The Upside | Syracusefan.com

The Upside

SWC75

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- You want comparative scores? How about #1 ranked LSU 47 West Virginia 21. Syracuse 49 West Virginia 23. Also: West Virginia gained 553 yards against LSU’s awesome defense. They got 408 against ours.

- We argued all week: should we grind it out and keep Geno Smith off the field or do we come out firing and try to outscore them? We did both. We finally used the entire playbook, the whole field and all of our weapons and we had long drives that kept Smith off the field - and we scored on them. And it wasn’t field goals like last year when we had four of them. It was touchdowns- seven of them.

- We did what good teams in all sport do. When the other team scored, we answered them. Stedman Bailey tightropes down the sideline for a 64 yard score. Dorian Graham cruises through the middle of the field for a 98 yard kick off return. West Virginia scores on the opening possession of the second half to make it 21-16. We score touchdowns in our next four possessions. Even their all-too-easy final score, (over Kevyn Scott, naturally), was answered by our final score. We grabbed this game by the throat and never let go of it.

- Geno Smith might be glad to have been on the sidelines because we kept pounding him during the game. He got his numbers: 338 yards and two scores. But we put him on his pants repeatedly and in the end he seemed almost punch drunk, throwing balls right to defenders he didn’t seem to know were there. It was like the old Dwight Freeney days.

- Chandler Jones had waited seven weeks to get back in action and he took it out on the Mountaineers. He absolutely beat up the guys in front of him. On one play he bull-rushed the tackle and shoved him toward Smith, then reached around the guy to grab Smith with one arm and then tackled the both of them. It reminded me of a legendary Tim Green play. We were playing Army, a wishbone team whose quarterback and fullback had both run for 1000 yards that season. The QB was handing off to the FB when Tim broke through the line and grabbed both of them, one in each arm, and tackled two 1000 yard rushers at once. We are a totally different defense with #99 in there. We don’t have to blitz as much and can cover receivers all the better because of it.

- Ryan Nassib returned to his form of early season, actually beyond that. It was not just the number, which were fabulous- 24 of 32 for 229 yards, 4 TDs and 0 interceptions. He also ran for a score. But it was his poise and presence out there that impressed me the most. He was totally in control of that game. He saw the whole field and didn’t make a wrong move all day. He played the offense- and West Virginia’s defense- like a violin.

- Brent Axe said that he thought Nick Provo might have a bad game because West Virginia would realize how important he is to our offense and they would make sure and take him away from us. Nick and his tight end colleagues caught 10 of the 24 passes Nassib completed, including all four touchdowns. They were basically unguarded. Jeff Casteel, (the Mountaineer‘s much lauded DC) should have tuned into the Axeman.

- The patience the coaches showed with Dorian Graham who couldn’t even catch a pass last year has paid off. He might be the best player on the team now, except for Jones and Nassib. He’s running possession routes, making great catches and scoring touchdowns. He’s a great blocker. He’s a tremendous gunner when we kick and he can take nit to downs himself when they kick it to him. I like the fact that he was set back on the kick-offs to be parallel to Kobena. They can each cover one side of the field and they can each go the distance. When you have Graham as an up back, Kobena has to cover the whole field and spends too much time going sideways. Using the two of them as returners gives us perhaps the best dual threat for kick-off returns in the country. Now if they would make Graham the punt returner as well…

- Jonathan Fisher punted four times for 44.4 yards. None of them was close to being blocked. I’ll take it. No more of Raupers, please.

- Doug Marrone has said for three years he’s been waiting for his team to put it all together and play well in every aspect of the game. He finally got it and it came at the right time. I still believe the primary, (not necessarily the only), reason for the decline of the program was those awful beatings we took on national TV. When a recruit sees us lose 0-49, 0-43, 0-62, 0-59, 0-51, etc. they are going to wonder if they want to be in the middle of that. But recruits were looking at this game and asking: “Where do I sign?”

- When we have a bad game, you always see or hear some people say that we just don’t have the talent to do well. We don’t have the speed. We’ll never be as good as fill-in-the-blank. It’s either Marrones fault for not recruiting five star players or it’s because we don’t have the facilities or because we are a private school in a cold climate in a state that doesn’t produce talent so we can‘t do as well as the fans want and we can‘t use any strategies other than the ones we are using. We looked pretty talented and capable tonight.

- I said earlier that with some many guys in the two deep on both sides of the ball coming back next year, we will be rooting for basically this same team for two years. We will loose a couple of key guys and bring in another recruiting class. But it will basically be the same team. And now we have seen how good they can be. More importantly, so have they.
 
 
 
 
Say I'm in high school come home and watch the sportscenter highlights of this game and SU is recruting me... Yeah I think it makes a difference, much bigger if I watched the whole game live.
 
- You want comparative scores? How about #1 ranked LSU 47 West Virginia 21. Syracuse 49 West Virginia 23. Also: West Virginia gained 553 yards against LSU’s awesome defense. They got 408 against ours.

- We argued all week: should we grind it out and keep Geno Smith off the field or do we come out firing and try to outscore them? We did both. We finally used the entire playbook, the whole field and all of our weapons and we had long drives that kept Smith off the field - and we scored on them. And it wasn’t field goals like last year when we had four of them. It was touchdowns- seven of them.

- We did what good teams in all sport do. When the other team scored, we answered them. Stedman Bailey tightropes down the sideline for a 64 yard score. Dorian Graham cruises through the middle of the field for a 98 yard kick off return. West Virginia scores on the opening possession of the second half to make it 21-16. We score touchdowns in our next four possessions. Even their all-too-easy final score, (over Kevyn Scott, naturally), was answered by our final score. We grabbed this game by the throat and never let go of it.

- Geno Smith might be glad to have been on the sidelines because we kept pounding him during the game. He got his numbers: 338 yards and two scores. But we put him on his pants repeatedly and in the end he seemed almost punch drunk, throwing balls right to defenders he didn’t seem to know were there. It was like the old Dwight Freeney days.

- Chandler Jones had waited seven weeks to get back in action and he took it out on the Mountaineers. He absolutely beat up the guys in front of him. On one play he bull-rushed the tackle and shoved him toward Smith, then reached around the guy to grab Smith with one arm and then tackled the both of them. It reminded me of a legendary Tim Green play. We were playing Army, a wishbone team whose quarterback and fullback had both run for 1000 yards that season. The QB was handing off to the FB when Tim broke through the line and grabbed both of them, one in each arm, and tackled two 1000 yard rushers at once. We are a totally different defense with #99 in there. We don’t have to blitz as much and can cover receivers all the better because of it.

- Ryan Nassib returned to his form of early season, actually beyond that. It was not just the number, which were fabulous- 24 of 32 for 229 yards, 4 TDs and 0 interceptions. He also ran for a score. But it was his poise and presence out there that impressed me the most. He was totally in control of that game. He saw the whole field and didn’t make a wrong move all day. He played the offense- and West Virginia’s defense- like a violin.

- Brent Axe said that he thought Nick Provo might have a bad game because West Virginia would realize how important he is to our offense and they would make sure and take him away from us. Nick and his tight end colleagues caught 10 of the 24 passes Nassib completed, including all four touchdowns. They were basically unguarded. Jeff Casteel, (the Mountaineer‘s much lauded DC) should have tuned into the Axeman.

- The patience the coaches showed with Dorian Graham who couldn’t even catch a pass last year has paid off. He might be the best player on the team now, except for Jones and Nassib. He’s running possession routes, making great catches and scoring touchdowns. He’s a great blocker. He’s a tremendous gunner when we kick and he can take nit to downs himself when they kick it to him. I like the fact that he was set back on the kick-offs to be parallel to Kobena. They can each cover one side of the field and they can each go the distance. When you have Graham as an up back, Kobena has to cover the whole field and spends too much time going sideways. Using the two of them as returners gives us perhaps the best dual threat for kick-off returns in the country. Now if they would make Graham the punt returner as well…

- Jonathan Fisher punted four times for 44.4 yards. None of them was close to being blocked. I’ll take it. No more of Raupers, please.

- Doug Marrone has said for three years he’s been waiting for his team to put it all together and play well in every aspect of the game. He finally got it and it came at the right time. I still believe the primary, (not necessarily the only), reason for the decline of the program was those awful beatings we took on national TV. When a recruit sees us lose 0-49, 0-43, 0-62, 0-59, 0-51, etc. they are going to wonder if they want to be in the middle of that. But recruits were looking at this game and asking: “Where do I sign?”

- When we have a bad game, you always see or hear some people say that we just don’t have the talent to do well. We don’t have the speed. We’ll never be as good as fill-in-the-blank. It’s either Marrones fault for not recruiting five star players or it’s because we don’t have the facilities or because we are a private school in a cold climate in a state that doesn’t produce talent so we can‘t do as well as the fans want and we can‘t use any strategies other than the ones we are using. We looked pretty talented and capable tonight.

- I said earlier that with some many guys in the two deep on both sides of the ball coming back next year, we will be rooting for basically this same team for two years. We will loose a couple of key guys and bring in another recruiting class. But it will basically be the same team. And now we have seen how good they can be. More importantly, so have they.
 
 
 
good post but you forgot bailey in the best player discussion. nothing against anyone else. i just really like that guy
 
good post but you forgot bailey in the best player discussion. nothing against anyone else. i just really like that guy

You're right. In the fourth quarter I turned to a friend and said "When we win, Bailey always breaks one. he's due." The next play was the 50 yarder. They did use him between the tackles early vs. the 3-3-5 but they also got it to him in space with passes, sweeps and draws. That's what they need to do.
 
You're right. In the fourth quarter I turned to a friend and said "When we win, Bailey always breaks one. he's due." The next play was the 50 yarder. They did use him between the tackles early vs. the 3-3-5 but they also got it to him in space with passes, sweeps and draws. That's what they need to do.
Fantastic post! Very accurate and excellent perspective. This game shows what this coaching staff is capable of. As the talent level improves look out!
 

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