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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
Eventually, (use a broad definition), the show gets podcasted on this site:
http://suathletics.syr.edu/podcasts.aspx
Please note that my summary is not verbatim and I will combine statements made from different parts of the show that were on the same or similar subjects.
MY QUESTION
“Coach, we are playing possibly the best team in the country and people are expecting something like the Georgia Tech game or worse. A big reason why Georgia Tech beat us as they did is that they played a virtually flawless game while we were very mistake prone. Now we need a flawless game to compete with the Seminoles. When you’ve been part of a team that played with that level of efficiency, what caused that team to perform at that level? What can your coaching staff and your players do to produce that kind of performance now?”
COACH SHAFER
Matt congratulated the coach on “back to back wins and nearly back-to-back shut-outs”. Coach accepted the congratulations but said “Now we’ve got our biggest challenges, one of the best teams and players in the country.” Matt said that the Maryland win “had some great elements, especially in the fourth quarter. There were lots of good hits.” Scott said “We want at least ten a game. We probably had 14-15 this week. We stopped the run, were good on third down, not so good on first down. Brisley Estime had a nice game. It was good to see George Morris in there. We got 4 turnovers and I thought we should have had 5. Julian Whigham made a great play. I think the refs were enforcing basketball’s hand check rule.”
“Physicality is my favorite part of the game. I like to see our kids out-tough them. It’s not a contact sport. It’s a collision sport. That’s what makes it exciting. We are really physical in the spring, then tone it down in fall practice, except for the young players. Our best teams have been physical teams.”
I called in my question. Coach: “It’s tough to play a perfect game. I’ve been a defensive guy my whole career. We’ve had games where we held them to no rushing yards. . My idea of a strong game would be to out-rush them by 100 yards, force 2-3 turnovers, get about 20 big hits and not have to kick anything but extra points.” Matt suggested that preventing explosive plays was a priority- make them run 15 play drives. Coach: “That’s everybody’s plan. Run the ball, control the clock, keep them in front of you. Eliminate big plays, play physical football, force the quarterback to get rid of the ball quickly and hit him in the process. Make them throw underneath and hit them hard. Gang tackling.”
Rob worried about penetration on defense. Should we use the shotgun and timing patterns to reduce the impact of the rush? Coach: “A quarterback is like a young pitcher: you don’t want him throwing a fastball down the middle on every play. We’ll shift and move around. We’ll stay true to what we are and run the ball. We’ll throw some high percentage passes from outside in.”
Matt noted that parts of the team are growing at different rates. He wondered how the passing game is going. “Terrel has improved in not forcing things and staying longer with his reads. I liked the way Ashton Broyld blocked last week, springing us for big plays. I like having a big guy blocking for a speedy guy. I think we got too comfortable with Nassib and Lemon’s big numbers. It takes a while to build up to that.”
Jessica wanted to know how we keep this momentum going from the last two weeks now that we are playing the #2 team in the country. “You focus on controlling what you can control, and finding target areas that give us consistency and can help us win games. Play within the game plan and stay true to who we are.”
Stefan from Utica asked if the coach will be giving the team a speech before the game: will he ask them to win one for Coach Shafer or tone it down? Coach: “I’m going to ask them to win it for you Stefan. I can tell you are juiced up.” I assume he meant “pumped up” although it’s possible Stefan was also juiced up- he sounded a little strange. “Pregame talks are overrated. When calling the defense I sued to give a talk but that was mostly to relax me. When I was a quarterback I used to hide in the shower when the coaches were giving speeches. Those speeches usually state the obvious. But the kids still want to hear it from you. “
“In the MAC, we sometimes ‘scheduled up’ to make money. We got a couple of wins- Alabama, a pretty good program and Maryland when they were rated #9, that we wouldn’t have gotten if we hadn’t played the game. When I was at Western Michigan we played Florida State in Tallahassee in 2006 and it was a fourth quarter game. We scored but it was called back due to a holding penalty. (A 7-6 Florida State team beat an 8-5 Western Michigan team 28-20).” He could also have mentioned being Defensive Coordinator for Stanford when the Cardinal upset #1 USC in 2007, 24-23 after having lost 16 of their previous 18 games. That was their “Nebraska game” and led to their great success in this decade.
Matt noted that Northern Illinois, another place where Scott Shafer coached, beat Ball State and is now 10-0. “God love ‘em. It all started with Joe Novak, (who coached there from 1996-2007: he was 3-30 his first three years, rose to 10-2 in 2003- the year they beat Maryland and Alabama, but fell back to 2-10 in his last year. He retired at that point, saying “Winning is fragile.”). Their facilities have grown. I had a little piece of part of that.”
Tom in Pulaski simply said “Best of luck. Go get ‘em, coach!”
Dave in Queens wanted to know if Brisley Estime could be used on kick-off returns to see if we could get a big one. Matt pointed out that Florida State is the wrong team to hope for that against- they haven’t given up a kick-off return for a touchdown since 2004- the longest streak in the country. Levonte Whitfield is a world class sprinter who had a 97 yard returns for them. They are 3rd in the country, averaging 27 yards a return. We are 97th at 19.5.They’ve scored 38 times in a row in the red zone, the longest streak in the country. He did note that the Noles are 111th in net punting. He highlights the good things teams do in red and the bad things in blue and that’s the only blue line on his Florida State scouting report.
Coach: “We used to be able to form a wedge against a fast team, knick a couple of guys down and find a seam. One on one blocks are difficult. Maybe Prince Tyson Gulley or George or MacFarlane can split ‘em and get a big one.” Matt suggested that rule changes have taken the explosive plays out of the kicking game and the coach agreed. “Syracuse was Virginia Tech before Virginia Tech We blocked one vs. Tulane. I used to be a punt block guy. Now they have the spread and shield and you’re not allowed to go over a guy. We used to have a scheme at NIU of putting four guys on one guy and pushing him back. We had 12-13 blocks in 2 season at Western Michigan. When I interviewed with Jim Harbaugh I showed him the DVD and he was amazed and gave me the job. Then they changed the rules. It seems like it’s an offensive world sometimes. The hashmarks were moved in. There are fewer corner blitzes. The NFL bump and run was brought in where there can be no contact after 5 yards.”
John in Baltimore praised the blocking of the wide receivers and asked how John Raymon and Keon Lyn are recovering from their injuries and keeping their spirits up. Matt said he’s seen John at Manley and he seemed in good spirits and “was very large”. Coach: “They have great spirit and a great attitude. You wonder about a player’s mental shape after a serious injury. It’s an opportunity to catch up on academics. Keon has a plan and still wants to make it in the NFL.”
Rayn in the Adirondacks asked about recruiting in the Southeast with the exposure games like this give us. Coach: “I don’t think it ever hurts. I love to recruit down there, especially south Florida. Florida kids will travel. They look at your depth chart to see where they can play. We’ll get into Georgia and the Carolinas. It’s about building relationships. I’ve had a player from Ritchy Desir’s high school. North Miami Beach, nearly every year. Jeff Bertani is a great coach.
At this point, coach announced that Brisley Estime will miss the Florida State game with a broken bone in his hand. “He will be back but not in this one.”
Dave in Syracuse was very discouraged by the Georgia Tech game. He wondered at that point if the defensive coaches were over their heads. But these last eight quarters have convinced him we’ve got the right guys. Shaf said “We’ve consistently been resilient, which speaks to character and coaching. We were all disappointed with that game.” Dave went on to ask about Ryan Sloan and Josh Manley and what their future is with the program. “Rayna is working hard at getting better. He’s been banged up and continues to battle a weight problem. We’ll need him when Bromley’s gone next year. Taking on 600 pounds every play is a bit of a shock.”
Ron wanted to know what we are doing to reduce the number of penalties. Coach: “There are two kinds of penalties: High Effort penalties, where you grab somebody or hit them from behind. We practice techniques to avoid that. We teach: never block a player unless you can see their eyes. Then there are pre-snap penalties. We punish it when it occurred in practice and explain to player that they have to be clam.
Richard in north Syracuse asked what Tallahassee restaurant the team was going to celebrate its victory in. “We’ll have a pre-game meal at Marie Livingston’s Steak House. When we win we’ll get on a plane as fast as possible so we can have dinner right here at Red Robin’s. “
“We’ve been playing the war chant to our kids all week. I’ve had to turn up the mike here at Red Robin to hear because I’ve been listening to that war chant all week. This is what you live for. Let’s go have a blast. No one else has come close to them. Let’s come out, guns a blazing.”
Note: The Scott Shafer Show will be on next Thursday and the following Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. Apparently, that will be the last show of the season. There should be a Jim Boeheim Show next Wednesday and none the next week because they will be in Maui. Then Jim’s show will take over this slot.
http://suathletics.syr.edu/sb_output.aspx?form=4
Eventually, (use a broad definition), the show gets podcasted on this site:
http://suathletics.syr.edu/podcasts.aspx
Please note that my summary is not verbatim and I will combine statements made from different parts of the show that were on the same or similar subjects.
MY QUESTION
“Coach, we are playing possibly the best team in the country and people are expecting something like the Georgia Tech game or worse. A big reason why Georgia Tech beat us as they did is that they played a virtually flawless game while we were very mistake prone. Now we need a flawless game to compete with the Seminoles. When you’ve been part of a team that played with that level of efficiency, what caused that team to perform at that level? What can your coaching staff and your players do to produce that kind of performance now?”
COACH SHAFER
Matt congratulated the coach on “back to back wins and nearly back-to-back shut-outs”. Coach accepted the congratulations but said “Now we’ve got our biggest challenges, one of the best teams and players in the country.” Matt said that the Maryland win “had some great elements, especially in the fourth quarter. There were lots of good hits.” Scott said “We want at least ten a game. We probably had 14-15 this week. We stopped the run, were good on third down, not so good on first down. Brisley Estime had a nice game. It was good to see George Morris in there. We got 4 turnovers and I thought we should have had 5. Julian Whigham made a great play. I think the refs were enforcing basketball’s hand check rule.”
“Physicality is my favorite part of the game. I like to see our kids out-tough them. It’s not a contact sport. It’s a collision sport. That’s what makes it exciting. We are really physical in the spring, then tone it down in fall practice, except for the young players. Our best teams have been physical teams.”
I called in my question. Coach: “It’s tough to play a perfect game. I’ve been a defensive guy my whole career. We’ve had games where we held them to no rushing yards. . My idea of a strong game would be to out-rush them by 100 yards, force 2-3 turnovers, get about 20 big hits and not have to kick anything but extra points.” Matt suggested that preventing explosive plays was a priority- make them run 15 play drives. Coach: “That’s everybody’s plan. Run the ball, control the clock, keep them in front of you. Eliminate big plays, play physical football, force the quarterback to get rid of the ball quickly and hit him in the process. Make them throw underneath and hit them hard. Gang tackling.”
Rob worried about penetration on defense. Should we use the shotgun and timing patterns to reduce the impact of the rush? Coach: “A quarterback is like a young pitcher: you don’t want him throwing a fastball down the middle on every play. We’ll shift and move around. We’ll stay true to what we are and run the ball. We’ll throw some high percentage passes from outside in.”
Matt noted that parts of the team are growing at different rates. He wondered how the passing game is going. “Terrel has improved in not forcing things and staying longer with his reads. I liked the way Ashton Broyld blocked last week, springing us for big plays. I like having a big guy blocking for a speedy guy. I think we got too comfortable with Nassib and Lemon’s big numbers. It takes a while to build up to that.”
Jessica wanted to know how we keep this momentum going from the last two weeks now that we are playing the #2 team in the country. “You focus on controlling what you can control, and finding target areas that give us consistency and can help us win games. Play within the game plan and stay true to who we are.”
Stefan from Utica asked if the coach will be giving the team a speech before the game: will he ask them to win one for Coach Shafer or tone it down? Coach: “I’m going to ask them to win it for you Stefan. I can tell you are juiced up.” I assume he meant “pumped up” although it’s possible Stefan was also juiced up- he sounded a little strange. “Pregame talks are overrated. When calling the defense I sued to give a talk but that was mostly to relax me. When I was a quarterback I used to hide in the shower when the coaches were giving speeches. Those speeches usually state the obvious. But the kids still want to hear it from you. “
“In the MAC, we sometimes ‘scheduled up’ to make money. We got a couple of wins- Alabama, a pretty good program and Maryland when they were rated #9, that we wouldn’t have gotten if we hadn’t played the game. When I was at Western Michigan we played Florida State in Tallahassee in 2006 and it was a fourth quarter game. We scored but it was called back due to a holding penalty. (A 7-6 Florida State team beat an 8-5 Western Michigan team 28-20).” He could also have mentioned being Defensive Coordinator for Stanford when the Cardinal upset #1 USC in 2007, 24-23 after having lost 16 of their previous 18 games. That was their “Nebraska game” and led to their great success in this decade.
Matt noted that Northern Illinois, another place where Scott Shafer coached, beat Ball State and is now 10-0. “God love ‘em. It all started with Joe Novak, (who coached there from 1996-2007: he was 3-30 his first three years, rose to 10-2 in 2003- the year they beat Maryland and Alabama, but fell back to 2-10 in his last year. He retired at that point, saying “Winning is fragile.”). Their facilities have grown. I had a little piece of part of that.”
Tom in Pulaski simply said “Best of luck. Go get ‘em, coach!”
Dave in Queens wanted to know if Brisley Estime could be used on kick-off returns to see if we could get a big one. Matt pointed out that Florida State is the wrong team to hope for that against- they haven’t given up a kick-off return for a touchdown since 2004- the longest streak in the country. Levonte Whitfield is a world class sprinter who had a 97 yard returns for them. They are 3rd in the country, averaging 27 yards a return. We are 97th at 19.5.They’ve scored 38 times in a row in the red zone, the longest streak in the country. He did note that the Noles are 111th in net punting. He highlights the good things teams do in red and the bad things in blue and that’s the only blue line on his Florida State scouting report.
Coach: “We used to be able to form a wedge against a fast team, knick a couple of guys down and find a seam. One on one blocks are difficult. Maybe Prince Tyson Gulley or George or MacFarlane can split ‘em and get a big one.” Matt suggested that rule changes have taken the explosive plays out of the kicking game and the coach agreed. “Syracuse was Virginia Tech before Virginia Tech We blocked one vs. Tulane. I used to be a punt block guy. Now they have the spread and shield and you’re not allowed to go over a guy. We used to have a scheme at NIU of putting four guys on one guy and pushing him back. We had 12-13 blocks in 2 season at Western Michigan. When I interviewed with Jim Harbaugh I showed him the DVD and he was amazed and gave me the job. Then they changed the rules. It seems like it’s an offensive world sometimes. The hashmarks were moved in. There are fewer corner blitzes. The NFL bump and run was brought in where there can be no contact after 5 yards.”
John in Baltimore praised the blocking of the wide receivers and asked how John Raymon and Keon Lyn are recovering from their injuries and keeping their spirits up. Matt said he’s seen John at Manley and he seemed in good spirits and “was very large”. Coach: “They have great spirit and a great attitude. You wonder about a player’s mental shape after a serious injury. It’s an opportunity to catch up on academics. Keon has a plan and still wants to make it in the NFL.”
Rayn in the Adirondacks asked about recruiting in the Southeast with the exposure games like this give us. Coach: “I don’t think it ever hurts. I love to recruit down there, especially south Florida. Florida kids will travel. They look at your depth chart to see where they can play. We’ll get into Georgia and the Carolinas. It’s about building relationships. I’ve had a player from Ritchy Desir’s high school. North Miami Beach, nearly every year. Jeff Bertani is a great coach.
At this point, coach announced that Brisley Estime will miss the Florida State game with a broken bone in his hand. “He will be back but not in this one.”
Dave in Syracuse was very discouraged by the Georgia Tech game. He wondered at that point if the defensive coaches were over their heads. But these last eight quarters have convinced him we’ve got the right guys. Shaf said “We’ve consistently been resilient, which speaks to character and coaching. We were all disappointed with that game.” Dave went on to ask about Ryan Sloan and Josh Manley and what their future is with the program. “Rayna is working hard at getting better. He’s been banged up and continues to battle a weight problem. We’ll need him when Bromley’s gone next year. Taking on 600 pounds every play is a bit of a shock.”
Ron wanted to know what we are doing to reduce the number of penalties. Coach: “There are two kinds of penalties: High Effort penalties, where you grab somebody or hit them from behind. We practice techniques to avoid that. We teach: never block a player unless you can see their eyes. Then there are pre-snap penalties. We punish it when it occurred in practice and explain to player that they have to be clam.
Richard in north Syracuse asked what Tallahassee restaurant the team was going to celebrate its victory in. “We’ll have a pre-game meal at Marie Livingston’s Steak House. When we win we’ll get on a plane as fast as possible so we can have dinner right here at Red Robin’s. “
“We’ve been playing the war chant to our kids all week. I’ve had to turn up the mike here at Red Robin to hear because I’ve been listening to that war chant all week. This is what you live for. Let’s go have a blast. No one else has come close to them. Let’s come out, guns a blazing.”
Note: The Scott Shafer Show will be on next Thursday and the following Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. Apparently, that will be the last show of the season. There should be a Jim Boeheim Show next Wednesday and none the next week because they will be in Maui. Then Jim’s show will take over this slot.
