My Rant Against SNY

It was a game for the history books, if you're Ryan Nassib. Before we get too into the game I want to start out by saying SNY really did Syracuse and their fans dirty this week. Syracuse just signed a big network deal with SNY to increase their programing and exposure just days ago, yet on game-day (the biggest day of the week for Cuse) SNY felt it necessary to show the Mets post-game show in its entirety. I get it. The Mets own SNY and it's their channel. But geeeez how about showing an abbreviated post-game show and getting us out to the Carrier Dome in time for kickoff? How about a split screen? Do we Really need to see Jerry Manuel and Jose Reyes's post-game remarks about being 14 games out of first place and 11 back in the wild card? Their season is over and Syracuse's is just beginning. I am curious what the ratings for a Mets post-game show are especially on a night when the game was broadcast on FOX and not SNY. I think they could have done something to accommodate us loyal Syracuse fans is all. Hopefully going forward this kind of issue can be handled a little more fairly. Not just for cuse fans but for every team in the big east.

The 2010-2011 Syracuse Mens Basketball Schedule is OUT!

Its that time of year again. The Syracuse Orangemen released their Men's Basketball schedule today. Now we can all commit to things we have been avoiding in the months ahead with a clear conscience knowing that the Cuse will not be playing on that day. Also, those of us who are die hards can finally pick out which road games we will be attending!! Without further adieu:

Tue, Nov 2 Kutztown TBA Syracuse, NY

Tue, Nov 9 LeMoyne TBA Syracuse, NY

Fri, Nov 12 Northern Iowa TBA Syracuse, NY

Sun, Nov 14 Canisius TBA Syracuse, NY

Tue, Nov 16 Detroit TBA Syracuse, NY

Sun, Nov 21 William & Mary TBA Syracuse, NY

Fri, Nov 26 Michigan 8:00 p.m. Atlantic City, NJ

Sat, Nov 27 Georgia Tech/UTEP 5:30/8:30 p.m. Atlantic City, NJ

Tue, Nov 30 Cornell TBA Syracuse, NY

Sat, Dec 4 North Carolina State 5:15 p.m. Syracuse, NY

Tue, Dec 7 Michigan State 9:00 p.m. New York, NY

Sat, Dec 11 Colgate TBA Syracuse, NY

Sat, Dec 18 Iona TBA Syracuse, NY

Mon, Dec 20 Morgan State TBA Syracuse, NY

Wed, Dec 22 Drexel TBA Syracuse, NY

Tue, Dec 28 Providence 9:00 p.m. Syracuse, NY

Sat, Jan 1 Notre Dame 3:30 p.m. Syracuse, NY

Sat, Jan 8 Seton Hall TBA South Orange, NJ

Wed, Jan 12 St. John's 7:00 p.m. Queens, NY

Sat, Jan 15 Cincinnati TBA Cincinnati, OH

Mon, Jan 17 Pittsburgh 7:30 p.m. Pittsburgh, PA

Sat, Jan 22 Villanova 12:00 p.m. Syracuse, NY

Tue, Jan 25 Seton Hall University TBA Syracuse, NY

Sat, Jan 29 Marquette 3:00 p.m. Milwaukee, WI

Wed, Feb 2 UConn 7:00 p.m. Storrs, CT

Sat , Feb 5 University of South Florida TBA Tampa, FL

Wed, Feb 9 Georgetown 7:00 p.m. Syracuse, NY

Sat, Feb 12 Louisville 12:00 p.m. Louisville, KY

Mon, Feb 14 West Virginia 7:00 p.m. Syracuse, NY

Sat, Feb 19 Rutgers University TBA Syracuse, NY

Mon, Feb 21 Villanova 7:00 p.m. Villanova, PA

Sat, Feb 26 Georgetown 12:00 p.m. Washington, DC

Sat, Mar 5 DePaul University TBA Syracuse, NY

The big east tournament will be March 8th-March 12th in Madison Square Garden, NYC.

In the coming weeks we will preview the Basketball season. Be sure keep an eye out for it.

Syracuse v. Maine: 30th Anniversary of the Carrier Dome

Tomorrow night at 7:15pm the Syracuse University Orangemen will be taking on the Black Bears of Maine at the Carrier Dome. The game will be televised live on SNY, so those of us who may have to eat a large family dinner that night (and their families aren't as "dedicated" to the cause as we are) will have to DVR the game and watch on a bit of a tape delay.

Assuming all goes to plan and we can watch the game here's what we can expect: the unexpected.

Last year, the Black Bears came into the dome with a ton of trick plays and goofy stunts. Yes, there were fake punts. Yes, there were onside kicks. Yes, there was a ton of tom foolery. Infact, maine successfully pulled off TWO! fake punts..... AND two! count em TWO! onside kicks!! Will that happen again this year? I'm unsure, but hopefully syracuse won't get fooled again. Bob Casullo, we're looking at you!!

The previous meeting found Maine beating Syracuse in the dome 17-13 at halftime. However, Syracuse's offense prevailed in the 2nd half, winning the game 41-24 behind Delone Carter's "Al Bundy" performance. Yes, that's 4 touchdowns in a single game for you young folks out there.

In 2010, Syracuse enters the game 1-1, coming off a beat-down at the hands of the Washington Huskies. Maine enters the Dome 1-1 as well, after opening their season with a 3-0 loss to Albany. Yes, that's 3-0 and no, its not 1894. In their 2nd game, they managed a more respectable score, a 31-23 victory over Monmouth. You don't know what that school is. I don't know what that school is. Regardless, Syracuse won't just sleepwalk their way to victory, they are going to have to come to play!

By now the reality has set in for Syracuse fans. Aaron Weaver is done for the year. The biggest target for Ryan Nassib will be replaced most likely by junior Marcus Sales. If and when he proves himself not up to the task, we can count on speedy Dorian Graham to replace him as the 3rd wide-out. Hopefully, he will do enough to keep the walk-ons off the field.

As far as the running game for Syracuse is concerned, it will be difficult for Carter to top his 3 rushing TDs (and 1 receiving TD), however his 19 carries for 72 yards could be improved. I'm going to look for Antwon Bailey to get more involved in the offense this week as he could be the 3rd receiving option the Orange will desperately need out of the backfield.

Syracuse defense will hopefully stuff the run. The secondary was starting to give me reason to believe up until the second half of the Washington game. That's when their old habits of bad coverage and even worse tackling started to come to the surface. Not to single anyone out, but Da'Mon Merkerson, I'M LOOKING AT YOU! This kid simply can not tackle.

On a softer note, Syracuse University will be celebrating the 30th Anniversary of the Carrier Dome on this night. Speaking of the Dome, the Orangemen haven't won a home opener since 2004. Lets see about changing that, shall we?

photo courtesy of espn.com

Injury bug bites Syracuse WR

Well, its happened. The first major injury of the regular season has occured and is to starting wide receiver Aaron Weaver, the hofstra transfer. The 6'2" 220 pound receiver tore his ACL in practice tuesday. It was a non-contact drill and the team was practicing in shorts and shoulderpads/helmets when the injury occured. He is out for the remainder of the season.

Weaver proved himself to be a trusted receiver for quarterback Ryan Nassib, hauling in six catches in two games for 88 yards and a touchdown. He had the second most receiving yards on the team and was third in receptions. He will be remembered forever in syracuse football lore for scoring the first touchdown of the season in 2010.

His frame and speed will be missed on offense. A unit already struggling to find its identity. Syracuse still has Alec Lemon and Van Chew who have been decent targets for Ryan Nassib, but they now need someone to step up and fill the void left by the loss of Weaver.

Marcus Sales, junior wide receiver from nearby CBA (6' 177lbs) is one option, although last season he showed he was better at dropping passes than actually catching them. Walk-on Cody Morgan is one possible replacement (an even smaller player at 5'8" 166lbs) if Sales isn't up to the challenge, as is Dorian Graham (5'11" 185lbs out of ft. lauderdale). It is very obvious that Aaron Weaver's size will be very difficult to replace.

This week Syracuse will open up their home portion of the schedule with a game versus Maine at 7pm. The game will be televised live on SNY. This will be a good opportunity to try out some different looks on offense as the Orangemen try to move on without Aaron Weaver.

photo courtesy of espn.com

HI! I'm Earth. Have we met?

SYRACUSE - 20

WASHINGTON - 41

Well, it all started out so promising. Syracuse got the ball on the opening possession, took it downfield, and grabbed a 7-0 lead on a big 28 yard run from ryan nassib. Surprisingly, syracuse d came out and got us the ball back. SU then added to their lead, a 29 yard field goal from ross krautman. 10-0 orangemen, we're in business!

From there the game took a very different direction than the orange faithful had envisioned from this point. jake locker and the huskies (mainly this dude jermaine kearse who absolutely torched us) rattled off 27 unanswered points.

The real turning point of this game?!? Syracuse down 13-10 with time winding down in the 1st half. Cuse has driven deep into husky territory, has the ball inside the 20 with under 10 seconds left. instead of calling timeout or spiking the ball, ryan nassib scrambles around and throws an incomplete pass with no time left. cuse doesn't even get to try a field goal (krautman missed a fg earlier so I can sort of see why they didnt send him out right away) and what happens to open the 2nd half??? First play from scrimmage Kearse takes a 57 yard touchdown pass from jake locker. just great, 20-10.

The huskies would never look back.

In my pre-game post I said that the cuse will win or lose this game in the secondary. It seemed at times jake locker moved the ball at will through the orange defense. Locker's final line was 22 of 33 passing attempts for 289 yards and 4 touchdowns. Three of those touchdowns were to the aforementioned jermaine kearse. i'm sure that his performance will only further solidify his place atop draft boards.

Another knock against the secondary? tackling, or lack there of. any time a husky receiver got the ball they were running for 30 after the catch. open field tackling was brutal. the corners were soft. syracuse has to get better or we are going to regress to the days of grob..

So, syracuse is 1-1. Heading home. the undefeated season will have to wait for another year. coming up on the syracuse schedule are back to back home games v. maine and colgate. assuming all goes according to plan, syracuse should be 3-1 heading into conference play. the big east has looked beatable. lets just get some momentum going!!

things that need to be worked on :

1. THE OFFENSIVE LINE!!

2. Pass coverage!

3. Open field tackling by the secondary!!!

4. Red-Zone offense.

pre-game post. beat washington.

we're hours away from this week's syracuse game and anticipation is running high. personally, i'm sitting watching the florida-south florida game hoping for a big east win. last week the conference gave an overall disappointing showing, but the orangemen of syracuse managed to represent the conference proudly.

rolling into washington with a 1-0 record feels pretty good. syracuse made their mistakes week 1, but they weren't mistakes that you couldn't correct in practice this week. I trust doug marrone addressed it and corrected it. its already been a pretty solid day (I passed wayne gretzky on the street this morning in nyc) and a syracuse victory will really tie the weekend together nicely.

An article on syracuse.com previewing the game this morning said derrell smith lead syracuse in 2007 v. washington with 19 rushing yards. NINETEEN!?!? how can it be that syracuse's leading rusher in a complete game had 19 yards? just that fact alone makes me want notre dame to win even bigger this week v. michigan. and I never root for notre dame.

Jake Locker this. Jake Locker that. Time for syracuse to kick this guy in the teeth. starting with the first play of the game. get in his face and put him on the turf. shake him up. this is going to be a very different syracuse team than the last one washington saw and they wont know what hit them. i hope. jump on them early!

Last week the secondary did a great job holding Akron to only a couple big passes and we are going to need a repeat of that today if cuse wants to win their 2nd west coast game in 13 tries. I am confident syracuse's rushing defense will rise to the occasion. this game will be won or lost by the secondary!

delone carter, we need a big play! I think we're all ready for a 60 yard touchdown run tonight. make it happen.

LETS GO ORANGE!! Rumor has it there will be a lot of syracuse fans there from the nunesmagician.com website, lets hope they all go home happy.

And now we're gonna party like its 2003!!!

SYRACUSE - 29

AKRON - 3

YES! The Syracuse University football team has done it! For the first time since the 49-47 double overtime victory at chapel hill in the fall of 2003 the orangemen have opened their football season with a VICTORY. The quarterback on that day was RJ Anderson, on this day we had first time starter Ryan Nassib under center. I for one liked what I saw for the most part, but he needs improvement if he wants to win any games in the Big East.

Syracuse lost the coin toss but for some reason akron deferred possession to the 2nd half. Syracuse promptly took the ball downfield led by Ryan Nassib and eventually connected on a 23 yard pass to Aaron Weaver (hofstra transfer), who picked up some YACs and ran it into the endzone for a 7-0 cuse lead. They would never look back.

First impressions of weaver: damn that kid is big!! and he's fast too! watching him cut across the middle of the field finding open space was a welcome change to the dropped passes and 6 yard screens that go nowhere we've grown accustomed to. Cuse fans should look for him on gameday #87 and expect to see him as a primary target for Nassib. He's 6'3" and he has some hands (picked up a nassib fumble on the 2nd drive of the game). Welcome to the team!

Another WR that I was impressed with was Van Chew (#82). 3 catches for 79 yards and a TD. His TD catch was a beautiful diving snag in the endzone to end the 1st half.

As for the return of Delone Carter, he picked up 91 yards on 26 carries and a 1 yard TD run. He ran strong but I think we all would like to see some big yardage plays from him against a weak opponent like Akron. He didn't participate in spring practice due to some off the field issues (something involving a snowball???) so maybe he was just getting the rust off..

Antwon Bailey had himself a nice day as well. 9 rushes for 55 yards and 4 catches for 30 yards gave him 85 yards on the day. Frankly, I would have liked to have seen more of him in the 1st half. Delone Carter runs hard and gets the yardage but it'd be a nice change of pace to bring Bailey in for a few more touches early. Maybe thats something Marrone can look for later in the season. Bailey opened the 2nd half for cuse with a 24 yard reverse and punished Akron's defense, even going as far as to make #49 cry at one point!!

It wasn't all pretty for the cuse though. Botched extra points!? unacceptable!! mike holmes' punt returning? AWFUL! honestly i think mike holmes is afraid of catching punts. He looked scared out there when the ball was coming down and could have turned the ball over 3 times himself if not for some fortunate bounces. Another area of weakness was the offensive line. They have GOT to do a better job of protecting nassib, if they can't stop akron's pressure than how can we expect them to block defenders against stronger big east teams?

The defense was as good as I've seen it in a long time. Akron was held to 3 points all night. Those 3 points came after a nassib fumble at his own 18 yard line and the Cuse D held the Zips to 3 points. Way to respond! the zips had 166 yards of total offense. The run D picked up where it left off last season, limiting the zips to 55 yards, and even the defensive backs who have been the weakest link on the su team for sometime, held akron to only 1 big play. As long as they can limit the big plays, the deep passes, then this team can be successful.

My critique for Ryan Nassib is this : put some damn arc on your passes bro! yes, you have a cannon, but you cant just throw the ball through cornerbacks and safetys! you have to throw it over them and lead your receiver downfield. if he had done that we would have seen at least 5 more completions for nassib and for big yardage. you can't just throw the ball on a straight line like you're brett farve and expect to complete passes. Syracuse ran the option 1 time in this game, and frankly he could have done a better job selling the run. He has the legs and he can make defenses pay for not paying attention to his scramble but he has to sell it better. Overall I was impressed with Nassib's play, he just needs to put a little more touch on the football!

This week we travel to Washington to play Jake Locker and the Huskies. The defense is going to need a HUGE game if we want to win. Especially since the huskies are 0-1 after a loss to BYU this week they will look to avenge that at their home opener. Jake Locker is an early heisman candidate and some "experts" say he could be the first QB taken in the 2011 NFL draft. Cuse best be up for the challenge!!