SWC75
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- The game got off to an unpromising start as the previously laser-beam accurate Garrett Shrader threw the ball out of bounds while our receiver was breaking free down the sidelines. Then he threw high to an open Tucker on a pass across the middle. Both plays had touchdown potentially and the throws were not close. It looked like last November’s Shrader. This September’s Shrader wound up 13 for 29 after being 38 for 48 in the first two games.
- His still young receiving corps was part of the problem. They had trouble getting open and several of Garrett’s scrambles were “coverage scrambles” that weren’t going to win us this game. Then there were several bad drops. Damien Alford is, like Oronde Gadsen, a big receiver with speed and talent. He’s the one that caught the game winner at Virginia Tech last year. But he had a horrible drop on a big third down pass that cause Adam Terry, our radio color man, said “Syracuse’s receivers have got to stop playing like they want a flag more than they want to catch the ball. On that play (the defender) wanted to strip the ball more than Damien Alford wanted to catch it.” On the final drive, Alford made a great one-handed catch but the heel of his foot came down out of bounds. Terry said “A receiver needs to give himself space to make the catch and remain in bounds”. In his post-game presser, Dino Babers said Gadsden “finds a way to get his foot in bounds, whereas some people find out how to barely not get their feet in bounds.” He was clearly talking about Alford.
- The Boilermakers held Sean Tucker to 42 yards rushing in 18 carries, (2.3 yards per shot) and 23 yards on two catches. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t a factor because other plays worked because Purdue was so focused on stopping Sean but Tucker isn’t going to get to New York as a Heisman finalist if he ahs any more games like this. A lot of it was the failure of our line to open any kind of holes in the Purdue front. Before Shrader hit Isaiah Jones for our first TD, Tucker gained -1 yards in two carries after we had a 1st and goal from the 2. Images of the 2006 Iowa game invaded my mind.
- When you are facing a receiver the caliber of Charley Jones, you don’t have a lock-down cornerback. Garrett Williams is the beast we’ve got and he had his moments in his battles with Jones, (a battle that will be continued in the NFL), but, after we seemed to have gained control of the game with a 10 point lead with 8:08 left, Jones got behind our best guy for a 55 yard score and another 51 yard play that set up what turned out to be a failed field goal attempts. You can’t have plays like that and hold onto a 10 point fourth quarter lead and a we didn’t. Babers made an interesting comment in his presser: You will get no help playing cornerback at Syracuse”. He expects his cornerbacks to operate on an island, even if King Kong lives there.
- Other missed opportunities: In the first half, SU ran a trick play they had obviously worked on: an end-around leading to a reverse leading to a pass to Shrader. They executed it so well that either LeQuint Allen, who wound up with the ball or Shrader could have walked into the end zone. Except Allen air-mailed the ball 5 feet over Shrader’s head and out of bounds. Purdue scored to make it 6-3 but we blocked the extra point and Jason Simmons had the ball bounce into his arms and was off to the races. Except he was caught from behind trying to thread his way down the sideline. Credit to Purdue for having several players not give up on the play and run it down. Frustrated by the inability to create holes for Tucker inside and a few conventional sweeps that didn’t gain much, Anae went to a simply pitch-out play that proved wide-open the first time he used it. But Sean acted like a rookie receiver who didn’t make the catch because he was already thinking of where he was going to run before he secured the ball and dropped it. He was able to recover but it was a 9 yard loss. They went to the play one more time but Purdue was ready for it and it went nowhere. Then there was Andre Szmyt’s first miss of the season, a 41 yarder after he’d hit a 50 yarder.
- Let’s face it: Purdue handed us, not the game but the opportunity to win on a silver platter with their melt-down after they scored the go-head TD in the fourth. They had a hugely damaging 13 penalties for 138 yards and actually wound up kicking off form their own 10 yard line at a critical point in the game. But that obscured the fact that after going from 18 penalties in game one to 3 in game two, we had 9 also very damaging penalties for 74 yards.
- Looking at the schedule we need to get used to wild games because there’s several teams comparable to Purdue coming up. And if a game is wild, who knows what the results can be?
- His still young receiving corps was part of the problem. They had trouble getting open and several of Garrett’s scrambles were “coverage scrambles” that weren’t going to win us this game. Then there were several bad drops. Damien Alford is, like Oronde Gadsen, a big receiver with speed and talent. He’s the one that caught the game winner at Virginia Tech last year. But he had a horrible drop on a big third down pass that cause Adam Terry, our radio color man, said “Syracuse’s receivers have got to stop playing like they want a flag more than they want to catch the ball. On that play (the defender) wanted to strip the ball more than Damien Alford wanted to catch it.” On the final drive, Alford made a great one-handed catch but the heel of his foot came down out of bounds. Terry said “A receiver needs to give himself space to make the catch and remain in bounds”. In his post-game presser, Dino Babers said Gadsden “finds a way to get his foot in bounds, whereas some people find out how to barely not get their feet in bounds.” He was clearly talking about Alford.
- The Boilermakers held Sean Tucker to 42 yards rushing in 18 carries, (2.3 yards per shot) and 23 yards on two catches. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t a factor because other plays worked because Purdue was so focused on stopping Sean but Tucker isn’t going to get to New York as a Heisman finalist if he ahs any more games like this. A lot of it was the failure of our line to open any kind of holes in the Purdue front. Before Shrader hit Isaiah Jones for our first TD, Tucker gained -1 yards in two carries after we had a 1st and goal from the 2. Images of the 2006 Iowa game invaded my mind.
- When you are facing a receiver the caliber of Charley Jones, you don’t have a lock-down cornerback. Garrett Williams is the beast we’ve got and he had his moments in his battles with Jones, (a battle that will be continued in the NFL), but, after we seemed to have gained control of the game with a 10 point lead with 8:08 left, Jones got behind our best guy for a 55 yard score and another 51 yard play that set up what turned out to be a failed field goal attempts. You can’t have plays like that and hold onto a 10 point fourth quarter lead and a we didn’t. Babers made an interesting comment in his presser: You will get no help playing cornerback at Syracuse”. He expects his cornerbacks to operate on an island, even if King Kong lives there.
- Other missed opportunities: In the first half, SU ran a trick play they had obviously worked on: an end-around leading to a reverse leading to a pass to Shrader. They executed it so well that either LeQuint Allen, who wound up with the ball or Shrader could have walked into the end zone. Except Allen air-mailed the ball 5 feet over Shrader’s head and out of bounds. Purdue scored to make it 6-3 but we blocked the extra point and Jason Simmons had the ball bounce into his arms and was off to the races. Except he was caught from behind trying to thread his way down the sideline. Credit to Purdue for having several players not give up on the play and run it down. Frustrated by the inability to create holes for Tucker inside and a few conventional sweeps that didn’t gain much, Anae went to a simply pitch-out play that proved wide-open the first time he used it. But Sean acted like a rookie receiver who didn’t make the catch because he was already thinking of where he was going to run before he secured the ball and dropped it. He was able to recover but it was a 9 yard loss. They went to the play one more time but Purdue was ready for it and it went nowhere. Then there was Andre Szmyt’s first miss of the season, a 41 yarder after he’d hit a 50 yarder.
- Let’s face it: Purdue handed us, not the game but the opportunity to win on a silver platter with their melt-down after they scored the go-head TD in the fourth. They had a hugely damaging 13 penalties for 138 yards and actually wound up kicking off form their own 10 yard line at a critical point in the game. But that obscured the fact that after going from 18 penalties in game one to 3 in game two, we had 9 also very damaging penalties for 74 yards.
- Looking at the schedule we need to get used to wild games because there’s several teams comparable to Purdue coming up. And if a game is wild, who knows what the results can be?
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