SWC75
Bored Historian
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- Aug 26, 2011
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The show this year will be broadcast on Thursdays at 7PM from TGI Fridays on the third floor of Destiny USA, (just past the theater ticket booth and on the right after you walk down the hallway). I don’t know if they will take questions from the audience there but they say you can watch the show whereas when it was at a restaurant, their table tended to be in a secluded location. (Remember its Thursdays at TGI Fridays, not Fridays at TGI Thursdays). The football show is an hour in duration, (Coach Boeheim’s basketball show is usually 2 hours).
Note: because the first game is on a Friday Night, the first show will be on Wednesday, September 2nd. After that it will be on the Thursday before each game until the last game when the show will again be on a Wednesday, (11/25) due to Thanksgiving.
“Fans are invited to attend the show in person or participate via telephone (1-888-7-Go Cuse or 424-8599) or Twitter (@CuseIMG) using the hashtag #AskShafe. You can also listen to the show live each week on the Syracuse IMG Sports Network and Cuse.com. Wednesday's show will be on 99.1 FM and 97.7 FM, as well. The show will regularly air on 99.5FM (Syracuse)99.1 FM (Utica) and 1200 AM.” You can also get it on: http://tunein.com/radio/WGVA-1240-s29191/
That first phone number is 1-888-746-2873 numerically.
You can also send them in advance at this site:
http://cuse.com/sb_output.aspx?form=4
(I do both so they can be prepared to give me an informed, reasoned answer.)
My Question(s)
“Coach, fans are always complaining that their team makes too many mistakes. With this year’s team, that’s been hard to do. They have 3 turnovers in four games and have committed just 17 penalties. I’m sure each one pained you but our opposition has 9 turnovers and 30 penalties, so we’ve had a big advantage there, despite having to use two centers and four quarterbacks. How have we managed to be so much more efficient than the other teams? “
The Show
(I sometimes re-arrange the comments so that statements made on the same subject are reported together, even if they came at different points of the show.)
Coach said the team “was excited to get back on the field”. Matt Park noted that the coach wasn’t happy about losing to LSU but “fan-wise, the team seems to have some momentum coming out of the game”. Coach: “I was very disappointed we lost to LSU. We wanted to be within 7 in the fourth quarter and we were a couple of plays way. The older kids up front played well. Our young quarterback had some throws get away from him in the first half but played better in the second half.” (Most of the time when you throw the ball, it does get away from you.)
Liam from Pompey beat me to the phone, (I’m a little rusty after the layoff, to praise the team for giving a 24 ½ point favorite all they could handle and ask about the status of Eric Dungey and Erv Phillips. “Both are ready to go. They’ve bene practicing for 10 ten days. The first couple of days Erv was feeling his way through. The he made an ‘Erv cut’ and smiled at me. I told him “Feels good, doesn’t it?” and he smiled some more. I can’t take any credit away from Ben Lewis and Dontae Strickland, who played some good football. But Erv Phillips gives us an extra dimension. He can run like a running back and catch like a receiver.”
I then got to ask my question. Coach responded that “Last year we were very disappointed in our consistency. It was tough because we had to use so many quarterbacks and linemen. We really wanted to get everybody on the same page this season. Our coaches have bene charting penalties and the yards lost on offense, defense and special teams. We’ve had a couple of disappointing penalties. We’ve stressed ball security on offense and ball disruption on defense. I’m pleased with the kids but you’ve really got to credit the coaches: Coach Lester on offense, Coach Bullough on defense and Coach Daoust on special teams.”
He said that stats show that your chances of winning if you are +1 in turnovers are 67% and got up to 85-86% if you are +2. Matt Park pointed out that we have been penalized for 162 yards vs. 256 for the opposition, (then there’s the yards negated by penalties like that 87 yarder by Fournette) and were +6 in turnovers after four games, although we were -1 vs. LSU. Coach: “You’re only as good as your last game. We got the ball out on a speed rush by Ron Thompson. That would have been a big one but the ball bounced away. Then there was a ‘fig route: we covered it well . Our guy missed the ball and a guy on the ground caught it.” Matt said USF has an odd statistic: they’ve fumbled 7 times in their games and forced 6 fumbles. The offense recovered every one of them. (And we’ve recovered both of our fumbles but have gotten four of our opponent’s nine fumbles).
Coach discussed his friend and counterpart, Willie Taggart of USF. Willie Taggart, (coach always seems to know somebody coaching the other team). They were on the same staff at Stanford and both have been heavily influenced by the Harbaugh family. Willie played for the father Jack at Western Kentucky after being recruited there by Jim, who was a volunteer coach with them at the time. “Willie played option quarterback and led them to a national championship- I think. Well, I don’t know if he did- let’s just say he did.” Actually Taggart was coaching there under Harbaugh when they won the FCS title in 2002. It’s interesting that Jim Harbaugh was still playing in the NFL while assisting his father at WKU:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Harbaugh
Anyway, Taggart “is a great guy and great roll model for the kids”. He’s so influenced by the Harbaughs that he still wears a whistle around his neck the way Jack did. “Really, ‘Harbaugh’ is his second last name.”
“They aren’t going to fool anybody,. They are going to line up and run the ball. It’s hard not to be talented when you recruit from down there.” Matt Parks said they had 19 players from the Tampa area on their two-deep while we have a “hodgepodge”. Coach: “Their quarterback, Flowers, must be contained. Marlon Mack is 6-1 205 and can stop on a dime. They use pre-snap movement and a fake jet sweep that’s bene keeping me up all night. They are good at the run and good at stopping the run, much better than last year. Their new coordinators, Coach Hope and Coach Allen have them playing sound football and they are talented to boot.”
“We need to ramp up the camera club, (the number of players that are in camera range at the end of a play) and get physical. The camera club was at an all-time high vs. LSU but that’s easier when they run 21 plays with two tight ends and we have 8-9 guys in the box. USF spread you out to run the football. We need to run to the ball.”
Stefan from Utica called in to ask if Eric Dungey is “healthy and checked out” and what lessons can the team take away from the LSU game? “Eric is back, healthy and ready to go. The lessons are that in any given game you are 1-2 plays from winning it but close is not good enough. We are excited, angry and looking forward to getting back on the field.” Coach really, really, REALLY wanted to win that LSU game.
As Stefan was from Utica, Matt had to bring up the painful subject of Wolfgang’s first loss of the season, although it was hardly his fault as he had almost 300 yards passing. “It was a tough loss and a great lesson for the team.” I suspect it’s the same lesson Syracuse learned.
Matt suggested that playing South Florida is a good thing because we love to recruit down there. Coach: “We’ve had a lot of success recruiting there and are actively involved with several kids right now. I expect to do some recruiting over the weekend.”
They discussed a couple of E-mails. John in Baltimore noticed more aggression on 4th down when the ball was in the other team’s territory. He wondered if Shafe was more likely to go for it against a top ten team. Coach: “It depends on a lot of things- momentum, rhythm, feel, our game plan, who do we have available and who is banged up, the other team’s success defending the kicking game. You have to take in all the factors. Last year we were so banged up, especially up front. This year I’m more confident that our team can make the yardage. But we’ve got that pooch kick and our punter knows how to kick it down there.” Coach is concerned about how far the other team will have to go to score.” When I was a defensive coordinator, the coach used to get me on the headphones and ask if we should go for it and I always told him ‘No’. I’d rather defend 80-90 yards than 55-60 yards. The numbers show that the other team has a 10% chance of scoring if they have to go 90 yards. It rises to 15% if they have to go 80 yards.” (That seems generous to me: teams who get the ball on their own 10 yard line score 10% of the time?).
Matt said so far we’ve had 9 instances where it was 4th and 5 yards or less in the other team’s territory. We’ve gone for it and made it 3 of those times. Another we got a penalty and did the pooch kick. We attempted one field goal and made it. We punted three times but it was 4th and 4 or 5 each time.
Matt noted that the only other team in the country that was down to its fourth string quarterback was Kansas, who is 0-4 while we are 3-1. (Actually, we were down to our 5th string quarterback: Hunt-Dungey-Wilson-Long- Mahoney).
Another E-mail came from Dave, who admired our special teams play and perimeter blocking. Does Shafe recruit for special teams? Yes he does. “It was a big blow last year when we lost Brisley to a high ankle sprain. He is a dynamic player. So is Erv Phillips. I should mention that Dontae Strickland, if you’ve seen his high school films, is also a dynamic player. (He didn’t mention Tyrone Perkins. ) I can’t mention names but we’ve got a couple of dynamic players we’re trying to seal the deal on for the next class, too. (I assume he means Moe Neal and Darius Stubbs and that what he meant by that is that we have only verbal commitments at this point.)
“You can’t coach speed and you can’t coach length. There’s track speed and there’s football speed. What people don’t understand is that they play football 12 months a year down there. The track season ends in early May to make way for spring football. Brisley’s great in the 40. In the 100, he’s probably no better than a 10.5 man. Erv’s the same way. But you want to see how fast they are with a helmet on when other people are trying to knock it off. You also need to have tough guys who know how to ‘throw leather’”.
SU will be trying to give USF their 6th consecutive homecoming loss. Another game of interest will be between Virginia and Pittsburgh, our next two opponents, (that’s a 12:30 game on ESPN 3).
Matt asked for one last work from the coach as the show ended: “We are ready to play and get down there and take care of business”.
Note: because the first game is on a Friday Night, the first show will be on Wednesday, September 2nd. After that it will be on the Thursday before each game until the last game when the show will again be on a Wednesday, (11/25) due to Thanksgiving.
“Fans are invited to attend the show in person or participate via telephone (1-888-7-Go Cuse or 424-8599) or Twitter (@CuseIMG) using the hashtag #AskShafe. You can also listen to the show live each week on the Syracuse IMG Sports Network and Cuse.com. Wednesday's show will be on 99.1 FM and 97.7 FM, as well. The show will regularly air on 99.5FM (Syracuse)99.1 FM (Utica) and 1200 AM.” You can also get it on: http://tunein.com/radio/WGVA-1240-s29191/
That first phone number is 1-888-746-2873 numerically.
You can also send them in advance at this site:
http://cuse.com/sb_output.aspx?form=4
(I do both so they can be prepared to give me an informed, reasoned answer.)
My Question(s)
“Coach, fans are always complaining that their team makes too many mistakes. With this year’s team, that’s been hard to do. They have 3 turnovers in four games and have committed just 17 penalties. I’m sure each one pained you but our opposition has 9 turnovers and 30 penalties, so we’ve had a big advantage there, despite having to use two centers and four quarterbacks. How have we managed to be so much more efficient than the other teams? “
The Show
(I sometimes re-arrange the comments so that statements made on the same subject are reported together, even if they came at different points of the show.)
Coach said the team “was excited to get back on the field”. Matt Park noted that the coach wasn’t happy about losing to LSU but “fan-wise, the team seems to have some momentum coming out of the game”. Coach: “I was very disappointed we lost to LSU. We wanted to be within 7 in the fourth quarter and we were a couple of plays way. The older kids up front played well. Our young quarterback had some throws get away from him in the first half but played better in the second half.” (Most of the time when you throw the ball, it does get away from you.)
Liam from Pompey beat me to the phone, (I’m a little rusty after the layoff, to praise the team for giving a 24 ½ point favorite all they could handle and ask about the status of Eric Dungey and Erv Phillips. “Both are ready to go. They’ve bene practicing for 10 ten days. The first couple of days Erv was feeling his way through. The he made an ‘Erv cut’ and smiled at me. I told him “Feels good, doesn’t it?” and he smiled some more. I can’t take any credit away from Ben Lewis and Dontae Strickland, who played some good football. But Erv Phillips gives us an extra dimension. He can run like a running back and catch like a receiver.”
I then got to ask my question. Coach responded that “Last year we were very disappointed in our consistency. It was tough because we had to use so many quarterbacks and linemen. We really wanted to get everybody on the same page this season. Our coaches have bene charting penalties and the yards lost on offense, defense and special teams. We’ve had a couple of disappointing penalties. We’ve stressed ball security on offense and ball disruption on defense. I’m pleased with the kids but you’ve really got to credit the coaches: Coach Lester on offense, Coach Bullough on defense and Coach Daoust on special teams.”
He said that stats show that your chances of winning if you are +1 in turnovers are 67% and got up to 85-86% if you are +2. Matt Park pointed out that we have been penalized for 162 yards vs. 256 for the opposition, (then there’s the yards negated by penalties like that 87 yarder by Fournette) and were +6 in turnovers after four games, although we were -1 vs. LSU. Coach: “You’re only as good as your last game. We got the ball out on a speed rush by Ron Thompson. That would have been a big one but the ball bounced away. Then there was a ‘fig route: we covered it well . Our guy missed the ball and a guy on the ground caught it.” Matt said USF has an odd statistic: they’ve fumbled 7 times in their games and forced 6 fumbles. The offense recovered every one of them. (And we’ve recovered both of our fumbles but have gotten four of our opponent’s nine fumbles).
Coach discussed his friend and counterpart, Willie Taggart of USF. Willie Taggart, (coach always seems to know somebody coaching the other team). They were on the same staff at Stanford and both have been heavily influenced by the Harbaugh family. Willie played for the father Jack at Western Kentucky after being recruited there by Jim, who was a volunteer coach with them at the time. “Willie played option quarterback and led them to a national championship- I think. Well, I don’t know if he did- let’s just say he did.” Actually Taggart was coaching there under Harbaugh when they won the FCS title in 2002. It’s interesting that Jim Harbaugh was still playing in the NFL while assisting his father at WKU:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Harbaugh
Anyway, Taggart “is a great guy and great roll model for the kids”. He’s so influenced by the Harbaughs that he still wears a whistle around his neck the way Jack did. “Really, ‘Harbaugh’ is his second last name.”
“They aren’t going to fool anybody,. They are going to line up and run the ball. It’s hard not to be talented when you recruit from down there.” Matt Parks said they had 19 players from the Tampa area on their two-deep while we have a “hodgepodge”. Coach: “Their quarterback, Flowers, must be contained. Marlon Mack is 6-1 205 and can stop on a dime. They use pre-snap movement and a fake jet sweep that’s bene keeping me up all night. They are good at the run and good at stopping the run, much better than last year. Their new coordinators, Coach Hope and Coach Allen have them playing sound football and they are talented to boot.”
“We need to ramp up the camera club, (the number of players that are in camera range at the end of a play) and get physical. The camera club was at an all-time high vs. LSU but that’s easier when they run 21 plays with two tight ends and we have 8-9 guys in the box. USF spread you out to run the football. We need to run to the ball.”
Stefan from Utica called in to ask if Eric Dungey is “healthy and checked out” and what lessons can the team take away from the LSU game? “Eric is back, healthy and ready to go. The lessons are that in any given game you are 1-2 plays from winning it but close is not good enough. We are excited, angry and looking forward to getting back on the field.” Coach really, really, REALLY wanted to win that LSU game.
As Stefan was from Utica, Matt had to bring up the painful subject of Wolfgang’s first loss of the season, although it was hardly his fault as he had almost 300 yards passing. “It was a tough loss and a great lesson for the team.” I suspect it’s the same lesson Syracuse learned.
Matt suggested that playing South Florida is a good thing because we love to recruit down there. Coach: “We’ve had a lot of success recruiting there and are actively involved with several kids right now. I expect to do some recruiting over the weekend.”
They discussed a couple of E-mails. John in Baltimore noticed more aggression on 4th down when the ball was in the other team’s territory. He wondered if Shafe was more likely to go for it against a top ten team. Coach: “It depends on a lot of things- momentum, rhythm, feel, our game plan, who do we have available and who is banged up, the other team’s success defending the kicking game. You have to take in all the factors. Last year we were so banged up, especially up front. This year I’m more confident that our team can make the yardage. But we’ve got that pooch kick and our punter knows how to kick it down there.” Coach is concerned about how far the other team will have to go to score.” When I was a defensive coordinator, the coach used to get me on the headphones and ask if we should go for it and I always told him ‘No’. I’d rather defend 80-90 yards than 55-60 yards. The numbers show that the other team has a 10% chance of scoring if they have to go 90 yards. It rises to 15% if they have to go 80 yards.” (That seems generous to me: teams who get the ball on their own 10 yard line score 10% of the time?).
Matt said so far we’ve had 9 instances where it was 4th and 5 yards or less in the other team’s territory. We’ve gone for it and made it 3 of those times. Another we got a penalty and did the pooch kick. We attempted one field goal and made it. We punted three times but it was 4th and 4 or 5 each time.
Matt noted that the only other team in the country that was down to its fourth string quarterback was Kansas, who is 0-4 while we are 3-1. (Actually, we were down to our 5th string quarterback: Hunt-Dungey-Wilson-Long- Mahoney).
Another E-mail came from Dave, who admired our special teams play and perimeter blocking. Does Shafe recruit for special teams? Yes he does. “It was a big blow last year when we lost Brisley to a high ankle sprain. He is a dynamic player. So is Erv Phillips. I should mention that Dontae Strickland, if you’ve seen his high school films, is also a dynamic player. (He didn’t mention Tyrone Perkins. ) I can’t mention names but we’ve got a couple of dynamic players we’re trying to seal the deal on for the next class, too. (I assume he means Moe Neal and Darius Stubbs and that what he meant by that is that we have only verbal commitments at this point.)
“You can’t coach speed and you can’t coach length. There’s track speed and there’s football speed. What people don’t understand is that they play football 12 months a year down there. The track season ends in early May to make way for spring football. Brisley’s great in the 40. In the 100, he’s probably no better than a 10.5 man. Erv’s the same way. But you want to see how fast they are with a helmet on when other people are trying to knock it off. You also need to have tough guys who know how to ‘throw leather’”.
SU will be trying to give USF their 6th consecutive homecoming loss. Another game of interest will be between Virginia and Pittsburgh, our next two opponents, (that’s a 12:30 game on ESPN 3).
Matt asked for one last work from the coach as the show ended: “We are ready to play and get down there and take care of business”.
