Saturday Indulgence

Bear with me as I report on sport with this sports report.
Thoughts, statements, fragments and moments as seen through orange-colored glasses by a man in an orange-colored shirt.

Over 45,000 in attendance. First snap in the shotgun for SU clears Greg Paulus by at least ten feet. That snap would have been good from fifty yards out. Team gets down 14-3 early. Battles back. Defense plays inspired...uh ... defense. Tackles are made on ball carriers. Team scores points. SU leads at halftime. Defense stays tough in second half, allows some big pass plays, but only gives up field goals. Over the last four years, SU has been no better than 101st in defense, they were much improved today. Paulus, who was touted for his smarts, showed it on all but the last play, an unnecessarily risky throw into the end zone that was picked off in overtime. He got away with a couple other balls that should have been intercepted. He had two or three drops on third downs in the second half that would have kept drives alive and may have lead to a score that may have won the game which would have lead my post today to simply be TITLE: 'cuse wins BODY: 'cuse wins LABELS: 'cuse wins. Normally, Syracuse burns all of it's timeouts in the first quarter... on first down plays, after tv timeouts, while on defense (and those are not the three ways they do it, it is a full description of each timeout event). Today, they only had one disorganized moment where they had to waste one. There were false starts and some holds, but nothing as ugly as the last several years have produced. If there had been no halftime break, I think Syracuse would have won by ten, but the halftime adjustments by Minnesota killed the Orange flow and resulted in the loss and the current sorrow that now clouds around me like a dark, damp sorrow cloud.

Grades:

Overall: 98 - They played with heart and intensity.

Defense: B+ (Much improved - good tackling - two takeaways - need better pass rush - linebackers, not just safeties, need to make some tackles)

Offense: 3/5 stars (Resilient - good play calling - running backs are solid - O-line not as dreadful as usual - terrible on third down (see drops) - skill players made plays, someone needed to step up and make one more - Paulus looks ok, needs a little more pocket patience, but you can't blame him too much for bailing out early)

Special teams: Satisfactory (punting game was so-so - freshman kicker hit 2/2 fg's - one big return, otherwise, not much spark, no game changers - coverage was fair on all but one kick)

Next week they go to Happy Valley. Not going to be pretty... Penn State is ranked #9, but it should be watchable. It shall be watched.