Of Bones, School Records And Young Men Straining
by Sean Keeley on Oct 8, 2009 12:03 PM EDT
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News and notes related to the Syracuse-West Virginia game trickling in today. Let's do things.
This week's winner of "The Bone?" Mike Holmes, who wrests the honor from usual winner Derrell Smith. The Bone is of course the award for the defensive player who has the biggest hit each game and comes from the mind of DC Scott Shafer. Shafer was called out for praise by West Viriginia "CEO" Bill Stewart in regards to Syracuse's rejuvenated defense.
"This guy, Scott Shafer, their coordinator, is helter skelter. They line up in different fronts and coming after you."
Stewart also had kind, albeit slightly uncomfortable, words for the effort that Syracuse players have been putting forth all season:
"What I saw on film against Minnesota, Northwestern, Maine, every game, even Penn State - Penn State's a good football team and Syracuse gave them a pretty good battle - is young men straining and playing hard."
Keep on straining, young men. One guy who's been straining particularly well is Mike Williams. We all know Mike is having a tremendous year, but are you aware with just how tremendous he's doing at this standpoint?
Williams is on pace to catch 98 passes this season for 1,495 yards and 12 touchdowns. If he hits those marks, Williams will obliterate school records for most catches and receiving yards in a season. He could also break former Pitt receiver Larry Fitzgerald’s Big East record of 92 catches in 2003.
Despite playing in an offense not based in Cincinnati, Williams leads every receiving category in the Big East and is ranked among the national leaders. Williams is seventh nationally with an average of 8.2 catches per game; he’s fifth nationally in receiving yards per game at 124.6; and he’s third nationally in total receiving yards with 623.
Check the stats yourself. As good as Minn's Eric Decker looked against us and has looked all year, Williams isn't very far behind him in receptions or yardage. ESPN's Brian Bennett even says Williams is the best receiver in the conference right now, ahead of Cincy's Marty Gilyard.
All things considered, it's actually shaping up to be a better-than-expected year for Lavar Lobdell as well. The forgotten senior has worked his way into the rotation for four catches so far. Doesn't sound like much but remember this guy was relegated to the bottom of the depth chart in August. Nice to see he's rebounded.
Another player who deserves some kudos is kicker Ryan LICHTENSTEIN!!! The infamous former-walk-on is probably the Big East special teams player of the year so far, converting 9 of 10 field goals including the clutch Northwestern game-winner.
The Charleston Gazette does a profile piece of DE Mikhail Marinovich, he of football, hookahs and male modeling.
"I'd say I'm a football player first, then a student, shop owner and then model."
Priorities in check. So that's nice. Mikhail has six tackles, three pass breakups, a sack and a fumble recovery on the season, a year that he notes is completely different than last year in terms of atmosphere:
"I firmly believe this is a completely different team from last year," said the end. "The discipline, the higher expectations ... expecting more out of yourself, is different. It's really a changed environment."
Thanks again, Greggers.
Finally, a couple interesting tidbits from Donnie regarding the strength of schedule and attendance:
Based on cummulative opposition, Syracuse has played the 17th toughest schedule in the country among combined FBS and FCS teams. West Virginia and UConn are tied for eighth nationally for toughest schedules; Pittsburgh is 13th.
Syracuse is averaging 41,162 per home game at the Carrier Dome this season. The Orange ranks 56th nationally in average attendance. its actually only six spots behind Rutgers, which has a new stadium addition. And the Orange is five spots ahead of Connecticut. Syracuse is fourth among Big East teams overall in average attendance.
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Those attendance numbers are surprising. Everyone is always whining about the turnout, but somehow we’re still 4th in the conference in that category? I guess people need to realize that the Northeast just doesn’t generate the crowds that you see in the Midwest.
Go, fight, and win.
Those numbers
are tickets sold, not actual butts in the seats. While it’s good sales are trending upward, the place is still has huge stretches of empty seats each week. Thanks greg robinson.
On an unrelated note, this 6 home games in a row is a bit absurd – I love spending 5 hours in the car each weekend to watch SU…..
Your fault for not buying an apartment on Comstock.
Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician - The Syracuse blog that cares.
My girlfriend was a big-time model and one day I went with her. They tried to get me to do it. I earned a little extra money.’’
Cant earn money off your image and still be an amateur in the eyes of the NCAA. That has violation written all over it.
If it's totally seperate from athletics does it matter?
It seems to me that it would just be like any other part time job. But I know you actually competed in a varsity sport, so I trust that you would know better than I.
Not to the NCAA
Look at Tom Brady. He does modeling. Maybe he could be a model if he wasnt a great QB… but he is the face of several campaigns because he is a household name due to football.
I know Mikhail is not Tom Brady famous, but the NCAA assumes he is. When you do your compliance meeting you sign papers that basically say the school owns your image rights. Thats why bball players do all those local ads right after they graduate. Greg Paulus couldnt be on a Fucillio billboard right now because he would be profiting off his athletic accomplishments and recognition thus violating his amateur status. Now can the school profit off that? Hell yes, and they do… a lot.
If he dosent want to be declared ineligible (ie cant play or practice) the school compliance office should turn him in and he would have to donate an amount of money, equal to what he made off the photos, to charity. If the NCAA finds out on their own (like they did with UConn) they get really upset because they rely on schools to self police. Thats when you get realm of loosing scholarships.
This is one of the downsides of blogs and message boards. A lot of NCAA athletes break rules all the time by taking advantage of opportunities that normal students wouldnt think twice about. Having dinner with your neighbor who happens to qualify as a booster (just about every alum is considered a booster) getting a ride from a family friend who has season tickets, anyone using your photo to sell, promote or advertise even if you are just in the background of a candid shot. Had someone not discovered and posted his photos, odds are no one would even know he was doing it.
Unless he's sporting Nike sponsored underoos
He’s not an athlete. Despite the fact that the NCAA lives in a delusional world where they can expunge the history books of records and teams, they do know that athletes have lives outside of their respective sports. So long as human being Mikhail doesn’t use the athlete Mikhail to make money and give himself “extra benefit” its cool. Thats why Jeremy Bloom had such a hassle over Olympic endorsements, but an athlete having a summer job is ok (except for that whole Oklahoma car dealership business a while ago).
Just a quick digression, I called the non-athlete a human being because, in the eyes of the NCAA, the players on the field are not persons. If athletes were persons, I would imagine that the NCAA would come under 13th Amendment scrutiny for essentially advocating slavery. Make no mistake, these silly rules are not meant to “protect the integrity of the game” they are to monopolize the use and profit of their asset, namely the athletes.
by Rocket Ship Science on Oct 8, 2009 4:48 PM EDT up reply actions
Endorsing anything is a violation. You can have a job, so long as you can prove you were not hired by a booster (or want to do 2 months of paperwork) and prove youre not being paid more than other student athletes. Modeling is an exception because he is recognizable. He could model for photographers looking to put together a portfolio or art students (again, as long as hes getting the going rate) but those images could not be used or sold for money.
Say Greg Paulus did some promotional photos for Stetson like Tom Brady does. Those are used in an ad campaign. People say “thats the PG from Duke and QB at SU!” – therefore people (other than the school and NCAA) are profiting off his image and thats a forfeit of amateurism. The NCAA treats every player the same, from the Star QB at USC to the walk on kicker at Western Kentucky.
to your points about athletes not being humans, thats very true. Thats the reason you cant sell jerseys with active players names on the back. They make money off selling the players jersey, but because there is no name on it, the act like its arbitrary.
Bloom got screwed. They have some rules about other sports and that being ok, but its mostly baseball. They want to support NCAA money makes and skiing is not one of them.
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