The Downside- Wagner | Syracusefan.com

The Downside- Wagner

SWC75

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- The early going was concerning. We needed a couple bizarre plays to take advantage of those two Cisco picks and then we gave up a couple of big plays that brought back memories of last week. T. J. Linta passed to D'Erren Wilson who caught it about 20 yard downfield. One player, (didn’t get the name or number), tried to tackle him but got thrown off. Scoop Bradshaw had closed on the play but did an odd thing. He turned his body sideways with his arms down and just watched Wilson run by him for 30 more yards. Then nobody bothered to cover the tight end who caught a 24 yard TD ball to make it 14-7. Was it to be Western Michigan all over again, this time starting in the first quarter? Fortunately, no.

- Devin Butler did a couple of good things: running hard to get a first down on an end around and making a difficult shoe-string catch for a first down. But he also had a big drop of what could have been a TD and failed to positon himself beyond the sticks on a third down play. He needs to be more consistent because Dino has options this year- a lot of them.

- Ravian Pierce had a good shot at a TD pass but allowed a defender to fight the ball off. Ravian should be strong enough to win those battles.

- Matt Park succinctly describes the fair catch kickoff rule: “Boring”. I’ve seen several kickoff returns that were exciting and meaningful in other games but they have been neutered in our games.

- Old man on the Porch here: the “let’s put on a show while the game is on” thing is lame. Nobody cared what these people were saying, although singing “Sweet Caroline” was fun. Taking away two stat boards to have a running transcript of the conversations were a bad move. The stats put up on the remaining boards seem to have been put there by one of Bob Newhart’s monkeys: My favorite bit of gibberish was SU’s passing stats: 2 of 37 for 24 yards and 5TDs. Another time our rushing was 1 carry for 66 yards. Oh and total yardage was SU 89 Wagner 10 after the Seahawks had just driven 75 yards for their only touchdown. Finally: you’re not allowed to bring anything sharp into the Dome. So how are you supposed to open those packets and mustard and relish so you can get a little of it on your hot dog?
 
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I think it was Al Groh on the broadcast who said that Butler has been plagued by poor hands his entire time at Syracuse. I don't remember him being this bad. Maybe he needs a sports psychologist? Who knows. Groh said Harris looks good and Butler may lose his status as a starter if he doesn't improve. Hope so. Butler seems to run good routes and has great speed but they do nothing for he or us at the moment.
 
One Item I forgot to mention: Tommy DeVito. Again, our failures when he was in there were not all his fault. the two bad snaps destroyed on possession. I don't know who to blame for this but there was a general disorganization. Tommy had to keep telling Howard where he was supposed to line up. I did like the fact that the sideline passes he threw were thrown where only our guy could get them. But our guy didn't get them.

Regardless of whose fault it is, there's a huge drop-off when Dungey isn't in there and we are thus more dependent on him than ever. When Dungey played a sa true freshman, he was a lot better than what we've seen with DeVito in there. DeVito's results don't even measure up to Zach Mahoney's so far, much less Dungey's. The Western Michigan and Wagner games were a golden opportunity to narrow the gap and it didn't happen. Connecticut will be one more opportunity. If this situation doesn't improve it will be Dungey or bust the rest of the year.
 
One Item I forgot to mention: Tommy DeVito. Again, our failures when he was in there were not all his fault. the two bad snaps destroyed on possession. I don't know who to blame for this but there was a general disorganization. Tommy had to keep telling Howard where he was supposed to line up. I did like the fact that the sideline passes he threw were thrown where only our guy could get them. But our guy didn't get them.

Regardless of whose fault it is, there's a huge drop-off when Dungey isn't in there and we are thus more dependent on him than ever. When Dungey played a sa true freshman, he was a lot better than what we've seen with DeVito in there. DeVito's results don't even measure up to Zach Mahoney's so far, much less Dungey's. The Western Michigan and Wagner games were a golden opportunity to narrow the gap and it didn't happen. Connecticut will be one more opportunity. If this situation doesn't improve it will be Dungey or bust the rest of the year.
I feel way better about the idea of DeVito coming in to the game and making something happen than I ever did with Mahoney. It isn't even close.
 
I think it was Al Groh on the broadcast who said that Butler has been plagued by poor hands his entire time at Syracuse. I don't remember him being this bad. Maybe he needs a sports psychologist? Who knows. Groh said Harris looks good and Butler may lose his status as a starter if he doesn't improve. Hope so. Butler seems to run good routes and has great speed but they do nothing for he or us at the moment.
Those quotes were just periods of lucidity in his otherwise rambling gibberish. Called us Florida State at one point, as I recall.
 
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I feel way better about the idea of DeVito coming in to the game and making something happen than I ever did with Mahoney. It isn't even close.


I will when we started getting some favorable results. Zach threw for 1,949 yards and 18 touchdowns as Dungey's back-up. DeVito's possessions have yet to produce much of anything.

Like I said it doesn't matter who's fault it is if nothing good happens.
 
I will when we started getting some favorable results. Like I said it doesn't matter who's fault it is if nothing good happens.
This is the trap though... the game results when Mahoney played weren't favorable. He was like 1-8 as a starter, and the win was against BC where the two teams combined to pass for less than 100 yards.

Sure, some of my confidence in DeVito stems from the mystique of the unknown, but Mahoney scraped everything he could out of his talent, and it didn't translate to wins.

DeVito has barely scratched the surface of what he can and will do.
 
This is a 'downside' thread, but thankfully the running game isn't part of it. The OL dominated. Dungey had all day and there were plenty of holes to run through. Love to see more Howard.

Another strong performance for special teams, including a 50 yard FG. And I have to say our DL not only stopped their running attack, it was in their backfield all day. Their backup QB had to finish the game.

WR's and pass coverage -those are our bugbears. Butler doesn't even look good against weak teams ... because it's not coverage that he has a problem with. It's his own lack of focus. Not sure how you correct that, but it's getting old. I thought our WR's generally had trouble getting separation. On many passing plays, Dungey had 6-8 seconds to stand around and still couldn't find an open receiver - until Johnson and Harris got in the game. Both of them deserve more burn. On the flip side, their WR's found seams in our single high coverage a lot ... and would have done much more damage if they didn't have the dropsies and their QB wasn't on his back (or out of the game). We couldn't stop #81, and we lost the TE several times. Huge amounts of work to do with the defensive secondary.

For my money, we can't get our younger DB's, safeties, RB's and WR's on the field fast enough.
 
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This is the trap though... the game results when Mahoney played weren't favorable. He was like 1-8 as a starter, and the win was against BC where the two teams combined to pass for less than 100 yards.

Sure, some of my confidence in DeVito stems from the mystique of the unknown, but Mahoney scraped everything he could out of his talent, and it didn't translate to wins.

DeVito has barely scratched the surface of what he can and will do.


DeVito won't translate into wins either if we can't do better than we have been. Mahoney faced teams like LSU and Clemson and kept us in thsoe games. He had 5TD passes against Pitt. He didn't give up 76 points.

It's very early and I believe in DeVito's talent, too, but we have to accomplish more when he's in there. we've scored 117 points with Eric in the game and nothing with Tommy in the game.
 
DeVito won't translate into wins either if we can't do better than we have been. Mahoney faced teams like LSU and Clemson and kept us in thsoe games. He had 5TD passes against Pitt. He didn't give up 76 points.

It's very early and I believe in DeVito's talent, too, but we have to accomplish more when he's in there.
I'm not disputing that we have to accomplish more when he's in there.

I'm suggesting that we will, and that what we've seen so far from DeVito is less than what we'll see in the future.
 
DeVito won't translate into wins either if we can't do better than we have been. Mahoney faced teams like LSU and Clemson and kept us in thsoe games. He had 5TD passes against Pitt. He didn't give up 76 points.

It's very early and I believe in DeVito's talent, too, but we have to accomplish more when he's in there.

You're comparing apples and oranges.

DeVito has walked into two games where we've had big leads, one of which was with the 2nd team (by the way, our 2nd team center can't snap a ball).

Mahoney was given a full week of first team practice and a full game to play in his biggest moments. Hopefully we won't have to have DeVito in that situation, but if we do, I'd bet he plays a lot better.
 
I feel way better about the idea of DeVito coming in to the game and making something happen than I ever did with Mahoney. It isn't even close.
yeah, I get a pretty strong feeling that the playcalling will be much different if Devito comes into the game out of nessessity (injury) rather than to get “experience”
 
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Gotta agree that the talk-show duo didn't add anything to the game experience.

Yeah, it’s tough when one of talk show hosts couldn’t even pronouce Nassib’s name correctly. Does Mungro have the same eye affliction as Jim McMahon, or does he just think the sunglasses look cool?
 
Yeah, it’s tough when one of talk show hosts couldn’t even pronouce Nassib’s name correctly. Does Mungro have the same eye affliction as Jim McMahon, or does he just think the sunglasses look cool?


I stopped listening when after Riley's save on the first touchdown catch, the lady asked Mungro "What did you think of that run?"
 
The “Simba Cam” was fun... watching people hold up their kids to the Lion King music.

I missed this as I was taking the little one out for a diaper change, the other two kids where so disappointed she did not get her chance to be on the "simba cam" lol.
 
I didn't think SU blocked well offensively for the first couple of possessions. On the QB sneak ED had to sneak the ball to Strickland, this should not have even been an issue and this worries me a bit for the rest of the season. No RB should average under 5 yards a carry vs Wagner...none.
 
Rob Murphy's wife is nice...but I'd like to never hear her voice on the Dome PA again. Put me down as someone who thought the in-game show took away from the experience.
 
A talk-show voice over just isn't what I'm looking for at a college football game. Just give me some band music, some statistics, and a chance to converse.
 

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