Cuse Cast XVII

KingOtto and Cuseman recap the USF game and look ahead to WV. Avg predicted score WV 36 SU 25.


Length about 23:30 mins
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Tale of the Tape: West Virginia vs Syracuse

This week SU battles the West Virginia Mountaineers. The teams will be battling for an Orange Tooth Tattoo.






Born on Date
WV: 1867 vs SU: 1870
Ottos Edge: WV… which was founded as the Agricultural College of West Virginia

You can find the schools in…

GPS (Location)
WV: Morgantown vs SU: Syracuse
Ottos Edge: SU… Morgantown was founded by Zackquill Morgan, son of Morgan Morgan

Those cities are located in the…

State Nickname
WV: Mountain State vs SU: Empire State
Ottos Edge: WV... which was once part of Virginia but broke away and stayed with the Union during the Civil War. Good for them. That damn Virginia is always causing problems (ACC mess).

Sticking with mountains…

Mountain Range
WV: Appalachian vs SU Adirondacks
Ottos Edge: SU... the Appalachians dont have everything the Adirondacks do, including people with teeth. WV is the only state entirely within the Appalachians .

Other WV geography…

WV is part North, part South, part East, and part Midwest . The state stretches as far North as Staten Island . The NE part has a connection to DC. The NW part along Ohio has a Midwestern feel. The Southern part shares with Kentucky and Virginia . The North is all about Pitt. So WV is the epitome of the NBE, all over the place.

And to get all over the place…

Commuting
WV: Morgantown Personal Rapid Transit System vs SU: Centro
Ottos Edge: Push... what we really need is a genuine, bona fide, six car monorail

While commuting you may read the…

School paper
WV: The Daily Athenaeum (DA) vs SU: Daily Orange (DO)
Ottos Edge: SU… the best place to read about SUs upset win

Or you may use your IPod to listen to…

Unofficial Song
WV: Country Roads vs SU: Remember the Name
Ottos Edge: WV... I hope Marrone will take SU FB home to the place it belongs

Which brings us to FB tradition…

First year of FB
WV: 1891 vs SU: 1889
Ottos Edge: SU… we have more history than them

All time wins
WV: 676 vs SU: 675
Ottos Edge: WV... damn they just past us last week.

National Titles
WV: None vs SU: One
Ottos Edge: SU... and that aint changing any time soon. West Virginia is the winningest team to have never won a national championship. BTW I am sure this isnt much of a shocker but WV is 13 time Rifle champs.

Big East titles
WV: 5 vs SU: 4
Ottos Edge: Push… its the BE, who cares?

Lambert Trophies
WV: 3 vs SU: 6
Ottos Edge: SU... too bad this isnt the trophy for a true Northeast Conference. Having SU, RU, UConn , BC , Pitt, Temple , PSU, Maryland , and WV all together would be almost heaven.

Bowl record
WV: 13-15 vs SU: 12-9-1
Ottos Edge: SU... we are better at winning the big one

All time great player
WV: Sam Huff vs SU: Jim Brown
Ottos Edge: SU... Huff will admit Brown is the best

Injured NFL QB
WV: Marc Bulger vs SU: McNabb
Ottos Edge: SU… at least McNabb has incentive to get back to his team

1980s QB
WV: Major Harris vs SU: Don McPherson
Ottos Edge: WV... he had a great career, too bad he didnt finish his major at WV and left school early.

Other QBs
WV: Rasheed Marshall, Jeff Hostetler, Darren Studstill, Pat White vs SU: Marvin Graves, Todd Philcox, Troy Nunes, Bill Hurley
Ottos Edge: WV... White and Marshall set BE records and Jeff won a SB, although Graves is a fan fave in WV.

RBs
WV: Adrian Murrell, Amos Zereoue, Avon Cobourne, Quincy Wilson, Steve Slaton vs SU: Jim Brown, Ernie Davis, Floyd Little, Joe Morris, Walter Reyes
Ottos Edge: SU… their RBs have names starting with “A” but ours are grade A.

Fullback
WV: Rat Rodgers vs SU: Larry Csonka
Ottos Edge: SU… whos he?

WRs
WV: Jerry Porter, Chris Henry, James Jett vs SU: Marvin Harrison, Art Monk, Rob Moore
Ottos Edge: SU… none of those WV guys turned out

LB
WV: Darryl Talley vs SU: Keith Bulluck
Ottos Edge: WV… I wouldn’t want to upset the Talley-Whackers so this goes to Spiderman

CB
WV: Pacman Jones vs SU: Will Allen
Ottos Edge: SU… Jones got the nickname for packing heat. Ironically WV has a top forensics program that was created with the help of the FBI. Maybe Jones and Henry can inspire the show CSI Morgantown.

Kicking great
WV: Mike Vanderjagt vs SU: Gary Anderson
Ottos Edge: SU... the Bills drafted Anderson and cut him. That didnt come back to haunt the Bills in 1990, did it? Then again he did cost the Vikings with his only missed FG in 1998. But to be fair he was long over due.

These players competed at…

No one, and I mean no one, comes into our house and pushes us around (Home Field)
WV: Mountaineer Field at Milan Peskar Stadium (63.5K) vs SU: Ernie Davis Legends Field at the Carrier Dome
Ottos Edge: WV... the lots around the Dome are not couch burning friendly

And inside the stadium…

Fans wear to games
WV: coon skin caps vs SU: metallic grey
Ottos Edge: SU… our fans are all committed to wearing the same thing

Which you cannot say about SUs unis…

Logo
WV: flying WV vs SU: block S
Ottos Edge: SU… we win for now until we change logos again

We also changed our…

Team Name
WV: Mountainqueers vs SU: Orange
Ottos Edge: SU… losing your manhood is better than taking on another manhood

From the team name we get the…

Mascot
WV: Mountaineer vs SU: Otto
Ottos Edge: SU... oranges are scary to toothless mountain men.

Another SU mascot…

Former coach
WV: Don Nehlen vs SU: Coach Mac
Ottos Edge: Push... they were 5-5 against each other

Sticking with coaches…
Ben Schwartwalder
WV: player vs SU: coach
Ottos Edge: SU... he had to come here to get a ring

Named after Ben…

Battle for the Schwartzwalder Trophy (Head to Head)
WV: 26 wins vs SU: 30 wins
Ottos Edge: WV... there are people alive who have never seen SU beat WV (we have lost 7 straight)

While we are rivals it is not a…

Main Rivalry
WV: Backyard Brawl vs SU: ....
Ottos Edge: WV... I wanna hate someone too. WV also plays the Friends of Coal Bowl (Marshall)

Speaking of hate…

FootBrawl
WV: lose 3 starting defenders vs SU: lose a bench player
Ottos Edge: SU... with a TD pass from Graves

Which made Graves practically WV…

Family
WV: Bowdens (Bobby former coach, Tommy and Terry Alumni) vs SU: Powells (Casey, Ryan, Mike)
Ottos Edge: SU... they brought the school 4 LAX titles

Families often go out for…

Let's put the women and children to bed and go lookin' for dinner! (Fine Dining)
WV: fresh kill from I-79 vs SU: Dino BBQ
Ottos Edge: SU... sorry I am a picky eater

And you can wash down that meal with…

Mountain Dew
WV: homemade whiskey vs SU: soft drink
Ottos Edge: WV... there is nothing soft about it.

All that caffeine will keep you up at night leaving you to watch…
Caine-Hackman Theory (alum you can see if you turn on your TV no matter what time it is)
WV: Don Knotts vs SU: Jerry Stiller
Ottos Edge: WV… Knotts claim to fame was appearing twice on Scooby Doo

Someone who turned knots in WV fans stomachs...

Former Alumnus HCing in CFB
WV: RRod vs SU: HCRE
Ottos Edge: SU… at least HCRE didnt leave his school behind

Sticking with coaching…
BBall coach
WV: Huggins vs SU: Boeheim
Ottos Edge: SU… Huggins makes hating WV BBall fun again

Staying with BBall…

BBall great
WV: Jerry West vs SU: Dave Bing
Ottos Edge: WV... both made the NBA's Top 50 all time but Jerry is 5th all time in points

While we are on rankings…

Edumacation
WV: Tier 3 (US News) vs SU: Tier 1
Ottos Edge: SU… they actually spell it edumacation

Zero Point Zero (famous alum who didnt graduate)
WV: Cheryl Hines (Curb Your Enthusiasm) vs SU: Vanessa Williams
Ottos Edge: WV… she musta gotten stuck in a car wash and missed class

Someone who was pro education…

JFK
WV: state handed to JFK by mob vs SU: spoke at commencement
Ottos Edge: SU… I wonder if that is the reason why Dome concessions has a monopoly on Half Dollars. I dont think they know what quarters are.

Someone who wants to know how many quarters you have…

Wrestling
WV: Mean Gene Okerlund vs SU: Mike Rotunda
Ottos Edge: SU… no one is meaner than I.R.S.

The meanest guy on the field…

Bobby Boucher (best current defender)
WV: Scooter Berry vs SU: Art Jones
Ottos Edge: SU... Arthur is better

And finally the category of the week...

Competitive Eater
WV: John Kruk (from WV) vs SU: Doug Marrone
Ottos Edge: SU... real men dont go on NutriSystem


And the Tattoo goes to...


The Syracuse Orange as they take it to WV and cruise to a win.

Jim Boeheim in disguise?

The only good thing about the USF game was discovering Jim Boeheim's secret job as a Carrier Dome usher. Yes that is right JB is an usher. Here is my proof:

1st see a pic of JB



Now see the pic of JB as an usher




I mean is he serious? A fake porn stache is gonna fool anyone? That is like Superman wearing glasses and no one noticing. What is his name Jaime Bayhome?

Ernie Davis Legend of 44 Seat at the Carrier Dome

After a small donation to SU Athletics I was able to rename my seat to the Ernie Davis Legend of 44 Seat at the Carrier Dome. So from now on when someone asks where do I sit I will tell them Ernie Davis Legend of 44 Seat at the Carrier Dome instead of Section 301. The formal dedication will be for the Akron game with a name plate being placed on the seat. Well under the seat since one of these will be on top of it:







In all seriousness what can be said of the attendance thus far? They announced over 40k but IMO we had less than we did for Maine. The sidelines looked less than 50% full and the food stamp seats were maybe 85% full vs nearly 100% for Maine. On the year we are only averaging 41,162. Which made me think of a few years ago when it was rumored that real seats would be installed in the Dome. Instead we got the seats shown above in the A Level, which are pretty decent I must add as it saves your butt vs the metal bench. But back to real seats. Would SU be better off? I have heard some fans complain about the metal bench so maybe real seats would help people come? And how would it effect capacity? Well here are my thoughts:

-In the perfect storm for attendance season of 1998, SU only averaged 47,750. That year we were coming off a BCS game, had McNabbs SR Heisman hopeful season, were Top 15 in most preseason polls, and had only 6 home games which were Tenn, RU, Cincy, Pitt, VT, and Miami. Ok three of those teams sucked but 3 were very good. IMO we should have sold out before the season. Now with Marrone and TGDs selling power, I think had they been around (vs P and Jake) we would have sold out. Even so I think it will be very hard for them to sell out a season. If you look at 1997 we only averaged 45,850 in which WV and BC were the "name" teams that year. So I am going to guess that the best case for SU is 47,500 since Miami, VT, and BC are no longer in the conf.

-Currently when I sit my legs are touching the legs of people next to me and my knees touch each other (not good for the balls). There really isnt much space. To compare, today I sat in my old Yankee Stadium seat. There is actually space between my knees and arm rests. So I estimate that the Yankee seat equals 1.33 Dome seats (extra space plus one arm rest per seat, since they are shared). So if the Dome capacity is 49,250 then you should be able to fit 36,937.5 real seats. Since the students stand the whole game, they dont need real seats. The students/band have sections 102-109. However because of BBall you need to make 104-109 real seats. So only 102-104 can stay bleacher. Thus add back 383.5 seats making the total 37,321. Also you need to add back the luxury box seats which are already real seats. That should bring the total to 37,500.

-Is 37,500 too small? Besides the last 3 years, we have averaged more than that. However IMO the die hard fan base is about 32,500 people. The rest are casual or band wagon fans and are not reliable. SU tried to cater to them with $100 season tix ($12.50 a game), but IMO that didnt bring in new fans but instead took fans away from the $200 ($25 a game) sections and made them move to the cheaper section. I think it has been a net loss for SU. This year we are averaging 41,162. If capacity were 37,500 we would be averaging 37,033 (37,500 x 3, plus 35,632). And that would be likely the actual and not just the announced. So we would be down 4129 a game. Looking at the seating chart we have about 5000 in the $100 season ticket seat sections. That brings in $62,500 a game. If you bumped those tix to full price, how many of those fans would you lose? If you keep 75% of them you make $93,750 which is more money. That extra $31,250 also makes up for the 4129 lost from reduced capacity.

-It is easier to sell out 37,500 than 49,250. It is simple supply and demand. The casual fan knows there is no way SU will sell out the season. So they have no incentive to buy season tix, knowing they can pick and choose what games they want. However with about 12k less in capacity, all of a sudden it is a lot harder to pick and choose which games they can go to. Maybe not so much now, but when SU is good again. Right now supply greatly exceeds demand. And even when SU is good again supply will still slightly exceed demand. But with only 37,500 we are currently slightly above demand. And when we are good we will have less supply than demand. Which means we wont have to offer $25 tix let alone $12.50 tix. So lets say we avg 42,500 this year. That will bring in about $1 million in tix per game. If you have only 37,500 seats and charge $27.50 a game you only have to avg 36,350 to even out. Isnt that do able? Would we lose more than 6,150 fans (14.5%) at that price? And when we are good if we get 47,500 at $30 a game, it is the same as 37,500 at $38 a game. Even at $38 a game that is extremely cheap for a Top 25 team.

-Isnt it embarassing to only have 37,500? First we are what we are. CNY is great for CBBall but not so much for CFB. Part of that is the fact that SU is a small private school. Lets stop pretending that we are not. Last year if we sold out the season (49,250) we woulda been 45th in the nation in avg attendance. If we only held and avg'd 37,500 that would put us #65 in the nation. That isnt that big a drop. Also it woulda been ahead of BCS programs Stanford, Baylor, Cincy, Indiana, Wake, Duke, NW, and Wash St in avg attendance last year. Now our program is better than all of those teams. However isnt our fanbase a lot closer to those teams than the other BCS programs? Capacity wise we would only be ahead of Cincy, Wash St, Duke, and Wake. Cincy may expand but the other 3 we are safe to stay ahead of.

-What about BBall? Well even after the reduction we would still be the largest BBall arena (Rupp 23,500). Capacity for BBall is 33,500 so a reduction would be 25,125 but add back the what we did in FB and add in the blue temp seats and you have 26,000. I estimate about 5000 of that would be in the 318-322 and 302-334 range, which are less favorable since you dont face the court. Those seats would only sell for name games or weekend BE games. So 21k we should have no problem selling. Games above that 21k and below the 26k new capacity were UVA (22k), Seton Hall (23k), Cincy (25k), and UL (25.75k). I doubt we lose any for the first two. Maybe we lose a few people those last two games. But how much? Maybe 5k total? Then we have the games above 26k: Nova (26.75k), ND (30k), and GTown (31.75k). So we lose 10.5k from those, meaning in total we woulda lost about 15.5k for the season. That is 815 people per game, which brings our avg for the year down to 20,225 per game. That would knock SU from #2 to #4 in avg attendance. But I think we still end up number two (21,050) as CNY pride would push us there. If we are smart we woulda promoted the Cincy and RU games as a lets get to #2 and increase attendance for those games. I think CNY pride woulda gotten it done. We want to be #1 every year and still can be. But it will be harder without the 30k plus crowds. As to money you lose $16,300 (815 x $20) per game last year. If you charge $0.75 more per game, you break even. I dont think you lose anyone over that.


So I ask you Orangeland, would adding real seats in the Dome be better for SU?

Cuse Cast XVI

KingOtto provides quick thoughts on the Maine game and then discusses the upcoming USF game. Combined prediction this week is USF 31 SU 14.

Length about 13 mins
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