Patrick Shadle has three chances to give Syracuse a 17-14 halftime lead and given the Orange something of a motivational edge against Rutgers last weekend. The first kick was blocked. But Greg Schiano has called timeout at the last possible moment so Pat had a 2nd chance. The second kick hooked left. But again, Schiano called timeout to ice him. On the third chance, Shadle missed yet again and the teams went into the locker room tied.
The game proceeded to turn out...less than good. Despite redeeming himself later with a 47-yarder in the 3rd quarter to give the Orange a semblence of life, but it was too little too late. Young Patty is clearly still troubled by the affair:
"That was pretty frustrating," Shadle said. "I had three shots to make a kick and made it zero times. That's not very common with me in my performance so far in my career. One of the most frustrating things is I kind of made Greg Schiano out to be a genius in calling those two time outs."
While I can appreciate Shadle's frustration, his sentiment that Greg Schiano looks like some kind of genius over this is a little...off to me. The first kick was blocked. Had Schiano just let things go, Rutgers would have strolled into the locker room all the same. And even if he called timeout there and let Shadle kick it again, Shadle still missed the second kick. So in essence, Schiano really helped Shadle by giving him a third opportunity to atone. Shadle missed, clearly he was not meant to make that kick, and that was that. Just some good old fashion kicker-icing. Nothing genius about it.