Syracuse post game thread

[RSTuthill]

When the ACC was deciding between us and Louisville to replace Maryland, we beat a Teddy Bridgewater Louisville team at Louisville when they were ranked, we were bad and our QB got knocked out during the game. It made zero difference.

Individual games are not what is going to decide what conference a team plays in. Being better than middling P-4 teams continuously will mean something.

Agreed. And filling the Rent will be important too. Gotta kill the narrative by the nay Sayers that no one cares.

 

[ninety-nine]

How do you not call pass interference in the end zone play? I’ve seen it posted like we were fortunate to get the call. And maybe due to the way they called the game yesterday we were but..

Did you see the replay? He actually interfered with Bell’s opportunity to catch the ball with the second part of that pass interference. It was clinical pass interference and I don’t chuck that up to a good call by the refs just the right call.

I watched the game live, and saw the replay. Like I said, it was the correct call. It's also a call that in practice can be ignored by a referee, even if it's obvious. PI calls aren't always made, even if they should be. They didn't miss that one, but could have, so I mentioned it.

 

[huskymedic]

 

[Windham4th]

Neider is QB1.

End of Message

 

[noeynox]

Well, when this blog goes against your preferred strategy down the stretch kind of says it all.

 

[BigTenFan]

Mora is a very good coach and we are fortunate to have him in Storrs.
Would you rather have Belichick and his 24 year old girlfriend calling the plays?

 

[ConnHuskBask]

Mora is a very good coach and we are fortunate to have him in Storrs.
Would you rather have Belichick and his 24 year old girlfriend calling the plays?

That's irrelevant to the fact that the staff blew the game.

 

[businesslawyer]

Agreed. And filling the Rent will be important too. Gotta kill the narrative by the nay Sayers that no one cares.

Attendance and financial support has far more to do with getting where we want to go than winning one or a few games. Anyone making a decision realizes that the on field product will be very different if the school has P-4 TV money to pay players and staff.

 

[B1GEast]

No moral victories.

Absolutely no moral victories at all

This was a game UConn controlled up to the last 7 minutes .

With a 17-12 lead and the way both the offense and defense were playing, we should have sustained the momentum.

You can't lose a game like this. There's no "Oh well, we almost had em"

It's a complete breakdown. They had nothing going for them, their offense stunk, their defense stunk, the crowd wasn't a factor. We controlled the tempo.

But somehow it all fell apart in the last few minutes. That should not have been allowed to happen.

The better team doesn't always win and we witnessed that yesterday.

Not criticizing the players or coach, just a frustrated fan.

It's games like this that make me think that Tony Soprano saw that everyone took UConn getting 6.5 and realized it was going to payout so he contacted Mora through his headset and made sure it didn't happen

It just doesn't make any sense

 

[KryHavok]

Neider is QB1.

End of Message

I love this for no other reason than having a Lawmen as a D1 starting QB.

Watching Sportscenter and other news this morning showing the story about the fruit's classless sprints after the game, I got so enraged again that I would be fine if we never play an all cretins crew team again... At least not until we can bring a different ref crew to our away games.

 

[noeynox]

Mora is a very good coach and we are fortunate to have him in Storrs.
Would you rather have Belichick and his 24 year old girlfriend calling the plays?

Dear God. None of that has anything to do with happened yesterday.

Posters in this board have this weird thing where you could never question the coaches decision. Like if you get brownie points for getting into heaven if you never question why the coach does what he does.

Mora deserves a ton of credit for getting this program to where they could line up on road against Syracuse and putting a team on the field that could compete and be in position to win that game against a p4 team. A ton of credit. But that doesnt mean that the reason they didn't win it was because the coaches blew it. You really can't ask more of the defense in that scenario.

 

[Windham4th]

Dear God. None of that has anything to do with happened yesterday.

Posters in this board have this weird thing where you could never question the coaches decision. Like if you get brownie points for getting into heaven if you never question why the coach does what he does.

Mora deserves a ton of credit for getting this program to where they could line up on road against Syracuse and putting a team on the field that could compete and be in position to win that game against a p4 team. A ton of credit. But that doesnt mean that the reason they didn't win it was because the coaches blew it. You really can't ask more of the defense in that scenario.

The positive from this game is that the defense isn't what alot of people thought it was after CCSU game. Still issues, but they played good until worn down by all the aforementioned issues. Should be able handle the G5s without issue and most of what P4 throws at us. Sorry for jinxing it by saying it.

 

[temery]

Dear God. None of that has anything to do with happened yesterday.

Posters in this board have this weird thing where you could never question the coaches decision. Like if you get brownie points for getting into heaven if you never question why the coach does what he does.

Mora deserves a ton of credit for getting this program to where they could line up on road against Syracuse and putting a team on the field that could compete and be in position to win that game against a p4 team. A ton of credit. But that doesnt mean that the reason they didn't win it was because the coaches blew it. You really can't ask more of the defense in that scenario.

The problem here is those who believe posting the same criticism 50 times makes their position 50 x more correct.

Mistakes were made and Syracuse upped their game the last few minutes. What cracks me up is those "mistakes" would have been great coaching had UConn won.

Anyone who thought the refs were in the bag for Syracuse are nothing more than blind pissy little bitches spitting out their sour grapes. It happens after every loss for every team that has ever played the sport.

And anyone who can't find some positives from this game are just terrible fans.

 

[TouchdownHusky]

The game came down to whether UConn could eat up the clock and move the ball late in the 4th. They didn’t. Surprised given our talent at RB..

The game shouldn't come down to "running out the clock". It should be about putting points - and more points - on the scoreboard. You got 'em down keep 'em down. UConn can't afford to be passive, it needs to be exciting, bold , flashy. They need to attract attention.

 

[superjohn]

Attendance and financial support has far more to do with getting where we want to go than winning one or a few games. Anyone making a decision realizes that the on field product will be very different if the school has P-4 TV money to pay players and staff.

They're all tied together. You blow games and can't get wins against mediocre/weak P4 teams and not as many fans show up. Winning these games is incredibly important when it comes to fan support, financial support, and getting an invite.

Your last sentence is what we know and what Yormark knows but it's the conference schools who need to be convinced we're a legitimate football school before they move to vote us in.

 

[Scoe]

The game shouldn't come down to "running out the clock". It should be about putting points - and more points - on the scoreboard. You got 'em down keep 'em down. UConn can't afford to be passive, it needs to be exciting, bold , flashy. They need to attract attention.

When you score you burn more clock. If Cuse had a minute left well then ok run clock. But no Cuse had 3 TO and the 2 minute warning. The best defense is an offense that puts the game away.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

I've posted thousands of times on the football board and would've been in the game chat if I had access. I've watched basically every game since they made the jump to D1-A. If you don't think our games against P4 teams matter in our quest to get an invite you aren't paying any attention.

Will you just shut up with questioning the program's existence after every single game? Seriously, are you ever going to drop this schtick?

 

[uconnyankee]

With all due respect no one likes to hear about silver linings when your team is not in a conference and brutally choke a game away you should have won against a P4 team.
Especially diehard fans who want to see this program get a lifeline.

Curious, do people realize this is the obvious feeling of most people that support UConn fb, and dormant really need to be said?

The game shouldn't come down to "running out the clock". It should be about putting points - and more points - on the scoreboard. You got 'em down keep 'em down. UConn can't afford to be passive, it needs to be exciting, bold , flashy. They need to attract attention.

I’m sorry, I disagree with that 100%.
Up 11 points, about 5 minutes left, the clock is your advantage.

You eat the clock.
Run the ball. Wait until 1-2 seconds to snap, and force other team to use up any TO’s they have. You protect the ball and go for sustained drives. 3 out and taking 20-30 seconds off clock doesn’t work.

UConn did everything they needed to for all but last 5 minutes. It absolutely came down to leveraging the clock, if Syracuse doesn’t have the ball, they can’t score.

Had Uconn gotten 1 first down towards the end, likely a different turnout.

 

[JohnFSilver]

-> Fran Brown made his team run sprints: Syracuse won 27-20, but the head coach was so upset by the way his team played against UConn that he kept it on the field for postgame running. Was the punishment warranted? Well, Syracuse looked dead in the water with seven minutes left, trailing 17-6. Two quick scores flipped the game and put the Orange on top 20-17 with 48 seconds left, but they couldn’t stop UConn from driving 52 yards in 47 seconds to send the game to overtime. Brown was not a happy camper in his postgame interview, and you can understand the frustration. But the wind sprints felt a like a Pop Warner gimmick that makes Brown look like a performative disciplinarian without addressing the underlying issues. <-

Brown was ridiculous. Can't wait until they come to the rent and UConn puts up 40 on them.

 

[superjohn]

Will you just shut up with questioning the program's existence after every single game? Seriously, are you ever going to drop this schtick?

No

Unlike you I know UConn getting out of the Big East is unbelievably important to the future of UConn football and our current setup isn't sustainable for the long term future of the program.

 

[CTBasketball]

Players didn’t execute.

Sure a few play calls could’ve been changed in the 2H. Mora and Brock’s defensive plan put us in a position to win. We embarrassed their offense for 80% of the game. That is a good sign going forward given this is one of our toughest opponents.

 

[uconnyankee]

They're all tied together. You blow games and can't get wins against mediocre/weak P4 teams and not as many fans show up. Winning these games is incredibly important when it comes to fan support, financial support, and getting an invite.

Your last sentence is what we know and what Yormark knows but it's the conference schools who need to be convinced we're a legitimate football school before they move to vote us in.

Why does the programs existence hinge on every outcome? Do you really think Yormark or Phillips is going to say ‘Wow, nice win, want to join now?’

You don’t think UConn has made drastic improvements under Mora?
You don’t think UConn has changed the narrative on its program?

everyone that supports UConn knows the situation. Those who support and root for football most certainly do. Any decision to invite UConn will be based on a much bigger picture than a win or loss.

The program is headed in right direction. It’s now competitive with lower P4 programs. We have a solid HC who gets it. We have solid OC and DC.

There is genuine fatigue about every game being the reason for or against having a program and being the determining factor for getting invite.

Stop ignoring the process. Everyone knows the score. We don’t need you to keep pointing it out.

 

[Palatine]

I wish we ran the clock in the third quarter a bit. We didn't.

Can we stop with the "played not to lose" nonsense. The offense was almost two passes to every run in the second half --until SU's first TD. It was poor offense (really poor) not conservative. Not play not to lose.

On defense, we rarely went to a three man rush (prevent defense). We brought four or more virtually every play as we totally collapsed. Syracuse was not beating a prevent defense. They were beating pressure which suddenly stopped being effective as we fell apart on defense.

 

[Devland]

One reason for optimism, every year Mora has been here, the team has vastly improved as the season went on.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

I was pretty upset right after the game, which is why I didn't post. After sleeping on it, it sucks that the team lost, but it played pretty well to be in the position to put the game away.

Defensively, UConn leaned heavily on blitzing to get pressure the whole game, which put a lot of pressure on the defensive backfield. Despite the passing stats, which were a little warped by the late scores, I thought the secondary played well against a good QB. Syracuse's play-calling helped us out, with a lot of trap runs that got eaten up by our blitzers.

Fagnano does not have nearly the arm strength to carry UConn against a P4, but there has to be something the coaches can do about his accuracy throwing off the run. Anytime he tries to make a throw that requires power, he sprays the ball. He is what he is physically, but I think he is a smart QB and a tweak on his form could make a huge difference. Only 1 sack on 44 passing attempts is a credit to the pass protection and Fagnano's judgment.

The coaches had a great came plan and then blew it at the end. We had to pass on the second to last drive when we were first and 1 on the Syracuse 39. We needed a first down more than the 20 seconds. By signaling we weren't passing, Syracuse could stack the line, and force the series we had, resulting in a Net 24 yard punt. Each team scored a TD in regulation after that possession, which is a tip off that maybe it was too soon to try to run out the clock.

Whaler used to constantly point out how stupid the clock management is by many football and basketball coaches, and we were that team yesterday.