SWC75
Bored Historian
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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)
(I decided to go with my gut and ask the question I really wanted to ask.)
“Coach, I was in the stands at Archbold in 1978 when two Florida State players tackled our star quarterback, Bill Hurley, but did not bring him to the ground. Instead they held him up and pulled his arms apart while a teammate speared Bill in the ribcage. Hurley never played another down that year.
Then I was in the stands in the Dome last Saturday when Eric Dungey got off a touchdown pass while being tackled from behind. A player five yards in front of him charged at him, hands raised and hit him helmet to helmet with his raised hands under Eric’s chin, which snapped violently back. Even after he was down the guy behind him grabbed Eric’s foot and was violently twisting it.
What can we do to get this sort of thing out of football? The present rules don’t seem adequate to the task.”
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 Shafer declared Leonard Fournette to be the best player he’s ever coached against. “He’s averaging 8 yards a carry”. He said he was glad Fournette will be gone by the time we got to Baton Rouge in 2017. He described his admiration for former LSU coach Paul Dietzel who grew up in Mansfield, Ohio. “He won the 1958 national championship down there and was similar to Ben Schwartzwalder. Les Miles lived an hour away from where I grew up. “
Matt asked about the status of Eric Dungey. “He’ll be out this game. He’s going well. I just had breakfast with him this morning. He’s frustrated he can’t play this week and we’ll be excited to get him back as soon as possible. He’s real close. We’ll probably get him back next Tuesday or Wednesday. “ (So if we had the bye week this week and played LSU next week….)
That was a good lead-in to my question, which I was glad I chose because most of the calls tonight were on the subject of Dungey’s injury anyway. It was not a subject to be avoided. I’ll combine the coach’s comments here.
“It’s major subject at coach’s meetings for the last couple of years. Two years ago we came up with the targeting rule and I think it’s a good rule. I’m a defensive coach and it’s a difficult call when an offensive player lowers his shoulder. But Saturday was a lot different. I saw what you saw, Steve. We’ll continue to talk about it, to look at the pictures and videos. There’s a lot more targeting ejections early in the season and then the numbers go down. We teach players to run through the chest and not go helmet to helmet. In the NFL when they started penalizing helmet to helmet hits, players went for the thighs and they had more knee injuries. We’ve got to continue to scrutinize it, to look at it and apply good common sense. We have to protect the players. You want to be aggressive but do things in a smart way. .
Liam in Pompey said “That’s not the way football should be played. Mitch Stanitzek shouldn’t be allowed to play the rest of the year.” Coach: “Basically, we followed the rules. Coach Bonamego talked to me after the game and texted an apology Sunday morning. He apologized. The young man apologized. The damage was done. I’ll have my opinion in this year’s coach’s conference. I don’t look back. You want to take such plays out of the game as best you can. It will be interesting if there’s an upswing of these plays or if the players do a better job of taking care of each other.” (Is that what the players are doing out there: taking care of each other?)
“Coach Bonamego is a good man.” (He’s a good amigo.) “He’s a good coach. He said their player felt terrible. I’ve seen our players take it to the edge as well. We have to move on.”
Later a caller named Frank, if I understood correctly, suggested we should have retaliated. Coach: I love the game too much. As a representative in this field, I want to protect the game. It’s a competitive, physical game, a lot like ice hockey. Getting hurt is part of the game. You have to keep you head on a swivel. You get your butt kicked but you get back up. It’s an unbelievable sport for young people. People who have never played don’t know what they’ve missed.”
“You do want to put the fear of God in the other player’s heads. You want the quarterbacks’ vision to be 5-10 yards in front of him, not downfield. But you want to protect the game.”
Matt said that LSU had been called for targeting twice this year and that linebacker Dean Jones will miss the first half of the game because of one of those calls. Coach: “He’s got a good back up and he’ll be rarin’ to go in the second half.” Coach went on to describe the Tiger defense and the challenge they present: “They get off their blocks quickly. They are very strong with good hands. We have to maintain our blocks and give them some misdirection. There’s not a lot of trickery in their defense. They are fairly straight-forward.” (That’s often the best plan when you have better athletes: why burden them with complicated schemes?)
They mentioned that former SU coach Ed Orgeron was coaching the Tiger’s defensive line. “He is outstanding. We spent the weekend looking at film, trying to find a weakness. We couldn’t find one. We need to attack their tendencies, do a good job of throwing the ball into their coverages, see where their linebackers are….They don’t have Zack Mahoney’s tendencies.“ (Neither do we.) “The kid is extremely smart. The defense loves it when he’s running the scout team because he gets everybody organized better than anyone else. I’m happy for this opportunity. He had a good practice today. Austin threw the ball well. A. L. Long isn’t quite where we want him to be or where we want him to be. That’s who we are going with Saturday.”
Facing their offense: “They have a young quarterback.” That’s all he said other than praising Fournette. “We’ve seen a lot of great tailbacks. We’re looking for the challenge and making this interesting. We need to play as hard as we can for as long as we can and then look at where we are. Enjoy the experience”.
A caller named Cagney wondered if the coach was worried about there being eno9ugh alcohol in Syracuse for LSU fans. He said “That’s not part of my core.” He joked “After a win I tended to became a commissure of fine liquor. But after a loss I tended toward alcoholism.“ Hopefully we’ll be a dry town by then.
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)
(I decided to go with my gut and ask the question I really wanted to ask.)
“Coach, I was in the stands at Archbold in 1978 when two Florida State players tackled our star quarterback, Bill Hurley, but did not bring him to the ground. Instead they held him up and pulled his arms apart while a teammate speared Bill in the ribcage. Hurley never played another down that year.
Then I was in the stands in the Dome last Saturday when Eric Dungey got off a touchdown pass while being tackled from behind. A player five yards in front of him charged at him, hands raised and hit him helmet to helmet with his raised hands under Eric’s chin, which snapped violently back. Even after he was down the guy behind him grabbed Eric’s foot and was violently twisting it.
What can we do to get this sort of thing out of football? The present rules don’t seem adequate to the task.”
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 Shafer declared Leonard Fournette to be the best player he’s ever coached against. “He’s averaging 8 yards a carry”. He said he was glad Fournette will be gone by the time we got to Baton Rouge in 2017. He described his admiration for former LSU coach Paul Dietzel who grew up in Mansfield, Ohio. “He won the 1958 national championship down there and was similar to Ben Schwartzwalder. Les Miles lived an hour away from where I grew up. “
Matt asked about the status of Eric Dungey. “He’ll be out this game. He’s going well. I just had breakfast with him this morning. He’s frustrated he can’t play this week and we’ll be excited to get him back as soon as possible. He’s real close. We’ll probably get him back next Tuesday or Wednesday. “ (So if we had the bye week this week and played LSU next week….)
That was a good lead-in to my question, which I was glad I chose because most of the calls tonight were on the subject of Dungey’s injury anyway. It was not a subject to be avoided. I’ll combine the coach’s comments here.
“It’s major subject at coach’s meetings for the last couple of years. Two years ago we came up with the targeting rule and I think it’s a good rule. I’m a defensive coach and it’s a difficult call when an offensive player lowers his shoulder. But Saturday was a lot different. I saw what you saw, Steve. We’ll continue to talk about it, to look at the pictures and videos. There’s a lot more targeting ejections early in the season and then the numbers go down. We teach players to run through the chest and not go helmet to helmet. In the NFL when they started penalizing helmet to helmet hits, players went for the thighs and they had more knee injuries. We’ve got to continue to scrutinize it, to look at it and apply good common sense. We have to protect the players. You want to be aggressive but do things in a smart way. .
Liam in Pompey said “That’s not the way football should be played. Mitch Stanitzek shouldn’t be allowed to play the rest of the year.” Coach: “Basically, we followed the rules. Coach Bonamego talked to me after the game and texted an apology Sunday morning. He apologized. The young man apologized. The damage was done. I’ll have my opinion in this year’s coach’s conference. I don’t look back. You want to take such plays out of the game as best you can. It will be interesting if there’s an upswing of these plays or if the players do a better job of taking care of each other.” (Is that what the players are doing out there: taking care of each other?)
“Coach Bonamego is a good man.” (He’s a good amigo.) “He’s a good coach. He said their player felt terrible. I’ve seen our players take it to the edge as well. We have to move on.”
Later a caller named Frank, if I understood correctly, suggested we should have retaliated. Coach: I love the game too much. As a representative in this field, I want to protect the game. It’s a competitive, physical game, a lot like ice hockey. Getting hurt is part of the game. You have to keep you head on a swivel. You get your butt kicked but you get back up. It’s an unbelievable sport for young people. People who have never played don’t know what they’ve missed.”
“You do want to put the fear of God in the other player’s heads. You want the quarterbacks’ vision to be 5-10 yards in front of him, not downfield. But you want to protect the game.”
Matt said that LSU had been called for targeting twice this year and that linebacker Dean Jones will miss the first half of the game because of one of those calls. Coach: “He’s got a good back up and he’ll be rarin’ to go in the second half.” Coach went on to describe the Tiger defense and the challenge they present: “They get off their blocks quickly. They are very strong with good hands. We have to maintain our blocks and give them some misdirection. There’s not a lot of trickery in their defense. They are fairly straight-forward.” (That’s often the best plan when you have better athletes: why burden them with complicated schemes?)
They mentioned that former SU coach Ed Orgeron was coaching the Tiger’s defensive line. “He is outstanding. We spent the weekend looking at film, trying to find a weakness. We couldn’t find one. We need to attack their tendencies, do a good job of throwing the ball into their coverages, see where their linebackers are….They don’t have Zack Mahoney’s tendencies.“ (Neither do we.) “The kid is extremely smart. The defense loves it when he’s running the scout team because he gets everybody organized better than anyone else. I’m happy for this opportunity. He had a good practice today. Austin threw the ball well. A. L. Long isn’t quite where we want him to be or where we want him to be. That’s who we are going with Saturday.”
Facing their offense: “They have a young quarterback.” That’s all he said other than praising Fournette. “We’ve seen a lot of great tailbacks. We’re looking for the challenge and making this interesting. We need to play as hard as we can for as long as we can and then look at where we are. Enjoy the experience”.
A caller named Cagney wondered if the coach was worried about there being eno9ugh alcohol in Syracuse for LSU fans. He said “That’s not part of my core.” He joked “After a win I tended to became a commissure of fine liquor. But after a loss I tended toward alcoholism.“ Hopefully we’ll be a dry town by then.
