Athlon collects some feedback.
Each year, Athlon collects anonymous feedback from conference coaches about each team to include in its season preview magazine. The Syracuse Orange are one of many schools that gets asked about, and the feedback provided is usually pretty honest, since it comes without the risk of (real) repercussions for shit-talking, etc.
So what did opposing coaches have to say about the Orange for 2017? Here’s a quote-by-quote breakdown of the prevailing thoughts:
“Being Year 2 in that system, I think they can be dangerous."
This could be anyone, but it’s probably someone that appreciates the art of a fast-paced offense. Based on total plays run last year, that likely points to Clemson (Dabo Swinney), Virginia Tech (Justin Fuente), or maybe Florida State (Jimbo Fisher)/NC State (Dave Doeren). It definitely wasn’t Louisville’s Bobby Petrino, since... y’know.
"It’s not easy to pick up that offense in a short period of time, not so much from the schematics but really the tempo of it. (Dino) Babers is used to having a track team at that position when he was at Baylor, and I don’t see that kind of speed there. They had two good veteran receivers who graduated (Amba Etta-Tawo and Brisly Estime), and they can’t run that system without some guys who can beat you vertically."
All fair, and sounds like it’s someone that understands the nuances of a system like this. Thinking Fuente or North Carolina’s Larry Fedora. Maybe even Pitt’s Pat Narduzzi given the way Pitt played on offense last year.
"They’re still going to play Eric Dungey at quarterback. He’s got some ability, you know, but he gets hurt all the time."
“Hurt all the time” is a stretch on Dungey, especially when he’s pretty adamant he could’ve played toward the end of the last couple seasons, despite not being inserted into games. This sounds like Dabo or Petrino levels of pettiness.
"Their O-line was atrocious last year."
A game-by-game breakdown of sacks allowed would be helpful here. But this level of honesty’s probably coming from someone that played against Dungey. That narrows it down to Petrino, Swinney, Fuente, Wake Forest’s Dave Clawson and Boston College’s Steve Addazio. Money’s on Clawson or Swinney since their teams held SU to the lowest point totals.
"Syracuse is the kind team you kind of don’t want to play, particularly up there. It’s a bad environment, and if your guys don’t go in there with their mind right, they can beat you. That’s what happened when they beat Virginia Tech."
You can take Fuente out of the equation here, but I’d say it’s in the division. Doeren seems likely here. Petrino would never offer such awareness.
"Obviously their defense struggled, but it’s so easy to point at that. In reality, their offense put them in a bind quite a bit. They’ll turn the ball over or go quick three-and-out or put their defense in bad situations.”
If we’re just looking at turnovers, Syracuse lost the ball three times against both Clemson and Boston College last year. Those three-and-outs against Clemson are really what buried us by so much in that game — versus simply losing and going home. But we also didn’t have our starting quarterback for the whole thing. So guessing BC here? Wake’s another possibility given how that game went.
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Overall, these quotes are fine. Nothing all that jarring or surprising. But anything I missed that you took exception to? Share if so.
