Not directly, perhaps, but the way some Rutgers Scarlet Knights players are talking about the Carrier Dome, Syracuse Orange fans should be taking it as a challenge to fill up the stadium as much as humanly possible on Saturday.
"It was very loud," wide receiver Mohamed Sanu said of his first visit to the Carrier Dome two years ago. "You couldn’t hear any of the calls being made. Everything was verbal and visual, hand signals. We couldn’t hear anything. Sometimes you couldn’t hear yourself talk."
And here’s the thing, Sanu said: "It wasn’t packed, either. That was the scary part."
Mohamed almost peed his pants for a Carrier Dome crowd of 36K. Imagine what will happen if he's being shouted at by 45K screaming lunatics in orange? I WANT TO SEE MOHAMED SANU SOIL HIMSELF!!! GIVE ME WHAT I WANT!!!
I could go on and on and give you reasons why there shouldn't be a single silver seat showing on Saturday...but I really don't need to. Buy a ticket.
Rutgers players are also making excuses about how humid it is and how the lighting fixtures are different, so, uh, CRANK THAT HEAT UP and ADD MORE LIGHTING FIXTURES.
Syracuse recorded nine sacks the last time the Knights came to the Dome. Greg Schiano is tempting fate again by bringing redshirt freshman guard Betim Bujari and true freshman tackle Kaleb Johnson with him this time. QB Chas Dodd seems...enthused?
"The coaches wouldn’t put them there if they didn’t think they were the best guys to do the job at the time," Dodd said "I feel confident who’s in right now and I feel good with the o-line."
"These are best guys available" is hardly "I trust these guys with my life." In other words, I REALLY, REALLY hope Chandler Jones is back in action this week.
As for Chandler and the rest of the walking wounded, good luck trying to find out what's going on. Doug Marrone has put the Orange on lockdown moving forward.
In his weekly news conference today, Marrone told reporters that practices would be closed. Marrone also canceled player interviews normally held Tuesday and Wednesday, saying he would be available each evening.
Interesting. Can't argue with him. If I were a coach I'd do the same thing. With the amount of injuries and people who are in and out of practice, Doug doesn't want to tip his cap to Rutgers one way or another.
Makes you wonder if Marrone felt like the information available about injuries was something that Toledo took advantage of or if he's just worried Schiano is smart enough to do the same.
There's also the fact that, somehow, an information packet went out from SU that listed Prince-Tyson Gulley as being out for the season with a collarbone injury. You know, the same PTG that ran for 70 yards last weekend. Sufficed to say, it was an error, but how does an error like that happen?