Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Football Thoughts

Football Thoughts (from 4/9/2010)

This past Friday I was one of the many coaches who attended the Syracuse University Football Coaches Clinic. The staff was very welcoming and was able to have current players demonstrate many drills and techniques.

The sessions I attended on Friday were for the linebackers, defensive backs, defensive line and quarterbacks. I wanted to share my thoughts on these players and additionally on the practice that was Friday afternoon. These thoughts are from the perspective of a fan who happens to be a coach.

LBs
The LBs that demonstrated the drills were: Marquis Spruill, Brice Hawkes, Dan Vaughn, and EJ Carter. Derrell Smith was also present and in full gear, but he did not participate in any of the demonstrations. Carter was definitely the best of the bunch, but Vaughn had good footwork and looked very good going through the drills. Spruill and Hawkes both looked very raw, but very athletic. Once they add 10-15 pounds of muscle I can see them making an impact for the Orange. Coach Conley does an excellent job picking up the little details and coming up with ways to practice them.

DBs
Phillip Thomas, Da’Mon Merkerson, Dorian Graham, Rishard Anderson, Michael Holmes, George Mayes, Ryan Ahern, and Shamarko Thomas demonstrated the drills. My overall feeling about the DBs is that they are extremely athletic. However, based on last season and the overall look of them, most of them are not very physical. If all they had to do is cover someone I think they have the makings of a great group. When you add in having to tackle they become a question mark.

DL
Chandler Jones, Bud Tribbey, Torrey Ball, Andrew Lewis, Chad Battles, and Mikhail Marinovich were the group to demonstrate these drills. Jones and Marinovich are athletes! I fully expect Chandler to be the third member of his family to become a professional athlete along with Jon and Arthur. He has added muscle since I saw him play in high school and maintained (if not gained) his quickness. For the most part I was very impressed with this group of players.

QBs
All four of the quarterbacks on the roster were present to demonstrate: Charley Loeb, Ryan Nassib, James Jarrett and Nick Raven. Out of the four Loeb looked to throw the best ball. Granted this was on a 35 x 15 yard field. While Loeb threw the best, his footwork was more like a dancer than football player. He almost pranced through his drops. Nassib had by far the best footwork of the group. He threw decent, but not as well as Loeb. The other two are just reveling in their time before the freshman arrive and steal the small amount of reps they are getting.

Practice
The defense looked very good. Now keep in mind they probably have 90% of their blitzes in while much of the offensive plays remain basic. When the first eleven are on the field the Syracuse defense looks like it can slow down or stop any offense it faces. Two of the defensive highlights: Nassib would have been sacked about 10 times, Jones made a great diving interception when he was dropping from the DE spot into a zone. The offense has a lot of work to do, but defenses always gel quicker than offenses so this should not come as a surprise. During the drills Nassib threw a very nice ball in the 15-25 yard range. Shorter or longer he did not look good at all! In fact none of the quarterbacks threw a very good deep ball on Friday. Numerous times receivers had their man beat in long patterns by 5-6 yards. On each occasion (regardless of which QB was throwing) the passes were underthrown. On many occasions the pass was severely underthrown.

The Bottom Line
Syracuse looks to have the makings of a good defense. However, if Syracuse is going to compete with the better teams on their schedule their quarterbacks are going to need to improve a great deal. After seeing these guys at their current level, I am surprised it took Paulus the three practices to earn his starting job last year! I don’t want to seem completely negative about the quarterback situation, but on the particular day I was at practice I was not very impressed.

Throughout the next few weeks I will be posting detailed scouting reports on the 2010-11 Syracuse University basketball team. Since this is only my opinion on what I have seen this year and the past few years it is up for debate.

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