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Disappointing loss. The O Line was manhandled and allowed 5 sacks. Ellis got some time on the OL. Just after he went in, he got bull rushed (all 375# of him) into the QB for one of the sacks. The OL has to play better and give Shrader some time to operate. Wonder if we will start seeing more of Ellis and More.
Disappointed in the WRs today. This was a game where we really missed Gadsden (along with Jones & Pena). Alford had 1 catch (great play!) in 4 targets and Hatcher had 0 catches in 4 targets. I think we led the ACC today in out-of-bounds catches.
Really nice to see Villari step up and have a good game today. He can be a nice weapon going forward. Shrader didn’t have a great game, though.
Those sideline throws were odd though. The receivers did a poor job giving Shrader space to throw too, Shrader threw some awful balls, and they called that number way too much. Just didn’t make sense. The receivers were overall awful, as they have been. Some of those drops were just disgraceful. Dino also had a bad day if we put coaching on him. The field goal attempt was flat out stupid….and after this many years of this many penalties….it’s impossible not to blame coaching. The bottom line is that SU gave this one away with mistakes. BUT….
When is the last time you could say about a Syracuse football team playing a legitimately loaded big time program, missing their best offensive player, maybe their best offensive lineman, several other key pieces (including top line transfers), and not sound like an absurd homer when you say “they gave this one away”? This is progress. This is a good football team. Now the job is to not let this derail the opportunity they still have, to clean up these fixable errors, and to keep making positive steps. I’m pissed about how they let this slip….but I feel vastly better about our program than I have in a long time.