is ready to get back home and play in the Dome and put on a good show. They’ll show the improvement of week 1 to week 2 to week 3 and get our students cranked up.” (I thought the ‘greatest improvement’ was week 1 to 2: now it’s week 3?)
I called in my question. Coach said it was a great question which made me feel good until he said that to every other caller, as well. “The biggest difference is that they’ve been using those quarterbacks for a couple of years now. Your comment about two quarterbacks being no quarterbacks is very accurate. These too kids haven’t had the opportunity to play college football yet. We have to look at all the pieces and parts and develop a formula and part of that is the quarterback position.
Our goal is to gain at least four yards on first down and we move our percentage up to 57% so there was improvement form game #1 to Game #2. Sometimes Drew has a muddy picture to look at and when you get that you have to check down or throw it to your Mom in the bleachers. (A muddy picture = coverage.) I liked the way he came back from an interception to lead that touchdown drive. You wouldn’t know it was the same kid.”
He didn’t describe how Allen looked on the next drive after that when he again threw an interception. He did like the way Terrell Hunt performed when he got in there. “There were a couple of missed assignments. The touchdown was supposed to be a hand-off and I liked his fight in getting into the end zone.”
“It’s idealism vs. realism. (?) I just want to see increased productivity at the quarterback position. When we had Max Suter at safety he was backed up by Shamarko Thomas who was a better athlete but his productivity level was down. I challenged them to make the safety position better and give the team a better chance to win, regardless of who was playing at any one time. That’s what we’re doing with Drew and Terrell. Aside from turnovers, the position was improved. We’ve got to get rid of the turnovers. They’ve been the difference between winning or losing since football began.”
“Our defense handed them some opportunities. We had some young people in the secondary who were extremely poor with their eyes and discipline.” Matt credited the coach with taking over a defense that “ranked in the 100’s” into one that was “the calling card of our bowl teams. Coach: “That was a veteran Northwestern team with lots of weapons. They were very good on offense and we didn’t play very well on defense. The breakdowns involved poor communication. The safety and cornerback were repeating calls.” (I’m not sure what that meant.) “We’ve had some good games defensively where we got away with things- guys streaking open. Northwestern just hit ‘em all. I have all the confidence in the coaches and the players.”
Matt said “It’s about 22 positions, not just one- really 24 with the specialists. “ Coach: The formula we believe in is to chip away at controlables. We need to start faster on both offense and defense. We’ve put up a clock to put pressure on them in practice. Nobody is as disappointed as me but not discouraged. We have some young people in marquee positions who haven’t played much at this level.”
A caller, (didn’t get his name), asked how the freshman were doing and which ones we will see more of this year. Coach praised Brisley Estime for coming back from his drop vs. Penn State to catch 4 passes for 54 yards. “We decided we had to get him the ball and not wait until mid-season to work him into the offense.” He also had good words for Kendall Moore, and was pleased he had a good game as he’s from the south side of Chicago. Coach recalled recruiting there for Northern Illinois, “when we didn’t have any money”. He’d spend the whole day in the area, going from school to school. He was amazed at how many good basketball players were there, saying that Chicago has probably the second best high school basketball in the country to New York. Moore comes from Simeon High, which produced Derek Rose and Jabari Parker, among others and the 6-6 Moore played there as well. “6-6 250 pound kids who can run like that are hard to find. I’ve always liked big, rangy tight ends because I always hated them when I had to defend against them.” (That’s the concept coach: recruit the sort of guys you used to hate so the other DC can hate them.)
Coach likes the fact that both Estime and Moore played both ways in high school. “My best secondary players were usually offensive standouts in high school. Have you seen Brisley’s highlight film? If you do, you may well wonder why we have him of offense. The coaches are fighting over these guys. That’s what you want. You have 2-fors and 3-fors. 2-fors can play on both offense and defense and 3-fors can play in the kicking game, too. You want as many of those as you can get.”
Coach also likes two quarterbacks we won’t see this year: Austin Wilson and Mitch Kimble. “Great skill sets and big strong kids.” But…”hopefully we won’t have to use too many freshmen. Woody Hayes said that for every freshman you use there will be a loss in you record. I’m not so sure he wasn’t right.”
Kyle in Baldwinsville asked about the schedule- start out with two Big Ten powers and then playing two weak teams in Wagner and Tulane. Coach: We used to start out with a couple of tough games when I was in the Mid-American conference. It gives you a chance to assess your team early and improve later. You could start out with cupcakes but it could give you a false sense of power. You have to manage it, (differing levels of completion) and maintain your focus”.
They talked about ways to increase attendance and concluded “Winning games always helps boost attendance. We have to fill the loud house. It’s a special place, loud even when it’s not full. When I coached at Michigan in the Big House, it wasn’t half as loud as the Carrier Dome. Two years ago we got in West Virginia’s head and last year Louisville couldn’t audible. The administration has done a great job of thinking outside the box- like putting that ribbon around the stands. We have to focus on the staff, the players and the recruiting. If I try to focus on something else, I can’t do someone else’s job. We have to get the team winning so people will want to come to the Dome and make it a blast.”
Alonzo called in wondering if we have adequate receiving talent. Coach Shafer thinks we do. “We have talented kids but lack experience. Jarrod West hasn ‘t been a #1 receiver. Ashton Broyld was playing in the backfield. Fleming, unfortunately, broke his foot. Estime has plenty of talent.”
John, a patron at Red Robin wondered why we had so many balls batted won. Coach: “When you have 22 guys trying to knock the hell out of each other it’s never about one guy. Sometimes it is the quarterback’s fault, if he stares down a guy. Sometimes the route doesn’t develop and the quarterback is waiting for the receivers- and the defensive lineman sees that and looks where he is looking.”
Frank in Liverpool asked what the differences were between coaching on the sidelines and coaching from the booth. Coach said he’d only been on the field once before this year-0 Jim Harbaugh asked him to coach one game from the field at Stanford. “I love that guy. I had a blast out there. But I couldn’t see what I used to see from the booth and to fix something you have to relay it through someone else. You don’t really know what happened until you see the film after the game. (That’s why coaches are always saying “I have to look at the film”). The good thing, is I don’t have to. I’ve got Chuck Bullough up there to do that.
He talked about Wagner. “They beat Colgate in the playoffs last year and were a couple of plays away from making the Final Four, (they lost to Eastern Washington 19-29- EW upset Oregon State two weeks ago when the Beavers were ranked #25). They are averaging 34 points a game Dominqiue Williams, (#25), is averaging 136 rushing yards a game and they are averaging 220 yards per game as a team. They have a Duke transfer who’s made some great catches, (Tyree Watkins, #3), and a Purdue transfer playing corner, (Jarrett Dieudonne, #1), so they have some good players. You have to weather the storm. When we played Maine a couple of years ago they pulled out every trick in the playbook. If the other team comes on or makes a surge, we have to step on them like a bug.”
