Syracuse football - season long thread

[twofingers]

Season ticket holder for many years. Will try to keep everyone updated on the Orange.

Lots of questions once again heading into season.

Strengths:

Wide receivers - Above average. Taj Smith is a burner and back from shoulder injury. Mike Williams showed promise as a freshman, good speed and hands. Lavar Lobell has looked much improved, slimmed down and gotten stronger but has been a disaster since being heavily recruited by lots of elite schools and choosing SU. They are all between 6'1 and 6'3 and should be able to get some seperation, something that has been rarely seen in last few years. Loss their starting TE in Ferron as he quits on team at start of summer. Their progress depends on OL and QB.

Defensive Front - McClain is a talented DE but got most of those sacks last year against the bottom feeders on SU schedule. Lee Williams at other end has dropped weight and looking faster. DT Jenkins has lost weight and hit the weight room hard. It is imperative that this group hold their own or that 150+ yards of rushing per game they gave up last year will go higher. They will get after the passer.

Secondary - Four upperclassmen, two returning starters, other two saw plenty of time. Fields showed promise in making the switch from QB last year and will be even better. Must stop giving long the home run ball.

Weakness;

OL - Horrible in both pass protection and run blocking lst year. undisciplined group. Three of them return for another go around, joined by Senior norton and junior Chavers. Depth is non existent with tthree red shirt fresh and one true fresh. If they improve, the offense improves. if not, your looking at another 100 offensive ranking.

RB - loss of carter is huge. brinkley is still recovering from knee surgery in spring and has not shown much this fall. Chiara is the back up and he is slow to the hole. Unless brinkley gets to 100% soon and shows some improvement ( lost his job to true fresh last year), this will be a bad news group.

LB - All three are new. None saw any significant time last year. Speed will be an issue. unless D line shows up huge, they will be overmatched against all except Buffalo and Miami-Ohio.

unknowns:

QB: The Andrew Robinson era begins. Classic pocket passer. Good arm. if line protects and he gets the ball to the receivers, Maybe some good things will happen. I can see lots of growing pains.


I look for a 5-6 season with wins over Illinois, Buffalo , Miami, UCONN and Pitt.


Tonight, i like Washington -3.5. I can not see this OL coming out in the opener and giving Robinson the time he eeds to be comfortable in his debut. Running game cant take the pressure off. The defense should be alright.

Washington 17 SU 10

 

[rubiconed]

Thanks for the write up, and info !!! GL tonight !!! :00hour

 

[thebsmanofkent]

I like your final score, and love the Under in this
game. I follow Washington and the Pac-10 and
would lean to the Huskies, but don't know if I
would lay the -3' on the road. I am taking the
under (45) tonight. Something like 20-14/17....
GL

 

[AR182]

I like your final score, and love the Under in this
game. I follow Washington and the Pac-10 and
would lean to the Huskies, but don't know if I
would lay the -3' on the road. I am taking the
under (45) tonight. Something like 20-14/17....
GL

i agree i also like the under.

very nice write-up twofingers.

good luck this season.

 

[twofingers]

A utter embarrassment.

On national TV no less.

The three things i mentioned as weaknesses were never more evident then tonight. Our linebackers could not tackle a blocking sled. The offensive line was offensive and there is no running game.

i forgot to mention one other weakness....Greg Robinson.

The next in game adjustment he makes will be his first. As usual, SU comes out of halftime and gets blown away. Back to back 80 yard drives.

To make matters worse, we had a drunk behind us who never shut up all night.

Getting the bourbon out for a stiff nightcap.

 

[JCDunkDogs]

Thanks for the nice write up, and sorry about the game. Hope Greg Robinson gets it straightened out for next oponent. Good luck.

 

[jw7777]

Robinson is awful...Had to endure him in KC..he was basically run out of town

 

[TouchdownJesus]

Syracuse football has killed me for years. I feel your pain. Game started and they got the nice KO return. Drive stalled but they got 3 points from the most out of shape kicker in America.

Seemed like they were playing really good 1st qtr. I kept thinking, those Pasqualoni days are long gone (Pasqualoni screwed me to no end).

Then they played like a bunch of turds for 3 qtrs.

 

[Wise and Wiser]

The SU football program is finished. Forget about it! The Orange will never return to the glory days. The admission standards are much tougher now than in years past. The new chancellor is determined to make SU one of the top 50 academic institutions in the country. There are a bunch of geeks on campus now. People who could care less about football. Tailgateing is nonexistent. If you're a star high school football player, why would you want to go there? No parties, football on turf, frigid weather, etc. I'm glad Syracuse has high academic standards, after all, that's what universities should be all about, but don't expect much from the athletics program. The lacrosse team missed the tournament for the first time, the basketball team played in the NIT, and the football team is DII caliber. Tougher admissions equals fewer wins, plain and simple. I will be shocked if Syracuse wins 5 games!

 

[twofingers]

1-0 picking Syracuse games

This week: at Iowa +21.5

Under Robinson, here is how the Orange have fared as double digit road dog:

05

@FSU +22.5 L 14-38 O42
@Pitt +11 L 17-34 O42
@ND + 33.5 W 10-34 U53.5
@LV +37 W 17-41 U 59.5

06

@WK +14 W 10-20 U42
@WV +24.5 W 17-41 O51
@LV +17.5 W 13-28 U54.5
@SF +10 L 10-27 U40.5
@RU +16 L 7-38 O40

Greg Robinson's press Conference

Iowa was 1-7 last year as a DD favorite.

Box score of last year's game

Syracuse next game is Home vs. Illinois
Iowa next game is @ Iowa State (How big a rivalry is that game??)

 

[Cie]

An utter embarrassment.

On national TV no less.

The three things i mentioned as weaknesses were never more evident then tonight. Our linebackers could not tackle a blocking sled. The offensive line was offensive and there is no running game.

I wonder how much this egg Cuse laid on nat'l tv coupled with heavily-backed Iowa covering vs. NIll affected the opening number? I have Cuse as an early lean for this reason.

This thread is a quality contribution. I will read it weekly. GL:weed:

 

[twofingers]

Little shocked at Robinson's press conference.


Underestimating Washington;

"Quite frankly, I'd say they're maybe a better team than what I was expecting to come in here.

Greg, you have won 5 games in two years. Only one in the BE. How do you underestimate anyone?

Playing reserves...

Robinson said he regretted not playing his second offensive line in the game.

"Hindsight's 20-20. If I had it to do over again, I would have," Robinson said. "I had a lot of things on my plate at that time. I wished I had."

Wow. thought a HC was suppose to be able to multitask. handle subs, handle clock, handle adjustments. WTF??

halftime adjustments

Robinson said he did a poor job with halftime adjustments, particularly on defense.

"I feel like I should've done a better job in there at halftime. I really do," Robinson said. "When it's 14-6 football game and we needed to go out and get a stop. We didn't. I take that on myself. I've been coaching defense a long time and I'm not trying to look over Steve's (Russ, defensive coordinator) shoulder all the time, but if I ... I'd wish I'd done a better job at halftime, to maybe do something to make a better adjustment for team. I don't think I did a good enough job.

What were you doing Greg? Getting a hot dog and beer??

Sounds like this guy is giving AD Gross all the ammo to get fired and get the buy out. What HS kids is going to want to play for a coach who says basically. " Look I cant handle coaching during the game, I dont know how to make adjustments, and I overestimate opponents. Come play for me!"

Kinda hoping that Iowa puts a old fashion, Purdue opening game 2004, ass stompin on us this week and forces Gross' hand.

 

[bryanz]

this guy has no clue, he is not HC material, the AD is worse, I turned it off after the first 1/4....... what they have put on the field is not d1 fb......how do they not get a qb to come play here when there is no competition for the job since mc nabb.....even when coach mac was rebuilding in the early 80's you could see it. I refuse to waste my time...

 

[Kramer]

WOW, getting 21.5 at Iowa. Don't you think
that's a bit stiff 2fingers. That's a lot of stinkin
points if you ask me. Iowa didn't exactly over-
whelm N. Ill. and have a HUGE rivalry up next.
Interested to see your thoughts on this game.

 

[rusty]

The SU football program is finished. Forget about it! The Orange will never return to the glory days. The admission standards are much tougher now than in years past. The new chancellor is determined to make SU one of the top 50 academic institutions in the country. There are a bunch of geeks on campus now. People who could care less about football. Tailgateing is nonexistent. If you're a star high school football player, why would you want to go there? No parties, football on turf, frigid weather, etc. I'm glad Syracuse has high academic standards, after all, that's what universities should be all about, but don't expect much from the athletics program. The lacrosse team missed the tournament for the first time, the basketball team played in the NIT, and the football team is DII caliber. Tougher admissions equals fewer wins, plain and simple. I will be shocked if Syracuse wins 5 games!

I follow BC football ,and except fow a few bad apples like any institution ,your way off base.

 

[Wise and Wiser]

How so? Have you been on the SU campus lately? I'm on campus at least twice a year. Do you know the Dean of Admissions like I do? Are you predicting 5 or more wins for the Orange? Please tell me how I'm way off base. Enlighten me, please!

 

[rusty]

Well Im from the Boston area.BC is known for there academics,and still hold a high standard to there atletics as well.

Will they be National Champs this year ?Hell no!!
I have been to a few games ,but ill admit not lately.

To state that a program cant be sucessful cause of an andministrater,or they favor academiics over athletics is off base in my view.

Just take a look at Boston College:shrug:

 

[twofingers]

Senior defensive end Lee Williams said today he has a torn groin muscle. Williams did not play or dress against Washington but is hopeful of being ready to go against Iowa.

- Starting quarterback Andrew Robinson said he gave himself a below average grade for his performance against Washington.

"The stats look pretty good on paper," Robinson said, "but there were some things I didn't do well enough that I should have, and it put our team in a hole a couple of times as far as taking a sack when I can easily just throw the ball away instead of taking an 8-yard loss on ... I think it was second-and-10. I kind of killed a drive for us right there. Just use those things as learning experiences. I think I tossed the ball away a couple of times later in the game; just try and learn from things that happen while you're playing and apply them to the next series and the next game."
- Head coach Greg Robinson directed the conversation during his press conference to look ahead instead of look behind.

"It seems like ancient history since last Friday," he said. "I'd just as soon keep it ancient history."
- Robinson said he was not making any changes in his starting linebacker unit. Of course, he said any personnel changes the Orange might make this week won't be revealed until game time on Saturday night.

"There's not going to be changes there (at linebacker)," Robinson said. "I really look forward to watching them play again. I think they're capable of playing just fine. I really do. Let me say this, they weren't the only people on defense that didn't play well. OK. I think they've been scrutinized, but, you know, they can deal with it."
- Robinson said the Orange was not a "cheerful team" when it practiced on Sunday. He said that despite the opening loss, the team did get back to work.

- Starting receiver Mike Williams stated the obvious on Tuesday - the Orange wasn't ready. How could that be?

"If you look at the score, apparently we wasn't ready," Williams said. "I don't know if it was nervousnes ... and the coaches ... and nervousness in the players, basically, that's what it was. We wasn't ready for them. They came out with different stuff we'd never seen before, different defenses we'd never seen. We wasn't ready for Washington. I just say we've got to be more prepared.
"We wasn't ready for that type of game. I don't think nobody on the team was really like ... we ain't think we was going to go out there and lose like that, play like that. It happened. That's what happens some times. Everybody's looking at the game like, y'all got blew out and y'all got this and that, but, if y'all look at around college football, there's a lot of teams 0-1, no matter how you lost the game and how it came up, 0-1 is 0-1."


- After raving about the experience of playing on the road at a school with as much history and tradition at Iowa, Robinson was asked about encountering the infamous pink locker room that awaits visiting teams.

"I remember way back in the 80s when that all started," Robinson said. "We played them in the Rose Bowl (when Robinson was an assistant at UCLA). We painted our locker room pink, I think, just to prove that we could beat them. And I think we did."

 

[twofingers]

SU football coach Greg Robinson fielded a question Monday from a reporter from the Morgantown Dominion during his segment of the weekly Big East coaches teleconference call. It went like this:

"How are you doing, Coach?"

"Good."

"Can you talk a little bit about maybe your MVP of the game, Patrick Shadle, a kid from Morgantown?"

"Well, you say he was our MVP of the game?"

"Maybe. He did kick four field goals for you."

"In our game?"

"From what I saw, yeah."

"No, he kicked two field goals."

"Oh, two field goals. Sorry."

"Yeah. And he missed an extra point."

"OK."

"And he wasn't our MVP. I don't think we had an MVP. But he wasn't the MVP. He missed a kickoff, missed an extra point in the game, and it really wasn't like Pat. Pat usually is as consistent as the day is long, and his missed extra point was just a miss. First one he's ever missed here, or at least since last year. But he'll be fine. He's a real good kicker for us."

I thought the exchange was too good to paraphrase. Robinson also had this to say during the call:

On Washington: "First of all, I give Washington a lot of credit. I think they're a good football team, both offensively and defensively. They had speed on offense that you felt, and defensively they played well. They did a good job. At the same time I think we kind of started off pretty good and then all of a sudden had some things go wrong and really didn't ever regroup well enough to get back into the ball game. So, that's how it comes out the way it does."

On Iowa: "Going into Iowa, I think that, you know, we played them a year ago, and we had a tough ball game that went to two overtimes, and we'd like to go back and reciprocate to them what they did to us. You know, it's a night game there, which doesn't happen very often, and it will be interesting to see how that all pans out, but I think it is exciting to go into a place like Iowa that is a great place to play a game and see if we can get ourselves back on track."

On SU's run defense: "You know, we started off very well in the game, and then all of a sudden I think it was really a discipline breakdown in our defense where we had a chance for a lost-yardage play and all of a sudden our backside pursuit gets too aggressive and all of a sudden the guy goes out the backdoor and all of a sudden makes a big play, and then some things snowballed. I think it was a matter of a couple things. I think schematically we got hurt in a couple situations, and as game wore on we got a little tentative. On defense, if you're not aggressive it can come back and get you. So, we're working hard to try to get that on the right track and go from there

On getting team ready for Iowa after a lopsided loss: "Well, first of all it was disappointing, but it's the next game. I think there were a lot of things we can learn from the game. You know, I just think our players will respond well. I think we have good players, and we just have to go out and perform better. We really do. And the only way you're going to do that is to keep working at it, keep staying at it. I know this: The morning after the game there were probably 50 of our players in here on their own, that Saturday morning at around 8:30, in here watching film. That tells me something. They want to be good, and they want to get better. And if you have people thinking that way you have a real good chance to get better."

On SU's opener vs. the easy slate the rest of the league faced: "We've always at Syracuse played a national schedule, teams all over the country. That doesn't mean that you still don't schedule some teams that . . . whatever . . . maybe a conference or something that isn't like a BCS conference. No. I'm hearing that, but at the same time what I have is what I have. If I'm sitting here and complaining about it, that doesn't do any good, either. . . . I'm not going to sit here and second-guess our schedule and all those things, because really my job is to coach the team and get it right."

"On the decision to quick-kick early in the game: "I think third-and-13, backed up like that is . . . you know what? We had issues at third-and-13 last year. And I figured if we're in that situation and we're backed up and can gain field position, which we gained 65 yards, and really we gained 20 yards in the exchange, because on the next possession we started out on the 40-something. So it came out all right. But I think in that situation, I said early in the game if we get backed up I'm not going to have a situation where we're going to try to force the ball at third-and-13. You've got a young quarterback, you're trying to work your line through and all of a sudden you have a sack back there and you're punting from your 10-yard line."

 

[twofingers]

1-0 picking Syracuse games

watched the game again this week. Couple of thoughts...

1) Locker was one fast bastard. Linebackers had him sight a couple times and he just ran right past them. Took bad angle and surprised by his speed.

2) Three plays in 2Q really hurt Orange. Smith drops TD pass that hit his hands that would have made it 10-7. Moss dropped ball inside 10 that he has to catch. CB Chestnut failed to drive through RB on 3rd-3 when he hit him at line and Wash picked up first down. Went on to make it 14-3.

3) OT Chavers was a seive in 2nd half. Gave Robinson no chance. C McCall had trouble with a couple snaps (announcer played it on AROB but clearly was bad snaps).

4) Over pursuit by LB and DE's burned orange over and over.

I was impressed by the speed of Washington. Locker looked like the real deal. guess i am not the only one.

Was Jake Locker that good or Syracuse's defense that bad?

Boise State head coach Chris Peterson thinks it was all Locker, the University of Washington quarterback who schooled the Orange in a 42-12 whipping last Saturday at the Carrier Dome.

Boise State plays Washington on Saturday in Seattle. Peterson said even though the Huskies trotted out a spread option scheme to take advantage of Locker's speed and athleticism, the outcome was driven by the quarterback's performance.

"He can do it all," Petersen told The Seattle Times.

"What's scary is, Syracuse had guys in the right position. And the guys still couldn't make plays."

Line is 21.5 right now and think that there is value in SU. Cuse took them to 2nd OT last year with a team that had nowhere near the potential that this offense has. Whether thay can execute is another question. certainly Iowa did nothing to warrent this line in their 16-3 win over NI. Return of DE Williams should help line.

Syracuse +21.5