Farewell from a Syracuse fan

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rawphenomenon

rawphenomenon

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I wanted to check back in with you guys after the game. Thought it best to give it a few days before sharing my game observations.

  • I thought that was a thoroughly entertaining game. I know that sitting on my side of the fence gives me a positive slant but that second half was great. We had a big lead. You guys storm back and take the lead with two scores in two minutes. Then we try to retake the lead only to be taken out of FG position with a great sack/intetentional grounding. We get the ball back and march down only to miss a field goal. We get the ball back again and score to take the lead. Game over? But no! You guys almost Doug Flutied us, twice! Crazy game that had me (and you guys too I’m sure) on the edge of your seat.
  • It seems that Gopher teams always have the ability to keep things close enough to make it interesting at the end. The game against McNabb back in the 90s was the same way and you pulled off the upset in the end.
  • Your team seems to play off of emotion a lot. They came out very flat and stayed that way until the big play to the tight end in the second half. Then your defense played inspired and your offense was firing on the very next possession. Is this the norm for you guys?
  • Are the Oompa Loompas yours? I don’t think they were our fans. Definitely funny
  • The sideline reporter we got for the game was smoking hot.
  • Surprised by how many penalties you guys committed. Very uncharacteristic of you
  • I am also surprised that on our go-ahead touchdown, when you guys blitzed the house, no one got through. I was for sure that was the end of the drive.
  • You could really tell that you guys had a really talented corner in Vereen. It’s too bad he got matched up against a guy we never throw to
  • You have an excellent receiver in that big #82 Wolitarsky. I imagine you guys are disappointed in his drop in the end zone at the end but he consistently got behind our corners. Big kid too. If he can polish his route running, dare I say you will have another Decker at your disposal
  • I really liked that your OC went to #82 play after play after play. I forget what quarter it was, but the first play was an offensive pass interference. Second play was a defensive pass interference. I think the third was a completion. Our secondary was missing 3 of the 4 starters and I love it when coaches keep picking on the weak spot.
  • Your starting QB was pretty bad. So many plays early on where he bounced a pass to a wide open guy. The backup had some fire to him and seemingly a better touch. I worry about all the hits he was taking though. Those two Hail Marys were right on the numbers too. I knew that if you guys could work the playaction a bit, those post and go routes would be there for you. It’s a shame that it took 3 quarters of running Cobb into a wall of defenders before your coaches started opening up the field.
  • Cobb is an excellent running back. Definitely one of the better ones we faced all year, and in my opinion, more formidable than Andre Williams was. It seemed like our guys had him pinned in the backfield for a loss several times and he wiggled forward to make a 2 or 3 yard gain out of it. It did seem like he got most of his yards after you guys ran a few playactions on us to keep us honest
  • Did you guys think the announcers were rather monotonous? Coach Kill is on the sidelines and Syracuse hasn’t allowed a 100 yard rusher. We get it. What else do you got?
  • Hageman looks absolutely huge! I had no idea he was that big. He had two big stuffs on our running back but was rather quiet the rest of the game. I remember both of your lines beating us up bad last year in Minneapolis. This matchup was a lot more even.
  • In hindsight, remember when our one receiver made the pre-game statement about the Gopher secondary not being great tacklers? I definitely think he was tipping his hand to our gameplan as we attempted bubble screen after bubble screen. My guess is that he was told that in a coaching session and just regurgitated it to the media.
  • I thought that final punt was actually a pretty good one. Our guy was lucky enough to be able to backpedal 15-20 yards quickly to be in position to return it. If the coverage would’ve been able to make the tackle, that’s the ballgame.
  • I thought your fan base represented well at the game in the few shots of the crowd that the Worldwide Leader graced us with. It’s too bad that the city of Houston was a large no-show.
  • Some things to look forward to next season is that it seemed to me that all your big playmakers on offense, were freshmen/sophomores (Maxx Williams, Wolitarsky, Leidner)

In a thread that I posted earlier, I tried to predict how the game would go based on our strengths/weaknesses and they turned out to be pretty true (Raw pats self on back)
  • The playaction pass over the safeties would be there for you
  • We commit a ton of penalties
  • Our kicker is kind of bad
  • Our main punt returner is blah, but we got one guy that can break one
  • Neither team’s running backs would be effective but our QBs had the potential to break off some runs
  • The one thing I think I was off about is that it didn’t seem like any of our guys on defense was able to make any big hits

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed getting to chat with you guys leading up to the game and I was thrilled that we got rewarded with an excellent opponent in our bowl game. Now that the game is over, I can get back to pulling for you guys against the rest of the Big Ten. I apologize for any transgression by my fellow SU fans before and after the game. We are who we are unfortunately. It seems like the roughest sort in our country when it comes to manners are in the Northeast and they get nicer and nicer as you go South and West. Wish it was different. I look forward to our teams hopefully getting together for another series sometime in the future so I can check out your new stadium.
 

The ESPN nonsense about Kill being on the sidelines was ridiculous. I especially liked the cut in to the sideline reporter who stated that she spoke with some MN officials and they gave her nothing on what had made Jerry decide to come down. It felt like they were being jobbed by the MN side and were entitled to know the answer.
 

Thanks for another great post. Congratulations to you guys for a wonderful end to your season. Things I'll comment on:

- Yes, we play off of emotion a lot. We are probably in the bottom half of the Big Ten when it comes to talent, but Kill seems to be a better motivator than his counterparts the majority of the time; his taking time off and then coming back unexpectedly to deliver half time and post game speeches in the middle of the year was inspiring for fans, not to mention the players, but it seems obvious that he wasn't able to get the team up for this one for whatever reason. I also think our coordinators have been above average in their game planning and play calling during the second half of the season, but I thought they did just an average job against you guys. So the coaching advantage that I thought we had had for the second half of the season was nullified in this game.
- Our amount of penalties was both surprising and painful. An indicator of our lack of focus, methinks.
- I thought the blitz was a decent call and would have resulted in a sack if executed with more disciplined. But there you have it.
- Vereen is a great guy, by all accounts. He'll be remembered very fondly by Gopher fans and hopefully he can sneak onto an NFL roster next season.
- #82 does have a bright future here; he's gotten much better throughout the season. One of the most perplexing things about this game, though, was that we did not once give the ball to our most explosive offensive player: Dohnovan (probably misspelled) Jones, our other true freshman receiver. He had been making plays at the end of the year, including some big runs off the jet sweep. He's very unpolished as a receiver, but good things tended to happen when we gave him the ball. No idea what happened there.
- I love Cobb. Your guys' run D is legit, but even so, I thought we started leaning too heavily on the passing game. We are not a dominant run outfit, but once we start rolling we are formidable. You guys put up stiff initial resistance, but I thought our staff should have stayed with it and made you stop us on a regular basis for four quarters. But that's just me.
- Speaking of the passing game, yes, our starting QB was terrifyingly bad. Probably his worst game, considering the opponent (that's not much of a slight on you guys when you realize I'm comparing you to defenses like Iowa and Michigan State). He was supposed to be the guy for the next two years, but I'm not sure how anyone can think that unless he proves us wrong somehow next season.
- Hageman is a physical freak, but he remains unpolished because he has only played DT for 3 years now. This game was indicative of his season: he's quiet for much of the game (often because he is double teamed), but when he puts everything together, he has the physical ability to make huge plays. He usually makes more plays than he did against you guys, though; don't know if he didn't play well or if you guys did a good job against him.
- Totally agree with you on the announcers. I can't believe how often they repeated the fact that you guys hadn't given up a 100 yard rusher (a great stat, to be sure).
- I thought your QB was playing out of his mind for much of the game. Or at least it looked that way when compared to ours.

All in all, you guys were a better team than most Gopher fans expected that matched up perfectly with us. And while neither team seemed to play their best, I thought the Gophers played their worst game since early October. You guys made the plays to win the game and definitely deserved to win more than we did, so congratulations from a disappointed Gopher fan.
 

Well thought out " Cuse". I was amazed at the number of fans on the hole predicted a Gopher blowout. Quite frankly
I think the Gopher players felt slighted they didn't get picked for the Gator Bowl. We didn't attend this year, but some friends did and they said the Gophers didn't exactly come roaring out of the tunnel in front of what 15,000 fans? This
takes nothing away from Syracuse as your game plan with the bubble screens worked well. We really didn't have success with the running game till the second half and you guys still held Cobb under 100 yds( 91 yards ) We called
an 8 man blitz on your final TD and nobody made a play. One the punt return we basically out kicked the coverage
and we didn't stay in our lanes and it took our punter to make the tackle. Bottom line. A sour ending to a good season
Good luck next season.
 

The folks predicting a victory for the Gophers, especially an easy one, neglected to take into account the Gophers were playing without 40% of their starting Offensive Line. Bak and Christensen missing for the last few games was a major, major loss.

I'm guilty, I thought the numbers favored the Gophers quite a bit. Most significantly, I chose to chalk up the offensive performances against Wisky and MSU to them just being great defenses, neglecting that missing Bak and Christensen had a lot to do with it as well, let alone Engel.

Syracuse played with the same O-Line combination for all 13 games. That's a huge, huge difference.

Starting next year I think the O-Line will be much better equipped to handle one or two injuries up front. But without a doubt, there was a hefty drop off from Bak to Bush and from Christensen to Tommy O.
 


Ogee Oglethorpe said:
The folks predicting a victory for the Gophers, especially an easy one, neglected to take into account the Gophers were playing without 40% of their starting Offensive Line. Bak and Christensen missing for the last few games was a major, major loss.

I'm guilty, I thought the numbers favored the Gophers quite a bit. Most significantly, I chose to chalk up the offensive performances against Wisky and MSU to them just being great defenses, neglecting that missing Bak and Christensen had a lot to do with it as well, let alone Engel.

Syracuse played with the same O-Line combination for all 13 games. That's a huge, huge difference.

Starting next year I think the O-Line will be much better equipped to handle one or two injuries up front. But without a doubt, there was a hefty drop off from Bak to Bush and from Christensen to Tommy O.
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Or a QB that can be counted on to hit an open receiver . Wonder if that will be fixed next year or not too.
 

Iceland12 said:
Or a QB that can be counted on to hit an open receiver . Wonder if that will be fixed next year or not too.
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So true. Gophers will never be above a mid-level Big Ten team with the present passing production. There is no way a Big Ten QB should miss that many open receivers.......and by that much.
 

Hey Raw1,

Thanks for stopping by the GH and sharing your insights which were very good by the way. I could come up with a 101 excuses why we should have beat 'cuse but we didn't. The fact we lost doesn't change that you are a decent guy so congrats to you. Good luck in the future.
 

The whole OL needs to be bigger and faster and play with more of a chip on its shoulders. remeber last years Bowl game where our OL dominated and took control of most of the game? well that didnt happen this year.

I beleive the lack of emotion had more to do with doing a better job throughout the year and getting stuck in Houston again. the fire the team came out with was much less than it had at any time this season. This is partially the coaches fault but really emotion was low for the same bowl after doing much better during the year. With this said i feel Bowl's should not be allowed to pass over a team due to travel plans of the local fans. this really punishes the players and isnt it about the student athletes? (insert sarcasim emoticon) This year we could have made a statement with a bowl Win but sadly we could not pull out the comeback.
 



Thanks for the good will obvious in your analysis and postings. I've always had a high regard for the Syracuse program and never complained about the Orange being our opponents (I said they would be tough). Our penalties and coming out flat in the first half were very uncharacteristic for us - hard to explain it. The Orange wanted the game and it showed - also, superior ability at QB for you. It was an exciting game and came down to the final seconds, which seems to happen to us lot. Our QBs have been hot/cold passing all year. I think both programs will improve - your coaches have the right idea in concentrating on the run and defense, very similar to ours - so it's possible we'll be meeting again in a bowl.
 

Are the Oompa Loompas yours? I don’t think they were our fans. Definitely funny
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Looking at the middle one I suspect Tubby Smith might still be a closet Gopher fan.
 

Cuse guy, yes thank you being a cool dude and sharing your insights in such a positive way. It's apparent that you are a big fan and picked up many things (some which were obvious like the inconsistent QB play). I don't know if the Orange will be returning many members of their front 7 on defense, but they were pretty solid. The Oline also was good, and I really liked what I saw of your QB. He was playing loose and making some great decisions and some amazing throws. The young back that made the punt return is pretty special too. Good luck to your team in the future!
 

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