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
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, in this your last show of the season, could you tell us what you’ve learned about being a head coach- and a head coach at Syracuse- in this first season in that job? “
COACH SHAFER
(Note: I may combine statements that were made during different parts of the show if they are on the same subject.)
Chris McManus subbed for Matt Park who is in Hawaii. Coach said he felt sorry for Matt who was missing the change of season here.
Coach said he watched SU BC games as a kid and thrilled to be in one. They said the series is even older than the Pitt series, going back to the 20’s, (actually it goes back to 1944: we are ahead 27-18: strangely, there’s never been a tie).
This is also the last in the Dome, (and if they don’t win anywhere) for the first group of recruits of the Doug Marrone Era. “We were a downtrodden program and these kids added their energy and faith and made us respectable again. We will miss these kids.”
They talked about the three captains: Mackey McPherson, Jay Bromley and Marquis Spruill. Coach said they all came from different backgrounds. Mackey was recruited because he could snap the ball in the shotgun and we didn’t have anybody who could do that, (that still amazes me). “He said ‘I’m gonna play some football!’ and he has.” Jay grew up in Jamaica, Queens and “has had more struggles than you and I. We found him in an all-star game and couldn’t believe he had slipped through the cracks. He’s the steadiest guy I’ve ever been around. He takes on 600 pounds of double teams on every play.” Spruill, “Started out as a little brother in a bunch of veteran linebackers. When Smith and Hogue graduated, we asked him to be a leader and he said, ‘Coach, I’m not ready yet’. This year, he was ready was elected captain almost unanimously. He came here wearing military pants- he’d been to Ft. Union Academy. I asked him if he still has those pants. He said “Yes, coach but they don’t fit any more.”
They also talked about the seniors whose career ended prematurely due to injury. Becket Wales “has been banged up all season” and “re-injured his ankle making a great catch”. SU Athletics says he has “a upper body injury”. If his ankle is now in his upper body, I can see why he’s out for the year. Then there was Keon Lyn. “My heart goes out to them. I can relate. I missed my senior year after surgery.” We’re banged up but there are no excuses this time of year. We will take the pads off tomorrow. We want to leave it on the playing field.
Chris asked about the injuries everyone is talking about in this era of football. “Over the course of time, players get bigger, faster and can jump higher. The equipment gets better but kids fly around. There aren’t more head injuries but we take longer with them. We were pretty good until two weeks ago. We lost some people just before the Florida State game and in that game and the Pitt game. The positive is that we found other ways to get production from players like Alvin Cornelius and Durrell Eskridge on offense.”
Chris said that when he saw the pass into the end zone and the player trying to catch it was #3 he wondered what was going on. Coach repeated the story of recruiting Eskridge. He went down to look at a cornerback recruit and Eskridge was playing wide receiver and beating the highly touted cornerback on play after play. But he was enough wide-outs in the class so we were going to pass on him. But his coach called Shafer and said “I’ve got him playing safety, too”. So we took him as a safety. “I’d like to keep him at safety if we can recruit well enough at wide-out.”
Chris asked if players can play two ways in modern football. “To some degree. You can’t do a lot with them. The coverage must be right. Players have to know what pattern to run against different coverages. It’s higher learning than it used to be. The 20 hour rule comes in here. Pitt is in one particular coverage 70-80% of the time. On that play, they disguised their coverage and I said ‘Oh, No!” but they rotated way from it. It was one of those plays where another six inches could have won it for us.”
Shaf said that Terrell Hunt “is gaining confidence throwing deep. That was a good pass. His reads are a bit quicker. Boston College uses zone pressures and cover 2 or 3. They change things up.” John in Baltimore later asked if we could use Hunt “out of the pocket”, in roll-outs. “We have some movement passes in our game plan. People don’t know this but ‘T’ was banged up a little alst week and is now moving better. “
I called in my question, which I had asked Greg Robinson and Doug Marrone at a similar stage. “It was everything I signed up for. Friends told me I wasn’t going to like fund raising but I’ve met some of the most interesting people with SU degrees.” He again talked about Marvin lender, the bagel man who is “trying to pass on Jewish culture through bagels.” He loves the fact that “we are in the process of getting involved with the community. We are doing it quietly- as it should be- talking with city kids who don’t have a lot… I want to be a big part of making things great in this community. I’ve wanted this my whole life. I want people to say ‘This is my team’ and mean it. We want to win and make it good experience to go to a game…. I’m a lot more nervous than I used to be. When I was in the box I could relax a bit. On the sidelines you can’t see anything. It’s the worst seat in the building.” (Seat?) “It’s more of a chess match.”
Jack at the Red Robin asked the coach to go over what happened on the fake field goal. “Ryan is our back up kicker. He was only supposed to be doing kick-offs. When we had to start using him we started looking at fake field goals. Chris Tabor of the Browns had them do a fake we liked. We used a fake vs. NC State. But we waited all year for the right moment for this one. We looked like we were confused and a massive herd of caribou was coming on and off the field. Kendall Moore slid to the sideline, outside of the numbers. Man, I was nervous but I told myself, ‘We got it, we got it’. I thought Kendal would be going down the sideline for the winning touchdown. The ref stood over the ball an extra second and Coach Chryst called the time out.”
Chris asked about Andrew Williams of Boston College, the nation’s leading rusher. Coach: “A great player. I’ve been lucky to be around some great ones: Michael Turner, Garrett Wolfe, Anthony Thompson, Vaughn Dunbar. He’s a downhill runner, a thick bodied kid with a physical mentality. He looks for contact but has breakaway speed. We’ve seen some great quarterbacks this year but if I’m drafting for an NFL team, I’d pick him. He’s an old-school back who gets stronger as they get more carries. Boston College has scored more points in the fourth quarter than any other.”
Jamie wanted a comparison of the ACC and the Big East and Bob in Camillus asked for the impact on our recruiting. HCSS: “Well, I’m a head coach, not a coordinator.” (Laughter) “Speed. The ACC is big speed. West Virginia had good speed but not big speed. Clemson, Florida State…in Tallahassee I was looking at them warm up and they had 6-5, 6-6 wide receivers who weighed 230 pounds. Who weren’t even playing for them yet. They are different- bigger, faster. We talk about getting one or two more players but that’s not enough. We don’t’ need a boatload of them- just a handful. We need better schemes and good talent. We have good football players but we need to be deeper so we can compete with their 2nd or third players. There’s a lot of parity after the first couple of teams…. We can tell players that if they go to Miami there’ be 50 deep there but they could play for us. We want representatives up and down the eastern seaboard to open a dialog with recruits. Being on TV helps with the ACC network. The south is where the population is moving.”
“It’s good to have something to play for in November. Let’s go out and get the victory for the seniors.”
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, in this your last show of the season, could you tell us what you’ve learned about being a head coach- and a head coach at Syracuse- in this first season in that job? “
COACH SHAFER
(Note: I may combine statements that were made during different parts of the show if they are on the same subject.)
Chris McManus subbed for Matt Park who is in Hawaii. Coach said he felt sorry for Matt who was missing the change of season here.
Coach said he watched SU BC games as a kid and thrilled to be in one. They said the series is even older than the Pitt series, going back to the 20’s, (actually it goes back to 1944: we are ahead 27-18: strangely, there’s never been a tie).
This is also the last in the Dome, (and if they don’t win anywhere) for the first group of recruits of the Doug Marrone Era. “We were a downtrodden program and these kids added their energy and faith and made us respectable again. We will miss these kids.”
They talked about the three captains: Mackey McPherson, Jay Bromley and Marquis Spruill. Coach said they all came from different backgrounds. Mackey was recruited because he could snap the ball in the shotgun and we didn’t have anybody who could do that, (that still amazes me). “He said ‘I’m gonna play some football!’ and he has.” Jay grew up in Jamaica, Queens and “has had more struggles than you and I. We found him in an all-star game and couldn’t believe he had slipped through the cracks. He’s the steadiest guy I’ve ever been around. He takes on 600 pounds of double teams on every play.” Spruill, “Started out as a little brother in a bunch of veteran linebackers. When Smith and Hogue graduated, we asked him to be a leader and he said, ‘Coach, I’m not ready yet’. This year, he was ready was elected captain almost unanimously. He came here wearing military pants- he’d been to Ft. Union Academy. I asked him if he still has those pants. He said “Yes, coach but they don’t fit any more.”
They also talked about the seniors whose career ended prematurely due to injury. Becket Wales “has been banged up all season” and “re-injured his ankle making a great catch”. SU Athletics says he has “a upper body injury”. If his ankle is now in his upper body, I can see why he’s out for the year. Then there was Keon Lyn. “My heart goes out to them. I can relate. I missed my senior year after surgery.” We’re banged up but there are no excuses this time of year. We will take the pads off tomorrow. We want to leave it on the playing field.
Chris asked about the injuries everyone is talking about in this era of football. “Over the course of time, players get bigger, faster and can jump higher. The equipment gets better but kids fly around. There aren’t more head injuries but we take longer with them. We were pretty good until two weeks ago. We lost some people just before the Florida State game and in that game and the Pitt game. The positive is that we found other ways to get production from players like Alvin Cornelius and Durrell Eskridge on offense.”
Chris said that when he saw the pass into the end zone and the player trying to catch it was #3 he wondered what was going on. Coach repeated the story of recruiting Eskridge. He went down to look at a cornerback recruit and Eskridge was playing wide receiver and beating the highly touted cornerback on play after play. But he was enough wide-outs in the class so we were going to pass on him. But his coach called Shafer and said “I’ve got him playing safety, too”. So we took him as a safety. “I’d like to keep him at safety if we can recruit well enough at wide-out.”
Chris asked if players can play two ways in modern football. “To some degree. You can’t do a lot with them. The coverage must be right. Players have to know what pattern to run against different coverages. It’s higher learning than it used to be. The 20 hour rule comes in here. Pitt is in one particular coverage 70-80% of the time. On that play, they disguised their coverage and I said ‘Oh, No!” but they rotated way from it. It was one of those plays where another six inches could have won it for us.”
Shaf said that Terrell Hunt “is gaining confidence throwing deep. That was a good pass. His reads are a bit quicker. Boston College uses zone pressures and cover 2 or 3. They change things up.” John in Baltimore later asked if we could use Hunt “out of the pocket”, in roll-outs. “We have some movement passes in our game plan. People don’t know this but ‘T’ was banged up a little alst week and is now moving better. “
I called in my question, which I had asked Greg Robinson and Doug Marrone at a similar stage. “It was everything I signed up for. Friends told me I wasn’t going to like fund raising but I’ve met some of the most interesting people with SU degrees.” He again talked about Marvin lender, the bagel man who is “trying to pass on Jewish culture through bagels.” He loves the fact that “we are in the process of getting involved with the community. We are doing it quietly- as it should be- talking with city kids who don’t have a lot… I want to be a big part of making things great in this community. I’ve wanted this my whole life. I want people to say ‘This is my team’ and mean it. We want to win and make it good experience to go to a game…. I’m a lot more nervous than I used to be. When I was in the box I could relax a bit. On the sidelines you can’t see anything. It’s the worst seat in the building.” (Seat?) “It’s more of a chess match.”
Jack at the Red Robin asked the coach to go over what happened on the fake field goal. “Ryan is our back up kicker. He was only supposed to be doing kick-offs. When we had to start using him we started looking at fake field goals. Chris Tabor of the Browns had them do a fake we liked. We used a fake vs. NC State. But we waited all year for the right moment for this one. We looked like we were confused and a massive herd of caribou was coming on and off the field. Kendall Moore slid to the sideline, outside of the numbers. Man, I was nervous but I told myself, ‘We got it, we got it’. I thought Kendal would be going down the sideline for the winning touchdown. The ref stood over the ball an extra second and Coach Chryst called the time out.”
Chris asked about Andrew Williams of Boston College, the nation’s leading rusher. Coach: “A great player. I’ve been lucky to be around some great ones: Michael Turner, Garrett Wolfe, Anthony Thompson, Vaughn Dunbar. He’s a downhill runner, a thick bodied kid with a physical mentality. He looks for contact but has breakaway speed. We’ve seen some great quarterbacks this year but if I’m drafting for an NFL team, I’d pick him. He’s an old-school back who gets stronger as they get more carries. Boston College has scored more points in the fourth quarter than any other.”
Jamie wanted a comparison of the ACC and the Big East and Bob in Camillus asked for the impact on our recruiting. HCSS: “Well, I’m a head coach, not a coordinator.” (Laughter) “Speed. The ACC is big speed. West Virginia had good speed but not big speed. Clemson, Florida State…in Tallahassee I was looking at them warm up and they had 6-5, 6-6 wide receivers who weighed 230 pounds. Who weren’t even playing for them yet. They are different- bigger, faster. We talk about getting one or two more players but that’s not enough. We don’t’ need a boatload of them- just a handful. We need better schemes and good talent. We have good football players but we need to be deeper so we can compete with their 2nd or third players. There’s a lot of parity after the first couple of teams…. We can tell players that if they go to Miami there’ be 50 deep there but they could play for us. We want representatives up and down the eastern seaboard to open a dialog with recruits. Being on TV helps with the ACC network. The south is where the population is moving.”
“It’s good to have something to play for in November. Let’s go out and get the victory for the seniors.”
