Syracuse football

[twofingers]

SU will field their best defense in last 7-10 years. LB's are solid w/ two Butkus candidates, secondary is experienced at both CB and SS with bit hitter Shamarko Thomas expected healthy , and promising DE Chandler Jones getting his shot at leading the way as big brother Art Jones goes pro.

Offensively, it will be the Deleone Carter show. The RB was reinstated at beginning of fall camp after snowball incident in Feb and has looked great in camp. He will be running behind the best OL he has had at SU. This group turned the corner mid way thru last year and started to show some toughness that they lacked under GROB. Jr Ryan Nassib gets the QB nod and has looked sharp in camp. Nassib saw limited action last year. Problem will be w/ WR's. Thin on talent all around. Lemon is strictly a possession type receiver and nobody has stepped up in camp to show any big play ability. TE Provo has returned from injuries in 09 and is expected to have big part in offense.

I expected SU to play more of a physical smash mouth style of football then in previous years. GROB era was anything but physical and Marrone needed yr one to weed out the weak. Spring camp was much different then under GROB and has continued into fall. You can tell by looking at players that they are conditioned. No more bellys hanging out. The weight room was busy this summer again and I think we start to see the results right away.

Syracuse starts off with Akron and the Zips would seem to be the perfect foe for the start of the season. Never the physical type of team, they were smashed by SU on the ground last year, 234 to 0. Carter had 170 of those yards and returns to his hometown looking for an encore. I expect more of the same. Akron's scored last year on a KO return and a fumble recovery set up other score.

SU's goal is a bowl game this year so they got to win six of them. This is one they can not let get away. I expect SU to be ready to go here. I follow the Orange very closely and they are working very hard to get the smell of the GROB era out. The improvement in fundamentals and conditioning was evident last year and I have seen even more in camp this year. Whether it will equate to more wins in conference play, we will have to wait and see. No more losing to Akron's of the world though.

I recommend laying the eight.

 

[#cruncher]

Real good info, thanks.

 

[Sal]

Great write up. Coming from NY, I'm A huge SU Homer. The HC Doug Marrone went to Lehman HS in the Bronx, I played against him ! I went To Bayside HS, it was 1981. I wish Coach Marrone the best of luck.

 

[pfj]

Great write up. Coming from NY, I'm A huge SU Homer. The HC Doug Marrone went to Lehman HS in the Bronx, I played against him ! I went To Bayside HS, it was 1981. I wish Coach Marrone the best of luck.

Im a huge SU homer also. I'm only about hour and a half away. I attended syracuse in 98-99 and got to see a great team and actually big east division. After that year it was downhill. Mcnabb, johnson, conrad and freeney all left. We haven't been able to get a decent quarterback since Mcnabb left although no one really liked Mcnabb I loved to watch him. While I attended I lived right next to the carrier dome it was great. Paulus is gone right? I heard he was going to try out for the Saints don't know how true that is tho. bol

 

[lostinamerica]

Syracuse starts off with Akron and the Zips would seem to be the perfect foe for the start of the season.

I recommend laying the eight.

Syracuse 29
Akron 3

Dead Solid Perfect. Thanks. :toast:

GL

 

[twofingers]

Orange have to play better this weekend coming up to compete w/ Huskies.

The defense looked as good as advertised with a couple of surprises. Smith and Houge showed why they are Butkus candidates while DT's Tribbley, Lewis and Perkins were quite active and quicker olff the ball then seen before. Secondary looked great in coverage. CB Merkerson has to learn to tackle better.

Offense went vanilla most of night but did showcase Nassib's arm on couple of long balls. No denying his rocket arm but has to show moore accuracy and judgement. Threw two into coverage that could have been picked, missed Chew on wide open post ( Chew came back and made nice grab), threw underneath on goal line pass when he had back of endzone for easy 6, and missed TE Cruz running free on TE post. The Td throw to Chew was perfect though and did hit TE Provo on long ball with nice throw. The WR's were suspect coming in but Chew did nice job getting seperation, Hofstra transfer Weaver looks like a player we can count on in red zone, and Lemon was sure handed.

Akron refused to let Carter beat them down again and held him to 90 tough yards. Showed again that he can take the first hit and keep going though. Bailey looked explosive. Just missed breaking a few.

OL needs to keep improving, especially in pass coverage. Nassib was on the run quite a bit. Soph Hay looked quite green in his first start. Tiller got good push off line all night.

Special teams will be a concern again. Punt return squad looked lost, especially Holmes. Made numerous bad decisions and coughed up ball once. Bad snap on PAT and then Freshman Krautman missed another. The good was 47 FG, block on FG by Jones that Holmes took to the yard, and KO coverage looked solid. Punter Long showed why is best in country with several boomers after a shaky start. Lack of depth usually shows on special teams and i expect that we will be crossing our fingers all year with special teams on the field.

If this team gets better every week ( as i expect they will) they may start to get some respect back. Pitt, UCONN, and Cincy all lost this weekend, Rutgers and WV looked mediocre at best, so BE may be wide open.

Win in Washington would be huge.

Go Orange

 

[twofingers]

Paulus got a look by the Saints but was not invited to camp. Recently took job as AC for Navy basketball team. Has always said that HC job in BB was his goal.

I thought Paulus did a great job last year considering the circumstances. Thought he showed that he could have been top level QB in college if he stuck with football after HS. After four years away, he lost his arm strength but you can not deny his football instincts.

 

[twofingers]

Syracuse +13, 48.5

Orange travel cross country to face a bigger, deeper, more talented team in Washington. Best chance to stay within the number is to effectively run the ball with Carter and Bailey, keeping Locker off the field. This number looks about right. If I could get 14, I'd back the Orange but will pass on 13.

Cuse on a seven out of eight UNDER streak. Their defense is solid and have best punter in the land. They will make Huskies earn their points tonite. Cant see Marrone opening the offense up here. They will feed Carter again early and often (16 carries in 1st half last week). Marrone talked often this week about minimizing turnovers so i expect Holmes to be on a tight leash on punt returns, if he kept the job after last weeks disaster on returns. Syracuse has been conditioning all spring and summer to play physical football. They want to win this in the trenches. That usually means that yards are tougher to come by. They know their chance for the upset are less in a shootout. Play it safe as long as they can, try in be in position to win in second half, don't turn it over. They will try to open offense against Maine and Colgate, not in Washington.

Like the under 48.5 here

Go ORANGE

 

[bryanz]

Syracuse +13, 48.5

Orange travel cross country to face a bigger, deeper, more talented team in Washington. Best chance to stay within the number is to effectively run the ball with Carter and Bailey, keeping Locker off the field. This number looks about right. If I could get 14, I'd back the Orange but will pass on 13.

Cuse on a seven out of eight UNDER streak. Their defense is solid and have best punter in the land. They will make Huskies earn their points tonite. Cant see Marrone opening the offense up here. They will feed Carter again early and often (16 carries in 1st half last week). Marrone talked often this week about minimizing turnovers so i expect Holmes to be on a tight leash on punt returns, if he kept the job after last weeks disaster on returns. Syracuse has been conditioning all spring and summer to play physical football. They want to win this in the trenches. That usually means that yards are tougher to come by. They know their chance for the upset are less in a shootout. Play it safe as long as they can, try in be in position to win in second half, don't turn it over. They will try to open offense against Maine and Colgate, not in Washington.

Like the under 48.5 here

Go ORANGE

this spounds like a coach p or robinson approach at their worst... syr will open it up today... they will play to win the game . we'll see the whole playbook... look for a blanced attack, 50/50..... the only way they run > pass is if, wash can't stop the run, and syr is winning....... even then, don't expect syr to sit on a lead... you'll take 14 but not 13 ??????:scared

 

[twofingers]

yeah, i would like to get 2 TD's. Hate to lose a bet on a 24-10, 28-14 type of game.

i beleive they play to win and their best chance to win is to control the ball, not throwing it all over the field. We don't have the speed outside to make that work yet.

 

[bryanz]

yeah, i would like to get 2 TD's. Hate to lose a bet on a 24-10, 28-14 type of game.

i beleive they play to win and their best chance to win is to control the ball, not throwing it all over the field. We don't have the speed outside to make that work yet.

it wasn't a 14 pt game... syr mixed it up like i thought they would.. almost 50/50.....passed a little more.... if you could have got 14 , you would have lost.... they didn't play like you thought they would. I don't get this post....

 

[twofingers]

They threw the ball more because they were down 17+ the whole second half. OL did not run block well in the first half and could not get Carter going til it was to late.

I thought the secondary was over giving up the big plays but i was wrong.

 

[twofingers]

Pitt has ran all over SU the last few years. Both lines have pushed them all over the field. SU has improved greatly but has the gap closed that much to push this line to pitt minus one?

Pitt has played a much tougher non conference schedule in prep for Big East opener. They got blown out by Miamii but were competitive with Utah and ND. SU will be a step down in class for Pitt.

In SU's favor should be a degree of confidence coming off a win down in SF, a large and loud homecoming crowd, and a degree of revenge after getting pounded by Pitt in recent years.

Depth will be an issue at some point this year for SU. They just don't have the number of atheletes to throw at physical teams. I like their heart and aggressiveness they have shown but that can only take them so far.

I think Pitt will wear them down. SU's offense sputtered vs. SF except for one impressive second half drive. That is not going to cut it today. I think Pitt is the play.