Four Downs: West Virginia

Four Downs returns a mere 10 hours before tomorrow’s kickoff against West Virginia. Let’s get right to it.

1. How will Delone Carter’s absence affect the Syracuse offense?

Carter is currently listed as doubtful for the game with a hamstring injury, meaning more work should be placed on the shoulders of Doug Houge, who has been pushed aside for the most part behind Curtis Brinkley and Carter. Carter has been a very good compliment to Brinkley this year, but this week Syracuse will again have to count on their other backs to lead the way. West Virginia is pretty stout against the run (ranked 38th in the country) so the offense will need them both to produce in order to take pressure of Cameron Dantley.

2. What percentage of third downs will West Virginia convert?

Pat White could have another huge day against a bad Syracuse defense.

It definitely isn’t a sexy stat, but anyone who knows anything about football will tell you that winning the battle on third downs will go a long way in leading you to victory. Currently the Orange defense is ranked second to last in the country, allowing their opponents to convert 62.2% of their third down attempts. This included allowing Pitt to convert 3 of 4 chances in the fourth quarter with the game on the line.

Conversely, West Virginia’s offense is 34th in the country on third down, converting 44.4% of their attempts. If Syracuse has any hope in this game, the defense needs to play almost perfect football. And that includes stopping the Mountaineers on third down.

It also means containing Pat White, who last year finished 12-15 for 148 yards passing, along with 89 yards rushing. That was an improvement for the Syracuse defense, which allowed White to run for 247 yards and 4 TDs in 2006.

3. How will Syracuse play on the road?

After a four game homestand, the Orange will find themselves out of Central New York for a remainder of the season. Three of the next four and five of the final seven games are road contests, with only Louisville and UConn left to visit the dome in 2008.

As with many things, the Orange have struggled on the road under Greg Robinson’s watch (then again they haven’t really set the world ablaze at home either). Here are their home and road splits since 2005:

It is pretty obvious Syracuse can’t win on the road, especially in Big East play where we have only managed one victory which was last year at Louisville. But if this team wants to salvage their season and save their coach they will need to start winning on the road, which is no easy task in Morgantown. Maybe Syracuse can catch WVU sleeping as they look forward to next week’s game against Auburn.

4. Which West Virginia will show up?

The Mountaineers are off to an atypical slow start to the year, suffering early losses to East Carolina and Colorado and struggling to beat a less than stellar Rutgers team. So will that be the team lining up across from Syracuse on Saturday? Or will it be the team that has beaten us by an average of 37-13 the last three seasons?

My guess is it will likely be the later instead of the former. Pat White and Noel Devine shouldn’t have much trouble carving up our awesome run defense (current rank: 106th in the country) and Bill Stewart should be able to avoid the negative press for another week, unlike Greg Robinson.

West Virginia 38- Syracuse 17

Only Syracuse Football Could Make Megan Fox Less Attractive To Me…

As I was doing my grocery shopping late last week, I stumbled into the magazine aisle. This seemed like as good a place as any to find some bathroom reading material, so I started perusing the shelves looking for anything that caught my eye.

If you think this post was an excuse just to run this picture you are 100% correct.

Of course, as a red-blooded American male, hot chicks usually catch my eye. And this shopping trip did not provide an exception. My pupils focused in on this months issue of Maxim, where my gaze was met by the beautiful Megan Fox of Transformers/hottest chick alive fame who was hiding her “bare” assets with what would charitably be described as a pillow case. Needless to say, I immediately bought the magazine.

What does this have to do with Syracuse you might be asking? Well, directly above Miss Fox’s cover photo was a headline advertising the 10 worst teams in college football. I’ll give you two guesses as to which Big East team is included in the rankings.

Done? Did you even need the second guess?

Yup, we made another bottom ten list! Syracuse was ranked as the second worst program in the country. Now, I have no idea what qualified a team for this list as Maxim was kind enough not to tell me, but overall crapocity (could be a made up word) is probably a key component. It is all BCS schools as well, so obviously that is a qualification.

The list featured a lot of the teams you would expect to find on there such as Baylor and Iowa State. But it is pretty obvious this was written before the season started, or else we’d be number one (since Maxim is a monthly magazine there is no doubt it was written well before October). Many teams on the list have gotten off to very good starts this season and probably wouldn’t be considered in the bottom ten anymore. Syracuse on the other hand would.

The top bottom ten:

1. Duke
2. Syracuse
3. Stanford
4. Baylor
5. Iowa State
6. Minnesota
7. Washington State
8. Vanderbilt
9. Mississippi
10. Notre Dame

Duke is off to a 3-2 start and just missed starting 4-0; Syracuse we are all well aware of; Stanford beat USC last year and is 3-3 this season. Jim Harbaugh has them going in the right direction; Baylor has at least beaten a D1-A team this year, something SU has not. They also took UConn down to the wire on the road; Iowa State is 2-3 but avoids Texas, Oklahoma and Texas Tech in conference play; Minnesota is 5-1 but faced a very weak schedule (but as an SU fan, I’d take 5-1 anyway I could get it); Washington State is even more screwed up then we are (down to their 3rd and 4th string QBs); Vandy is 5-0; Houston Nutt has Mississippi at 3-3 and upset Florida recently; Notre Dame is 4-1 and will probably make a bowl game.

So hey, I guess there is time left for Syracuse to turn it around like many of the teams on this list have. But my guess is that it probably won’t happen starting this week.

Taking a Closer Look at Steve Addazio

In case you missed it, former Orange star Rob Konrad sent a letter to Daryl Gross and Nancy Cantor regarding the current state of the Syracuse football program. Konrad apparently sent the letter on behalf of a group of “prominent football alumni”. With regards to how to get the program on track, Konrad writes that Gross and Cantor should hire someone with northeast recruiting ties and a non-pro style coach, instead of a big-name, expensive coach like Lane Kiffin. That leads Konrad to suggest former Orange assistant and current Florida assistant Steve Addazio:

Addazio began his career as a high school coach in Cheshire, CT and keeps many of the relationships of the past regime with the high school coaching element of the Northeast region. He has built a reputation as a tremendous recruiter and a passionate motivator who has become legendary for his pre-game speeches. Addazio has helped organize some of the most potent non-conventional offenses in college football including Florida’s National Championship season and Syracuse’s Big East Championship and BCS seasons. Besides coaching at the pinnacle of college football, local knowledge and motivational attributes, considering his past ties to the University, he may come with a reasonable price tag.

"If any of you get called for holding I'll beat you with this cane!"

Addazio was an assistant at Syracuse from 1995-1998 before following Kevin Rogers to Notre Dame. While there he served as the offensive line and tight ends coach for two seasons. After head coach Bob Davie was fired, Addazio moved on to Indiana, serving first as the offensive line coach for two seasons followed by a season as the offensive coordinator.

During his time at Florida Addazio has coached both the tight ends and the offensive line. This year he was named the assistant head coach in charge of the Gators offense. But according to this bio the play calling falls to offensive coordinator Dan Mullen. Here are the numbers that Florida put up the year before Addazio took over as the offensive line coach (2005) and the two years later:

As you can see their sacks allowed per game dropped from nearly three a game in 2005 to one per game last season. Pretty impressive. Another trend to look at is the numbers of Addazio’s offenses at Indiana. Below are the numbers from the two years prior to Addazio’s arrival as the offensive line coach:

These numbers are amazing, but a lot of that has to do with who was playing quarterback for the Hoosiers during those two seasons: Antwaan Randle El. For those of you who remember him before his days as an NFL wideout, Randle El was an excellent college QB and put up some great numbers rushing the ball (similar to another such QB Addazio worked with at Syracuse).

After Addazio’s arrival (and Randle El’s departure) the Indiana offense struggled to gain any real momentum:

Things didn’t get much better when Addazio took over as the offensive coordinator:

Granted, it is very hard to replace a talent like Randal El. Therefore it is hard to place too much blame on Addazio for the poor numbers of his Hoosier offenses. On the other side of that coin- how much do you buy into Addazio’s accomplishments at Florida? Is their offensive success the result of Urban Meyers schemes or the quality of his assistant coaches?

There is no doubt that a top notch offensive line coach makes a huge difference to a team’s success (look at what Mitch Browning has done this year with the improved SU line). And having northeast ties would definitely help us recruit better in the states where we used to shine before Rutgers and UConn got their programs going in the right direction. And Addazio is a former Orange coach, so it all makes sense on paper.

But is he a viable candidate? I don’t see it. In fact, if we go the route of hiring another head coach without previous head coach experience, I’m more impressed with Addazio’s colleague, Dan Mullen. He’s been Florida’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach since 2005 and before that worked with Urban Meyer at both Utah and Bowling Green. He has tutored the likes of Tim Tebow, Chris Leak, Alex Smith, Josh Harris and Omar Jacobs. That is an impressive list. And he would bring Meyer’s spread attack that has been successful at all three of those schools to the Carrier Dome turf. I guess he’s another name to keep in mind if “that which we should never speak of” actually happen .

Statistically Speaking: 2008 Syracuse Football

After the Akron loss I wrote about how this year’s football team was doing based purely by the numbers so far. Now that we are 5 games into the season and heading into a bye week I thought it would be a good time to look at the Orange’s ranks in some selected categories. These stats and rankings are from the official NCAA statistics and rankings website.

First, let’s touch on some positives-which happen to be entirely on the offensive side of the ball. The rushing offense this year has been vastly improved, as Syracuse ranks 55th nationally in rushing . This is a huge change from the previous rushing offenses under Greg Robinson, which had national rankings of 105 (2005), 97 (2006), and 118 (2007). Curtis Brinkley is currently tied for 34th in the country with 95.4 yards per game. My guess is that this success is mainly due to the improved run blocking and coaching of Mitch Browning who was known for his rushing attacks at Minnesota.

One of the few bright spots of the 2008 Syracuse Orange football team.

The offensive line is also pass protecting much better, giving up only 1.4 sacks per game. Compare that to the previous years averages of 3.36 (2005), 3.75 (2006) and 4.5 (2007) and it is clear that something is going right this year on the line.

This improved offensive line play has helped Cameron Dantley get off to a solid since taking over for Andrew Robinson, as he is the 47th in passing efficiency in the nation. His 132.81 rating is the highest for a Syracuse QB since Troy Nunes had a rating of 134.51 in the 2000 season. Below is the Syracuse leaders in QB rating since 2000 (player must have 15 attempts/game to rank nationally):

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Granted this isn’t a murder’s row of QBs and his numbers aren’t a great deal better than the others on this list, but it could be a sign of things to come for Dantley for the rest of the season and heading into next year.

Defensively, however, it is just more of the same. The Orange are at or close to the bottom of the Big East and all of Division 1A football, just like they have been through most of Robinson’s tenure. It has been said hundreds of times, but for a highly thought of defensive coach as Robinson was when he was hired, his teams have played some damn terrible defense.

So despite the strides the offense has made this year under Browning the team continues to struggle defensively, and in the standings. I guess the old saying that defense wins football games has never been more apparent than with the Syracuse program for the last few seasons.

Harry! You’re alive!…And you’re a terrible shot!

"Yeah I called her up, she gave me a bunch of crap about me not listening to her, or something, I don't know, I wasn't really paying attention."

Yes, I am alive! Sorry for the complete lack of updates in the past few weeks. I just moved to a new place and didn’t have internet access for quite a while. Hopefully I can get into some sort of regular schedule of posting. And with the bye week I hope to finally get caught up on my video analysis from the last few games.

So here are some of my opinions on the latest news in Orange Nation:

Football: Well at least we didn’t lose to Northeastern (but good god we actually kept them in that game). I loved the effort in the Pitt game but this team still needs to learn (or be taught?) how to finish a game. That would have been a big win to kick off the Big East slate but, to quote the great Dennis Green, “we let em off the hook“.

Lloyd Carr: I don’t know what is more interesting: the fact that Lloyd Carr’s name was mentioned in the same breath as the Syracuse football program, or the uproar that this rumor caused. I know Brian at Orange44 didn’t just post this because he felt like it would be good to start a rumor. It was obviously something that he was given from a reliable source/sources. I’m not sure why Donnie Webb decided this was something to rail against like the infamous Buzz Bissinger vs. Will Leitch feud, but frankly I don’t think it was a big deal. Coaching rumors have been running rampant around this program for two years (including some that Mr. Webb himself has facilitated) and will not stop until Greg Robinson either leads this team to a bowl game or is fired. Having a guy of Carr’s background either as a candidate or as a part of the search for a possible G-Rob replacement is nothing but a positive for the SU football program. Maybe Daryl Gross is learning from his big mistake.

Lane Kiffin: On September 15th I was out at lunch with a collegue and we started talking about Al Davis and his rampant craziness desire to fire yet another head coach. Davis had brought Lane Kiffin in as a change of pace from all the old retread coaches he had hired over the past few years. I mentioned to my friend that I thought Kiffin would be a great hire for Syracuse if he were let go from Oakland. He has a great recruting record at USC, knows how to coach a successful collegiate offense, and has head coaching experience. When I got back from lunch Donnie Webb had posted that same thought on Syracuse.com (see? I should get paid for this!).

I think Kiffin would be a very good choice. Yes he only went 5-15 with Oakland, but did you see their last three games with him? He had that team playing much better than they played before he go there. He was starting to turn the corner, something that Robinson has yet to do here. There are the obvious connections with Daryl Gross so it wouldn’t be a suprising move. I think Kiffin would bring the smarts and excitement the program has lacked in recent years.

Of course there are many other choices, including Turner Gill (who is my favorite choice), Skip Holtz, Al Golden, Randy Edsall, etc. But Kiffin is an intriguing candidate.

Scoop Jardine: This is definitly great news for the hoops program. With both Devendorf and Rautins back this year Jardine was going to see his minutes drastically reduced. This allows him to rehab his leg and improve his game for the 09-10 season when more minutes should be available (Devendorf, Flynn and Harris theoretically could be gone-but not likely). Either way it gives Scoop a year to develop.

That’s it for now. Once I’ve settled into my new place I’ll continue with some football analysis, including a breakdown of Cam Dantley and another look at Syracuse playmakers. Thanks for reading (to the five confirmed people who read my crap).