Growing pains can be painful -- especially when there's no growth. The still growing Syracuse Orange football program went to Kentucky on Saturday and all they got was a beating from the previously sub .500 Louisville Cardinals, losing 27-10.
The loss was especially bitter for fans who thought last week's huge victory over West Virginia was a watershed moment for a program that is still recovering from the disastrous Greg Robinson era. It turns out the Syracuse performance against the Mountaineers may have been an aberration.
In the face of an aggressive pressure defense, the Orange offense once again folded like a cheap suit, something that has happened far too often with with Doug Marrone at the helm. The offensive performance was reminiscent of the impotent performances the offense had down the stretch last year.
Make no mistake about it, Marrone has done a commendable job so far. He turned around a train wreck of a program, turning in a winning season and bowl victory in year two and barring a complete collapse, the Orange will finish this year with 6 or 7 wins and another bowl trip this year.
The Syracuse program is better in every phase of the game under Marrone. However, the one thing he has not consistently established is an offensive attack that threatens opposing defenses. We've seen flashes, like last week, but it hasn't been consistent enough.
Every time we get an offensive flame-out, the same excuse appears -- that Syracuse doesn't have a game-breaking receiver. That may be true, but I simply don't believe receivers on this team are that bad. Part of it has to be scheme.
Marrone didn't have any problem recognizing the fact that his team would struggle against Louisville's pressure defense, but we was unable to get his players to implement an attack that would beat it. While I have no doubt he's working very hard to get this corrected, I don't understand the refusal to spread the field.
Sure the offensive line was getting beat, but if you go four wide and flex the TE you are forcing the defense to react to that and take those guys into account instead of just bringing heat right up the middle. I'd rather have Nassib hitting a WR on a hot route than have him fire another 2 yard pass into Adam Harris' chest. You aren't going to threaten a defense with Nick Provo and David Stevens running two yard drags all day.
Of course, this week it didn't help that Ryan Nassib missed every single throw he attempted outside of five yards. Ryan admitted as much after the game which is commendable, but he had some killer misses in this one. He has to connect on a few of those. I swear he missed on every vertical throw he attempted.
So for three years Syracuse has struggled against teams that play aggressive bump and run on the corners and blitz up the middle. And for for three years have haven't seen much deviation in the way the team attacks it. There's an old saying that if the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Marrone and Hackett need to go buy some more tools to and fix this offense.
As to the game itself, here are some quick thoughts:
- The defense didn't play well, but if the offense had helped a little the performance wouldn't have been so glaring. Those guys spent a ton of time on the field.
- There were a lot of bad angles taken and blown coverages in the secondary. This has been a reoccurring theme.
- I really like the linebackers. Probably the biggest question mark coming into the season, this unit has played well, and will only get better. Cameron Lynch, Dyshawn Davis, Marquis Spruill and Dan Vaughan are going to keep getting better.
- Another nice game for Chandler Jones, who was seemingly getting held on every play.
- The officiating was abysmal. The ass-clowns that were working the game threw a flag on seemingly every play. It was a joke. You would have thought they were getting paid based on the number of flags they threw. It wasn't one-sided either, the screwed Louisville a few times and screwed the Orange some as well. No one watches games to see referees. Someone should tell these guy that.
- Charlie Strong is a really, really good football coach. With him at the helm Louisville is going to dominate the Sun Beast conference.
- We got bad Ryan Nassib yesterday. I still think he's a pretty good QB, so let's just move on.
- The offensive line did a poor job of getting Louisville's middle blitzes picked up. After a masterful game against West Virginia, the unit struggled something fierce.
- I think Michael Hay gets personal fouls in class as well. He has to right? I can just see him slamming into professors after class is over, just to stay in practice.
- It was nice to see Jarrod West with his first career TD. Here's hoping there's many more.
- UConn is up next and that team is terrible. The Orange need to go to Connecticut and take care of business because if they make Johnny McEntee look competent than we should just shut down the season.
Two-thirds of the way through the season SU sits at 5-3. We are looking at another finish in the 7-5 range. At the beginning of the season there wouldn't be many people who would be disappointed with that record, so it's safe to say the program is still headed in the right direct. That doesn't make Saturday's game any easier to swallow, but all we can do now is move.
Go Orange, Beat UConn.
0 comments:
Post a Comment