Syracuse - Pittsburgh Postgame Reactions OR I'll Be Home For Christmas
2 Comments Published on 11.05.2007 by Brian Harrison
God I wish I wasn't so awful at my job.Greetings from Springfield, Massachusetts. As I type this on a Monday afternoon I realize that we are a terrible football team. Well, I suppose that is not exactly fair. Our football team is not terrible, but our offensive line is. Really, despite what happened in total, the reason we lost the game was because our offensive line is terrible. The reason we have no running game is mostly because our offensive line is terrible. Our defensive line was pretty good, but our offensive line is terrible. To the report card.
Offense
D+
Our. Offensive. Line. Is. Terrible. The run game was terrible due to it. No matter who was behind the QB, he was not getting that far (30 total rush yards). Taj Smith continues to be impressive to me. Mike Williams keeps his streak of TD catches alive, but he also had a couple horrendous drops. J.J. Nesheiwat also had a solid game at tight end. However, of course, the biggest story here was the replacement of QB Andrew Robinson with walk-on extraordinaire Cameron Dantley. After Robison (who left the game with a back injury from sleeping on the dorm room floor of his buddy’s place in State College, PA during the bye week) only passed for 46 yards on 4/9 attempts in the first half, “Cantley” came in and performed beyond my expectations. He had a nice day (15/27, 189yds, 2TD, 0INT), and led the team well. But, on a final drive with 0 time outs left (I’ll get to that later) a quarterback needs time to pass. The offensive line gave him no chance to win the game. Therefore, although I was pleased with the quarterback play from “Cantley” (it is just easier to say), the offensive line spoiled the day which could have kept the team’s (mega extremely slim) chance at a bowl berth alive. Thaaaaanks! (Read that like J. Hallock)
Defense
B+
Goal line stand!!! HOLLA! The defense was playing amazingly well when all season they have underwhelmed. I still do not understand why we don’t play more man defense in the secondary. However, LeSean “Shady” McCoy, the freshman RB for Pittsburgh was hard to contain and he will be a problem for any team the next few seasons. Either way, the defense played well in this game and that is really all you need to know.
Special Teams
C+
Sadly, my boys let me down this week. I no longer heart the special teams. The boys let Pittsburgh get some big returns off punts. This then set up some easy scores for Pittsburgh. Patrick “Fat Ass” Shadle hit the one field goal he attempted right down the middle and Rob “Heisman” Long had an excellent day. Max Suter had some great returns as well. So overall, decent, but they were not really helping the cause.
Coaching
D-
Brian White did well. Greg Robinson did not. We burned a timeout in the second half while on our own two yard line. This was to avoid a delay of game penalty, because a play was not called quick enough. That is a coaching mistake. Had that play been called sooner, and the time out not called, Syracuse could have stopped the clock after the sack in the final drive. At this point, instead of spiking the ball, we could have stopped, called a good play, and maybe convert to put us in field goal range to tie the game. None of this happened. The game was poorly coached. End of story, game over, we lose.
GPA
C- (1.71)
The defense is the only thing that keeps this grade as good as it is. The defense looked excited, it had fire, and it made some big plays. “Cantley” also made some good plays as well, but when it was all said and done, Syracuse was again a day late and a dollar short. The Syracuse Orange are now out of bowl contention mathematically, and UConn remains at the top of the Big East. It is official… I am having the worst football year of my life.
I knew in my heart of hearts that the Buffalo Game was a fluke. While the defense provides some optimism that we could march into East Hartford and spoil a BCS bid for Connecticut, I just cannot rely on anything that I have known to be true to happen. Syracuse should be a good team. Connecticut should not be. Rutgers should smell because it is in New Jersey. Boston College should be more hated by America. These things that used to be a given are not true anymore. Somewhere, my childhood of watching McNabb win games with my dad weeps quietly.
BONUS BASKETBALL COVERAGE
I was at the exhibition this past Sunday against Division 2 POWERHOUSE St. Rose. While the game was close, most of the freshmen looked good. At one point in the second half the game was actually tied. This is simply because he was playing a lot of freshmen a lot of the time, which is the purpose for these games. The fact of the matter is I am not going to draw any conclusions from the game because it was not a real game, it was not coached like it was, and the lineups that Boeheim implemented would probably not be used in a real game. I was impressed by Flynn and Green, as well as Kristof Ongenaet, who myself and my good friend Alex described as “The Rich Man’s Matt Gorman”, as in the kid could play. Do not read too much into the score or the stats, but know that this is a team that will compete and at least have a lot of fun on the floor. I look forward to a season that will surely, at the very least, be entertaining.
Offense
D+
Our. Offensive. Line. Is. Terrible. The run game was terrible due to it. No matter who was behind the QB, he was not getting that far (30 total rush yards). Taj Smith continues to be impressive to me. Mike Williams keeps his streak of TD catches alive, but he also had a couple horrendous drops. J.J. Nesheiwat also had a solid game at tight end. However, of course, the biggest story here was the replacement of QB Andrew Robinson with walk-on extraordinaire Cameron Dantley. After Robison (who left the game with a back injury from sleeping on the dorm room floor of his buddy’s place in State College, PA during the bye week) only passed for 46 yards on 4/9 attempts in the first half, “Cantley” came in and performed beyond my expectations. He had a nice day (15/27, 189yds, 2TD, 0INT), and led the team well. But, on a final drive with 0 time outs left (I’ll get to that later) a quarterback needs time to pass. The offensive line gave him no chance to win the game. Therefore, although I was pleased with the quarterback play from “Cantley” (it is just easier to say), the offensive line spoiled the day which could have kept the team’s (mega extremely slim) chance at a bowl berth alive. Thaaaaanks! (Read that like J. Hallock)
Defense
B+
Goal line stand!!! HOLLA! The defense was playing amazingly well when all season they have underwhelmed. I still do not understand why we don’t play more man defense in the secondary. However, LeSean “Shady” McCoy, the freshman RB for Pittsburgh was hard to contain and he will be a problem for any team the next few seasons. Either way, the defense played well in this game and that is really all you need to know.
Special Teams
C+
Sadly, my boys let me down this week. I no longer heart the special teams. The boys let Pittsburgh get some big returns off punts. This then set up some easy scores for Pittsburgh. Patrick “Fat Ass” Shadle hit the one field goal he attempted right down the middle and Rob “Heisman” Long had an excellent day. Max Suter had some great returns as well. So overall, decent, but they were not really helping the cause.
Coaching
D-
Brian White did well. Greg Robinson did not. We burned a timeout in the second half while on our own two yard line. This was to avoid a delay of game penalty, because a play was not called quick enough. That is a coaching mistake. Had that play been called sooner, and the time out not called, Syracuse could have stopped the clock after the sack in the final drive. At this point, instead of spiking the ball, we could have stopped, called a good play, and maybe convert to put us in field goal range to tie the game. None of this happened. The game was poorly coached. End of story, game over, we lose.
GPA
C- (1.71)
The defense is the only thing that keeps this grade as good as it is. The defense looked excited, it had fire, and it made some big plays. “Cantley” also made some good plays as well, but when it was all said and done, Syracuse was again a day late and a dollar short. The Syracuse Orange are now out of bowl contention mathematically, and UConn remains at the top of the Big East. It is official… I am having the worst football year of my life.
I knew in my heart of hearts that the Buffalo Game was a fluke. While the defense provides some optimism that we could march into East Hartford and spoil a BCS bid for Connecticut, I just cannot rely on anything that I have known to be true to happen. Syracuse should be a good team. Connecticut should not be. Rutgers should smell because it is in New Jersey. Boston College should be more hated by America. These things that used to be a given are not true anymore. Somewhere, my childhood of watching McNabb win games with my dad weeps quietly.
BONUS BASKETBALL COVERAGE
I was at the exhibition this past Sunday against Division 2 POWERHOUSE St. Rose. While the game was close, most of the freshmen looked good. At one point in the second half the game was actually tied. This is simply because he was playing a lot of freshmen a lot of the time, which is the purpose for these games. The fact of the matter is I am not going to draw any conclusions from the game because it was not a real game, it was not coached like it was, and the lineups that Boeheim implemented would probably not be used in a real game. I was impressed by Flynn and Green, as well as Kristof Ongenaet, who myself and my good friend Alex described as “The Rich Man’s Matt Gorman”, as in the kid could play. Do not read too much into the score or the stats, but know that this is a team that will compete and at least have a lot of fun on the floor. I look forward to a season that will surely, at the very least, be entertaining.
The highlight of my month was seeing our good friend running the "E" Flag take a little trip in the Carrier Dome. Orange::44 wishes him well and a speedy recovery.
As usual, stay tuned to the continuing disaster that is the Syracuse University football team. With basketball around the corner, the good news is that something better should be on the way. You can again play the Jim Boeheim Press Conference Drinking Game! (rules here), and hey, at least we aren’t Notre Dame.
As usual, stay tuned to the continuing disaster that is the Syracuse University football team. With basketball around the corner, the good news is that something better should be on the way. You can again play the Jim Boeheim Press Conference Drinking Game! (rules here), and hey, at least we aren’t Notre Dame.
Labels: Basketball, Big East, Football
Couldn't you Photoshop in a couple of tears and use the picture of Greg Robinson leading this entry as the next installment of "Cue the Crying Child"?
That being said, as a Rutgers fan there's nothing I'd love more than to see the face of the happy child after the Cincy, USF, and (especially the) UConn games. The Big East race needs a little more chaos this year.
I would love nothing more than to flash a happy kid with a puppy after the UConn game later this month. Syracuse has loved being the spoiler in recent years (see Boston College), so I hope they have that nothing to lose attitude in East Hartford. Extra preferable as I will be there with people I know that went to UConn.