The Upside- Ohio U. | Syracusefan.com

The Upside- Ohio U.

SWC75

Bored Historian
Joined
Aug 26, 2011
Messages
32,278
Like
62,396
- We were 1-0, not 1-10. As Coach Mac used to say, every victory is beautiful. I feel like we’ve surfaced and can now grasp for air.

- Ben Schwartzwalder would have loved this game. We won it with long grinding drives that wore out the other team while our defense held the other team in check. We ran the ball 44 times and passed it 18 times. The runs got us an average of 6.4 yards, the passes only 5.6. Somewhere Ben and Mac are celebrating together.

- Yes they are a MAC team but Lindy’s had them winning their division and they’ve had 11 winning seasons in the last 12 years. In interviews with coaches and journalists associated with Ohio U. this past week, I had the strong impression they fully expected to win this one. Yes, we are an ACC team but we are a 1-10 ACC team and Ohio churns out winning records every year. Vegas had favored the Bobcats, then shifted to us by a small margin. We won by 20. We were a 1-10 team. Not anymore.

- It starts up front. We gave up no sacks and never turned the ball over while our lead runner ran for 181 yards and a touchdown.

- Sean Tucker is well on his way to that 1,000 season he wants and Dino wants to get him. He ran tough and smart took advantages of the opening when they were there. I thought maybe he, Abdul Adams and Jarveon Howard would rotate. Nope #34 is the guy.

- Tommy DeVito was more of a game manager than a dynamic passer but he performed that role well, completing 7 of 11 for 95 yards while running the ball more than I remember, for 49 yards and a score. As with Tucker, there’s not going to be a rotation. Tommy is clearly the guy, at least for now.

- The defense kept plays in front of them all night and their open-field tackling was excellent all night, which is quite a change from recent years. The offense took a long time to get the clinching points the pessimist in me expect a big play or big break to go Ohio’s way that would give them the lead and then we’ll be in trouble. But we were never in trouble.

- And they did it despite injuries to two key players, DE Kingsley Jonathan and Garrett Williams, our star cornerback. But we have a new star quarterback. The Bobcats clearly wanted to avoid Williams and kept going at Duce Chestnut – and going nowhere. He also had the clinching interception. He ought to be promoted to Tre Chestnut. From now on they’ll run the plays the other way.

- But Mikel Jones lead the team in tackles with 10. He’s still the leader of this defense. The other linebackers, Geoff Cantin-Arku, Stefon Thompson and Marlowe Wax, also played well.

- That Rutgers score was scary to look at: 61-14 over Temple. The Owls have had some decent teams in recent years: winning records in 2009-11 and 2015-19. But they were only 1-6 last year. Athlon predicted that they’d be the worst team in the AAC this year. They were out-gained only 261-365. 5 turnovers to none made it as bad as it was. If we can beat the Scarlet Knights next week, we should be 3-0 going into the revenge game against Liberty. Football could be fun again!

1-0 with 11+ to go

LET’S GO ORANGE!!!
 
I would add that we had 3 different people rush for touchdowns without the benefit of our best run blocking OL and FB (Even our passing QB ran for 1!)

Speaking of TD, I agree he wasn’t spectacular but he did make 4-5 really nice reads on his runs, completed 2 passes on the run/scramble. Also those intermediate throws were all in tight windows and if they were off target or slower throws, they would not have been completed, I think we underestimate the benefits of his velocity/accuracy sometimes and assume all QBs can fit those throws in before the coverage collapses (many can’t)
 

Forum statistics

Threads
167,142
Messages
4,682,922
Members
5,901
Latest member
CarlsbergMD

Online statistics

Members online
66
Guests online
952
Total visitors
1,018


Top Bottom