Cuse Cast XV

KingOtto and the Cuseman discuss the big win over NW, and the season up to this point. Cuseman reveals his new man crush. And they provided a prediction for the Maine game (avg score along with Erog SU 42 Maine 16).

Length about 21 mins
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Another PSU Recap

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Tale of the Tape: Maine Black Bears vs Syracuse Orange

Welcome to the ToT. Last week SU defeated NW with a buzzer beating FG. However SU is not quite back yet and we need to take our next opponent seriously. In time we will be back. Thats all it takes really, (D) pressure and time. This week SU hosts the Maine Black Bears. The teams will be playing for an Orange Gummy Bear Tattoo.








Born on Date
Maine: 1865 vs SU: 1870
Ottos Edge: Maine... they Bearly beat us out.

Edumacation
Maine: Tier 3 (US News) vs SU: 58th
Ottos Edge: SU... I wanted to go to Maine but my mom said, "they're all going to laugh at you."

Student size (not height and weight)
Maine: 12k vs SU: 19k
Ottos Edge: SU... wow two weeks in a row. Lets hope that gets us our second W on the field as well.

GPS (location)
Maine: Orono vs SU: Syracuse
Ottos Edge: Maine... Orono was settled in 1774

State known for
Maine: Lighthouses, LL Bean, Lobster, Maple Syrup, Mooses, Poland Spring (what it means to be from Maine), Toothpicks (#1 producer) vs
SU: Apples, Buffalo Bills, Dairy, Erie Canal, Lake Placid, NYC, Maple Syrup, Wegmans, Wine
Ottos Edge: SU... compared to NY, living anywhere else would just be Misery

Local Stores
Maine: Renys, Levinskys vs SU: Mannys
Ottos Edge: Maine... according to their slogan, Renys is an adventure

Now lets put the women and children to bed and go lookin for dinner (food)
Maine: Amatos, DiMillo's floating restaurant, Humpty Dumpty chips vs SU: Coneys, Dino BBQ
Ottos Edge: Push... eating really is a wicked adventure

You can get roadtrip food at...

Gas Station
Maine: Irving vs SU: Nice N Easy
Ottos Edge: SU... screw Canada

Canadians like to play...

Sport with sticks
Maine: Hockey vs SU: Lax
Ottos Edge: SU... Maine won titles in 1993 and 1999. And have made 11 Frozen Fours.

We are also good at...

BBall Coach
Maine: Rick Carlisle (transferred to UVA) vs SU: JB
Ottos Edge: SU... who wins by a Green Mile

Speaking of coaches...

Baseball
Maine: Stump Merrill, John Henry Williams (Teds kid) vs SU: Chiefs
Ottos Edge: Maine... why can the Chiefs drop the Sky but we cant keep the MEN in Orangemen?

And now to FB...

First year of FB
Maine: 1892 vs SU: 1889
Ottos Edge: SU... they were actually DII from 1973-1977 and played with small colleges before that.

Since 1977 they have been...

D1
Maine: AA vs SU: A
Ottos Edge: Maine... AA champs are decided on the field

Team Name
Maine: Black Bears vs SU: Orange
Ottos Edge: SU... do they need to discriminate against other bears? Where is the PC police?

No one, and I mean no one, comes into our house and pushes us around (Home Field)
Maine: Alumni Stadium (10K) vs SU: Carrier Dome
Ottos Edge: SU... two weeks in a row with the bigger pad

Staying with the Dome...

Dome
Maine: Under the Dome (upcoming novel by alum Stephen King) vs SU: Carrier Dome
Ottos Edge: SU... do people still read books?

Conf
Maine: Colonial vs SU: Big East
Ottos Edge: SU... the BE finally wins one. Maine competes in the America East in other sports.

Conf Champs
Maine: 11 (A10 which became Colonial in FB) vs SU: 4
Ottos Edge: SU... even GRob could win an A10 title.

Bowl Record
Maine: 0-1 vs SU: 12-9-1
Ottos Edge: SU... Maine lost in the 1965 Tangerine Bowl

Teams played the most
Maine: NH (98 times), RI (87), Bates (76), Colby (76), UConn (73), Bowdoin (66), UMass (55) vs SU: PSU (69), Colgate (65), Pitt (64), WV (56)
Ottos Edge: Maine... they have played 5 teams more than our biggest "rival"

Former Players
Maine: Lofa Tatupu (who transferred out to USC), Kevin McMahan (2006 Mr Irrelevant) vs SU: some guy named Jim Brown
Ottos Edge: SU... and many more

While we are on JB...

The Running Man
Maine: written by Stephen King vs SU: staring Jim Brown as Fireball
Ottos Edge: SU... JB is scarier than Cujo, the clown in It, Isaac and Malachai all combined

Speaking of fiery guys...

Coach Mac
Maine: born there vs SU: former HC
Ottos Edge: SU... he is ours now

Not only was he HC he also was an...

Announcer
Maine: Gary Thorne vs SU: Marv Albert
Ottos Edge: SU... I wonder if Marv bought his womens clothing through a...

Swap Shop
Maine: Uncle Henrys weekly guide vs SU: listen to Tradio pranks on Howard Stern
Ottos Edge: SU... love those calls. Does SYR have Tradio?

Staying with Stern, Robin is a fan of...

Cats
Maine: Maine Coon Cat vs SU: Solvay
Ottos Edge: Maine... they are a large breed of cat. The better to eat you with?

Speaking of eating, for the category of the week we go to the Overlook Hotel...

Competitive Eater
Maine: Jack Torrance vs SU: Doug Marrone
Ottos Edge: SU... who wins despite Jack's home field advantage.



And the winner of the Tattoo is....



The Syracuse Orange as they win this one easily. Make sure everyone to show up this Saturday for the game. You can either get busy living, or get busy dying.

King Ottos Konclusion

Finally a W. This could turn into a huge win for SU. First it gives some legitimacy to Marrone as a HC with recruits. Second it keeps the fans involved in the team as 0-3 may have made a few people lose interest. And third this gives the team some confidence. Which could lead to SU going on a run. That USF homecoming game could very well signify that SU is back. But first we need to take care of Maine first.

Marrone
He has the team playing well and believing. That is something a couch either has or doesnt have. Playing against NW you want to either slow the game down or try and outscore them. Based on last weeks performance by both teams, I thought we may see the slow it down approach. To his credit he went for the outscore them approach, and it worked well. That being said there were still plenty of rookie mistakes by Marrone. There were plenty of organizational issue with personnel, getting plays in, and clock management. IMO 2nd half TOs are gold, and we have zipped through them in all three games. Which is both frustrating and surprising since he seems like the type that would be good at those things. I also dont like relying on Ks in CFB. In the NFL you do what Marrone did. But in CFB way too often Ks are missed or blocked. Having a walk on true frosh have control of the game is a little scary.

Spence
Thought he did a great job. The only quibble was the 3rd and 2 run play. You need to go for a W there.

Shafer
I love defense and Shafer likes to bring pressure. Nothing better than 3rd and longs in the Dome. The D set the tone early with the sack/fumble and then the forced punt. And of course at the end the D set up the winning score with the Suter INT. NW is a hard team to defend. The usually go 4 WRs and no huddle so they put you on your heels. And despite being in a shotgun we were able to get 5 sacks, which is how many we had in a season the last few years under GRob. NW created macthups issues and Kafka took advantage, completing just about every pass he threw. At first we started in a 4-3-4, which I thought would cause major issues. At first we took it to NW. But once NW settled down, the destroyed that D personnel. But in the second half Shafer went to a 3-2-6 with the Okie personnel and Mckinnon (but then Suter) in over Carter. That slowed NW down limiting them to 13 second half points, and one TD came after NW took over at the SU 28.

Paulus
He played really well at times and at others looked like Nunes. He manages the game well and made plays. He had a nice fake on the long MW TD and ran for a nice TD. His arm strength is still a question. And he misses some easy reads out there. There was a play near the end of the 3rd where he missed MW on a perfect play call. It was our first play of the dive maybe around our 35. MW was on a deep post, had his man beat, and had no S help. Paulus threw a crossing route to Davis instead underneath. Two plays later he fumbled, leading to a NW TD. The pressure is on the OL but he needs to hold onto the ball. That series of events was a huge wasted opportunity. Which brings us to the end of the half. Great call by Spence but Paulus' pass was waaay under thrown. If you miss you need to miss deep. That cost us at least a FG there.

RBs
He just does not go down. We still need to get him going. If we do the 1-2 punch of DC3 and MW will be hard to stop. We got Mike Jones involved nicely.

WR/TE
MW had a huge game. They had no answer for him. Davis was more involved and may be settling into the #2 role. Lobdell was out there quite a bit. Lemon wasnt used as much. Hopefully he bounces back and adds another weapon.

OL
McKenzie has a bad game. He has been disappointing so far this year. The bad snaps and the missed fumble recovery hurt the team. Baumbach still struggles in pass protection. He seems to wiff every now and then. I wonder if he is not sitting back properly and reaching instead. Tiller made an appearance on a goaline play that was stuffed.

DL
Art made some nice plays out there but seemed gassed all game. Sharpe continues to impress, hopefully he is healthy.

LBs
For most of the game we only played 2 LBs, so not much can be said of Carter. But the other two played very well. Both Smith and Hogue had great games. The Smith sack/fumble started SU off on a roll. Hogue had his coming out game.

DBs
No one really got beat, as NW mostly threw underneath. Besides our normal 4 DBs, both Thomas boys and McKinnon played quite a bit. Shamarko is just a nasty player. He can hit and has an attitude. He and Sharpe were steals. Gotta think he cracks the starting lineup next year. Suter was flying around on blitzes and made the INT to set up the game winner.

STs
Lichy had a low kick that was blocked but he came back and hit his next one. And then he nailed the game winner. Long played well except for the one KO that went out of bounds. Coverage teams were good and the last punt was huge. Long punted from the end zone and NW took over at their 40. Jones was bottled up early on KRs but had soem nice ones later on. The PRs were scary. Both Jones and Davis dropped returns. I also think they were too close to each other, causing confusion. The missed extra point by NW was huge.

Cuse Cast XIV

KingOtto and Cuseman give their final thoughts on their PSU trip. They then discuss the NW game and its importance. Finally (along with Erog) they offer a final score of NW 26 SU 25. That is mainly thanks to one idiotic prediction.


Length about 25 mins
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