You guys still wanna pass a hat to keep Shafer here?

[OttoinGrotto]

I disagree. I personally feel that this season has been a meltdown everywhere; O, D, and ST...Marrone is the big cheese so he ultimately shoulders the blame for all of it. That said, the O has taken heat, and ST have taken heat. all justified. The D has been strangely immune to some justified criticism.

Oh, it has been a meltdown everywhere. We have three bad units.

I don't worry about the D as much because Shafer has shown he can put a good D on the field. Plus, I don't ever believe that the D has as much responsibility for game outcomes as the offense.

We've yet to show under Marrone that we can put a good offense or good special teams out there.

 

[qdawgg]

I'm not saying the defense hasn't been bad. It has. I am saying that Shafer is a coach worth having though. His defense has not performed well. Those issues are exacerbated by the performance of the offense.

This is what I think is happening, and I'm not saying you're the one doing it, just that it's happening. People on the board don't want the blame to be at Marrone's feet. The defense is the only unit on the team where he clearly doesn't have his fingers in the pie. So, who does the board look to if they want to explain the team's performance without sticking it on Marrone?

Nobody is right in these arguments - I don't completely agree with you but I don't disagree with what your saying either. Does that make sense? Probably not, lol. I think you are definitely wrong that people don't want to put blame at Marrone's feet, the board has been blasting him all year on many different topics; recruiting, hiring of Hackett, game decisions, lack of emotion, etc.

 

[690West]

So that we could "pin" this to the top?

Exactly. Douse is as good as it gets. Lol

 

[Dcuse]

Oh, it has been a meltdown everywhere. We have three bad units.

I don't worry about the D as much because Shafer has shown he can put a good D on the field. Plus, I don't ever believe that the D has as much responsibility for game outcomes as the offense.

We've yet to show under Marrone that we can put a good offense or good special teams out there.

Well, I'm sorry but you would be 100% wrong. Shafer has shown nothing this year other than the WV anomoly. We couldn't stop Tulane. Hell, we struggled stopping Rhode Island. If you want to argue that the worst unit is ST,I wouldn't disagree with you,but the defense has been EVERY BIT if not more pathetic than the offense almost this entire season.

 

[Maxsumm]

The D kept them in games last year that they had no business being in (Wva,USF) the game today was 10-6 at half, defense is not the biggest problem not even close

 

[Pyle]

D was advertised in spring as not the strongest unit on the team. No surprise here. We knew our LBs were undersized, our DTs are undersized. How are teams beating us? Pounding it. This is football 101. The biggest problem in my eyes is that the QB, WRs, and OL were all supposed to be strengths going into the season. That is where the false advertising has been. Nassib is NOT good. Period. Average at best. No field vision, no accuracy beyond 10-15 yards, no touch, no ability to escape any pressure. Combined with the bad OL play and constant drops by WRs, what exactly are we blaming the D for? I think they've played better than we should have expected this year. It's the rest of the team tanking that we didn't plan for.

 

[kcsu]

Shafer is the best coach we have by a long shot not even close. What the hell does everyone expect. The O was supposed to carry this team. We have a completely new D this year brand new all new LB,s and interior guys. New CB's are you Kidding me the D has given up they realize that it is useless to fight because the O has zero chance of ever winning a game. Question has the O ever given our D a 10 point lead other than WVU in the first quarter? Ever?

 

[VirginiaOrange]

The biggest problem that I have with the defense is the inablity to stop simple plays that are run over and over again. Cincinnati ran flair passes to the back 2 or 3 times in a row several times and SU did nothing to stop it. That is not a size or talent issue - that is coaching and desire.

Also disappointed to see basics like tackling not improve and the dumb penalties not end (Lyn was lucky early on not to get a 15 yarder when he hit a guy on the ground).

Finally - the passing plays where no one is within 10 yards of guys (many this year) have nothing to do with size (and most of the time they aren't because of lack of pressure - rather SU's DBs are just lost).

Bottom line - size may play into some of the problem but there have been a lot more big plays resulting from coaching and technique mistakes than there have been from size.

 

[Pyle]

Well I can't argue that much, but I saw time and time again Davis covering the slot WR today and couldn't get off the block to make a play. If our LBs can't get off a WR block then we won't defend anything. Maybe it's technique, maybe it's being undersized, or probably a bit of both.

 

[Dick_in_MI]

Plus, I don't ever believe that the D has as much responsibility for game outcomes as the offense.

Technically speaking, the D is the only squad that can lose a game...if they give up no points then the worst outcome is a draw.

That philosophical scenario aside, it's pretty equal between O and D in terms of effect on outcome. We won 10 games with RJ Anderson at QB simply because we had some guy named Freeney dominating the game on defense.

In today's case, all but one Cincy scoring drive started in their own territory, plus we allowed them to march from their own 19 to our 15 before missing a FG.

I'm not saying that the O and specials have not been bad. I just think that the D has been lousy too and it is not being discussed as much, or excuses keep being made for it.

 

[qdawgg]

The D kept them in games last year that they had no business being in (Wva,USF) the game today was 10-6 at half, defense is not the biggest problem not even close

Really? Cincy put up 20 in the 2nd half but that's the fault of the offense.

 

[rosconey]

we have no talent on defense up front-line is putrid on a good day and this is by far the worst group of linebackers in su history- the db's look out of place because they spend so much time looking in the back field for a running back thats broke free(or qb)

and i think they have divided themselves from the pathetic thing called offense

 

[Cadillac]

Will a Syracuse team stop the read option

just ing once?!?

 

[qdawgg]

Will a Syracuse team stop the read option

just ******* once?!?

It's not even like we're trying to stop a good QB running the system - thank god we've been playing sh!tty QB's

 

[DomeStranger]

If you take the WV game out of the equation (obvious fluke) this team is averaging 15 points per game in BE play. It really doesn't matter what the defense does if you can't get more than 15 on the board.

 

[qdawgg]

If you take the WV game out of the equation (obvious fluke) this team is averaging 15 points per game in BE play. It really doesn't matter what the defense does if you can't get more than 15 on the board.

So if the offense sucks that excludes the defense if they suck too?

 

[Dick_in_MI]

If you take the WV game out of the equation (obvious fluke) this team is averaging 15 points per game in BE play. It really doesn't matter what the defense does if you can't get more than 15 on the board.

No, but that really isn't the point is it?

I have not seen anyone suggest that our offense or special teams aren't the biggest problem. I do think it's folly to give the D a free pass though.

Maybe if we were a Top 30 defense, then you could do that. But when the D is ranked #72 in total D, #70 in scoring D, and both rankings likely to drop even further after today, then they have to be subject to some scrutiny as well. Since you want to throw out the WVU game for the O, let's do WVU for the D too...that would mean that there were only two other games where we held the opposition to fewer than 27 points and one of those was Rhode Island.

The D may not be the biggest problem, but it's certainly not helping the cause. It would be foolish to gloss over it.

 

[rosconey]

the man has nothing to work with-jones and marinovich arent any good-interior linemen are even worse-
the saddest group of linebackers in su history in the middle and small slow kids out back who are paranoid about the run because the front end is so bad-

man proved his first 2 years if given average talent he can keep games close-marrone hasnt recruited anyone to help his defense-

he will be wanted based on his first 2 years not this one-

 

[storange]

The D kept them in games last year that they had no business being in (Wva,USF) the game today was 10-6 at half, defense is not the biggest problem not even close

Cinncy had a bunch of rushing yardage in the first half and ran the same ing qb fake and run for big yardage. The D was terrible. Against Uconn we took the lead twice in the second half just to have a bad Uconn offense drive it right down our throats. 1-5 in a shitty conference just isn't making it after year three. I like Doug, but man does he need to find something during the off season or he won't be around for year 5

 

[DallasOrange]

Well, I'm sorry but you would be 100% wrong. Shafer has shown nothing this year other than the WV anomoly. We couldn't stop Tulane. Hell, we struggled stopping Rhode Island. If you want to argue that the worst unit is ST,I wouldn't disagree with you,but the defense has been EVERY BIT if not more pathetic than the offense almost this entire season.

Agree. Shafer has been terrible, Hackett not much better, and we don't have very good players. Not a good recipe for success.

 

[Cuseman78]

Shafer is a good coach. The problem is the offense. We think the problem is the defense because we see so much of them.

Why do we see the defense so much? Because the offense is terrible.

You don't see much of the offense, defense, or special teams seeing that you don't actually watch the games. I kid, I kid.

And coming from someone who did actually watch the game, I can tell you that the defense was also a problem. As were the specials, as was the offense.

It all fell apart this year after the WVU game. I have no idea why or what happened but it all absolutely fell apart. All 3 phases.

 

[Scooch]

You don't see much of the offense, defense, or special teams seeing that you don't actually watch the games. I kid, I kid.

And coming from someone who did actually watch the game, I can tell you that the defense was also a problem. As were the specials, as was the offense.

It all fell apart this year after the WVU game. I have no idea why or what happened but it all absolutely fell apart. All 3 phases.

I actually think all 3 phases have been pretty crappy all year. Granted it's magnified because of the false hope we got from that great WVU win, but we looked anywhere from pedestrian to downright lousy for long stretches of games we won (WF, URI, Toledo, Tulane) prior to that.

 

[Cuse2010]

Here is my problem. The fundamentals of tackling. The coaches have put them in position to make plays, and they are not making them. Several times tonight it took the 3rd guy to make the tackle and all year the secondary (especially Phillip Thomas would make a great hit but fail to wrap up the player who bounces off and gets another 5 yards. That was one of the first things I noticed improvement on in year 1, but is lacking now