Two years later, Culpepper, now a senior and the Orange’s backup, threw his first touchdown pass since he beat cancer on Saturday against Pitt.
The Orange were trailing the Panthers, 7-3, early in the second quarter, and Culpepper was in for struggling Syracuse starter Tommy DeVito, who Pitt sacked a total of seven times. Culpepper’s first pass of the drive was a nine-yard completion on 2nd-and-20.
His second throw on 3rd-and-11 was a high-flying deep pass to junior wide receiver Taj Harris for a 69-yard touchdown — the Orange’s only touchdown of the game, which gave them a 10-7 lead with the extra point.
Syracuse QB Rex Culpepper threw his first TD pass since being declared cancer-free in 2018 👏
Syracuse ultimately lost, 21-10, with Culpepper and DeVito continuing to trade off throughout the game.
But the senior’s first touchdown pass since being declared cancer-free was the obvious highlight. Against the Panthers, Culpepper completed 4-of-9 passes for 88 yards.
Here’s a look at Culpepper in 2018 celebrating being cancer free, via Syracuse.com:
Could the general public be allowed in for Notre Dame’s game against Syracuse this year? Not saying yes, but there is a logical path to it.
Earlier in the week we found out that unless you’re a Notre Dame student, part of the faculty and staff at the University or the parent of a Notre Dame football player or their opponent, that you wouldn’t be seeing a game at Notre Dame Stadium this fall.
That could be changing though, for one afternoon at least.
Might I add the keyword being “could”.
And might I add that “could” can’t be put in bold enough letters.
As pointed out by the South Bend Tribune’s Eric Hansen, the Notre Dame game against Syracuse will be played on December 5, after students will have been sent home for break that goes through the new year.
So would it be possible to fill the empty seats currently reserved for students with fans from the general public?
Here’s what Notre Dame Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick told Hansen:
“We don’t know yet,” Swarbrick said of the ticket policy for the first scheduled Irish home game in December since a 40-14 rout of SMU in 1953. “We’ll need to see how we do and how this works, and we’ll work with (St. Joseph County deputy health officer) Dr. (Mark) Fox as we get closer to that to see what might be acceptable.
“A lot of it is going to depend on how Indiana and St. Joe County are doing (with their COVID-19 metrics) when we reach that point in time. If we’re doing really well, I’m hopeful that we might be able to offer the opportunity to lots of area people to attend a game. But it all depends on factors that we can’t control right now.”
To quote the iconic film Dumb and Dumber, “So you’re telling me there’s a chance?!?!”
I wouldn’t count on it by any stretch of the imagination but it’s at least possible. Like I’ve said since March, this thing has been so incredibly unpredictable from week to week that thinking we know what will be happening three months from now is unrealistic.
But there is at least a chance of seeing the Irish at Notre Dame Stadium this season if you’re not a student or staff member.
Even if it is against what should be a poor Syracuse team in Notre Dame’s first December home game since the Eisenhower administration.
The New Orleans Saints tried out free agent cornerbacks Christopher Fredrick and Kemon Hall after rookie Tino Ellis went to injured reserve.
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The New Orleans Saints reported two free agent visits on Saturday’s daily NFL transactions wire: cornerbacks Christopher Fredrick and Kemon Hall. So who are they?
Fredrick (listed at 5-foot-11 and 198 pounds) is an undrafted rookie out of Syracuse, where he started 43 consecutive games at cornerback. He was credited with 23 pass defenses (including eight interceptions) in 49 games played, as well as five fumbles (three forced, two recovered). What’s interesting is that Fredrick also ran with the special teams units throughout his Syracuse career, experience which should help his odds of catching on with an NFL roster.
Hall (listed at 5-foot-11 and 190 pounds) is a North Texas product who spent the 2019 season on the Minnesota Vikings practice squad, but hasn’t yet found a team in 2020. After transferring from Itawamba Community College in Mississippi, he started 25 straight games in the Conference USA and recorded 28 passes defensed (6 of which were interceptions), with a forced fumble thrown in for good measure. That suggests some real playmaking ability, but he’ll have to have wowed the Saints in his free agent tryout to get a shot on the 80-man roster.
But why were the Saints bringing in more help for the secondary, which has impressed in training camp practices? It’s possible they simply need more bodies to help round out the daily rotation after rookie cornerback Tino Ellis (Maryland) was designated to the injured reserve list earlier this week.
With Ellis out of action, that leaves the Saints with the following healthy cornerbacks:
Marshon Lattimore
Janoris Jenkins
P.J. Williams
Patrick Robinson
Justin Hardee
Johnson Bademosi
Keith Washington Jr. (rookie, West Virginia)
They haven’t signed anyone yet, but keep an eye out in case either of these free agents ends up joining the Saints for the rest of training camp. Earlier this week, they signed reserve tight end Ethan Wolf after a similar workout session.
NOTE: Obviously, no one knows what’s going to happen to the 2020 college football season. We’ll take a general look at where each team stands – doing it without spring ball to go by – while crossing our fingers that we’ll all have some well-deserved fun this fall. Hoping you and yours are safe and healthy.
5. College Football News Preview 2020: Syracuse Orange Offense 3 Things To Know
– It was supposed to be a little bit of a rebuilding year for the Syracuse offense, but not like that. QB Tommy DeVito struggled, but that’s partly because he had to deal with too many defensive players jumping on his head.
The offensive line had a rough year. Four starters are expected back, and senior Airon Servais is an okay veteran at left tackle, but overall the front five can’t be among the three worst in college football in sacks allowed.
There’s bulk, there’s the versatility to play around with the lineup, and there’s the upside with experience to be better. But the offense that didn’t average 400 yards per game and scored 27 points or fewer seven times needs time to operate.
CFN in 60 Video: Syracuse Orange Preview
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– DeVito, again, didn’t get a whole lot of time, and now it’s time for his numbers to skyrocket under new offensive coordinator Sterlin Gilbert. The junior-to-be has the talent and the arm, and he held up reasonably well despite all the pressure. He took his lumps, only threw five picks, and he was accurate enough to get by. Rex Culpepper is a bigger passer with just enough experience to be totally lost if he gets thrown into the mix.
Now the receiving corps has to rise up with leading receiver Trishton Jackson leaving early for the NFL and with three of the top four pass catchers gone. Junior Taj Harris is a good-sized deep threat, and senior Nykeim Johnson can move, but someone has to rise up and replace the volume catches from Jackson.
That might come from the tight end tandem of Aaron Hackett and Luke Benson. These two can catch, and 292-pound Chris Elmore is the blocking option.
– The ground started to come on over the second half of the season after getting stuffed for a dead stop far too often over the first half. Leading rusher Moe Neal is gone, but the good tandem of junior Jarveon Howard and senior Abdul Adams should be able to handle the workload without a problem. There’s enough depth to shoot for the second 2,000-yard rushing season since 2013.
NEXT: College Football News Preview 2020: Syracuse Orange Defense 3 Things To Know
SEND THE BOSTON COLLEGE GAME ON THE NEXT ROCKET TO MARS, PLEASE AND THANK YOU!!!
If you’ve been on social media for any five second period during the last month, chances are you’ve seen something about “what quarantine house do you want to be in?”
Whether it’s been food or celebrities you’d rather live with, none held my interest.
Until now.
NBC Sports’ Douglas Farmer put out this tweet and boy oh boy do I have takes.
The only correct answer is House 6. I will not accept any other. And here’s why.
The National Championship loss to Alabama was awful. But if you put in contest, was it really that bad or unexpected?
That team was good. But it was not great. That Alabama team was one of the best in college football history.
The Oklahoma win was the biggest road victory of the Kelly era on a Saturday night in Norman.
The 2017 Citrus Bowl saw the rise of Ian Book and one of the best plays in school history with Miles Boykin’s game-winning TD catch.
And both the Virginia and Virginia Tech games were a team fighting and clawing to dramatic wins.
The highs of those four games are valued more to me than the loss to Alabama.
Here’s how I’d break down the others.
House 1
The three USC victories were great (one a butt-kicking over Sam Darnold and the others were games with huge stakes), but the Bush Push (I see the Dwayne Jarrett catch in my nightmares) and the season-opening loss to South Florida ruin it for me.
House 2
Everyone loves a good Michigan win, but last year’s no-show against the Wolverines coupled with a loss to Duke. No thanks.
House 3
The Snow Bowl is my favorite game of all-time. The UCLA/Samardzija was one I remember jumping up and down in my apartment watching. The Game of the Century is probably my second-favorite game of all-time. BUT…
SEND THE BOSTON COLLEGE GAME ON THE NEXT ROCKET TO MARS, PLEASE AND THANK YOU!!!
Also, that Nebraska game was a gut punch.
House 4
The wins were good wins, but not epic wins. Utah, Rutgers, Pitt and Navy don’t move the needle for me like others. And I’m sorry Charlie. I don’t care how bad your team is. You don’t lose to Navy at home.
House 5
Love the Stanford wins. 2018 was one of my sneaky favorite games of all-time with Dexter Williams’ return and what it meant for the rest of the season. Obviously the goal-line in 2012 was great.
But that 2015 Stanford game hurt. Bad. That 2015 Kizer-led squad went through a lot and was really, really good. That run by Kizer to put them up I thought had sealed their spot in the playoff.
And you don’t lose to Syracuse. Me meeting my wife later that night was the only good thing to come out of that day.
Unlike the Power 5 Sleeper Teams in the earlier piece, this is more about the teams that won’t be on the radar for most college football fans, but could make a big impact.
It’s a bit much to put these teams into the 2019 Baylor and Minnesota category and challenge for big things – again, that’s what the sleeper team piece was about – but they should be ready to defy expectations.
Think 2019 Illinois and Louisville – they were part of last year’s list of Potential Surprises – but things don’t always work out as hoped for. Arkansas and UCLA didn’t do what we thought they might.
But if we can hit three of five like we did last year, we’ll take it.
And the Power Five programs that could and should be the biggest surprises are …
ACC: Syracuse
Let’s try this again.
The excitement for 2019 was sky-high after a 10-3 2018 campaign. Syracuse was one of just two ACC teams in the preseason rankings – Clemson, of course, was the other – but it all came apart in a big way.
Maryland was awful last season, but it looked like the Kansas City Chiefs against the Orange in a 63-20 win. Even so, a 3-2 SU start provided hope early on, but a four-game losing streak ended all of that.
The run defense was non-existent, the offensive line almost got QB Tommy DeVito killed – allowing the third-most sacks per game in America – and every week was a struggle.
However, things picked up late with wins of two of the last three games -ruining Duke’s bowl hopes along the way – and the offense started to pick up the production.
The O line might have been awful, but it comes back experienced to try giving DeVito a fighting chance. New offensive coordinator Sterlin Gilbert will crank up the tempo with a decent group of receivers returning.
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Schedule-wise, three of the first four games are on the road, but Boston College, Rutgers and Western Michigan are all winnable. Get through those, beat Louisville at home, and a 6-0 start is likely before dealing with Clemson.
Throw in a manageable back half of the slate, and rebounding to 2018 form isn’t a crazy ask.
Let’s give the voters in the two major polls a little bit of credit on this – the 2019 preseason AP and Coaches polls weren’t all that bad when it came to getting them close to the pin.
Granted, it’s not hard to pick Clemson, Alabama, Georgia, Oklahoma, Ohio State and LSU to be good – the preseason top six in both polls – but there are always a few misfires.
Here are five teams ranked in the 2019 preseason top 25 that didn’t live up to expectations, but should be a whole lot better this year. The list is based on last year’s preseason ranking going from the bottom up, starting with …
5. Nebraska Cornhuskers
2019 Preseason Ranking
AP 24, Coaches NR (26)
Final Record: 5-7
What Went Wrong?
The expectations weren’t exactly through the roof from the pollsters – the Huskers were only ranked in the top 25 in the AP poll – but there was a whole lot of buzz about Year Two under Scott Frost being the launching pad for a new Big Red Machine.
After all, if Northwestern could play for the Big Ten title like it did in 2018, then why not Nebraska? The schedule didn’t look that bad, QB Adrian Martinez had a year under his belt, the talent level was starting to come together, and …
Nope.
Both lines were mediocre, the offense was way too inconsistent, the explosive plays were duds, and there were too many mistakes and turnovers as the Huskers dropped five of their last six games.
It was the first time Nebraska experienced three straight losing seasons since a rough run from 1956 to 1961.
Why 2020 Will Be Better: Returning Talent
The defensive line will be the early issue with three starters gone from the front three, and CB Lamar Jackson is going to be a star at the next level, but just about everyone is back on a defense that now has a little bit of depth, too.
It all comes down to how good Adrian Martinez is. If he’s great in Year Three, the offense should finally be what Husker fans have been waiting for with the potential of ten starters returning.
If Nebraska is close to being Nebraska again, the first half of the schedule is a dream.
Nebraska isn’t supposed to lose at home to Cincinnati, or Purdue, or Illinois, and Nebraska is supposed to win at Northwestern. 7-0 is an attainable goal before a brutal finishing kick, but the possibility is there to at least be the Minnesota of last season with a hot start.
ESPN got it wrong when it did not put Herschel Walker, out of Georgia football, as the greatest CFB player of all time.
I waited two weeks to vent a bit after the release of ESPN’s greatest eleven college football players of all time. I get it…that was an incredibly tough assignment for ESPN to choose the final eleven. Selecting from a pool of over 500,000 athletes from more than 200 schools during a 150-year period was a herculean task and they certainly weren’t going to please everyone.
For the most part, the ESPN panel did an outstanding job of selecting players from the different eras. Although skewed heavily towards running backs, most positions were well represented.
As we all know, the panel of 150 media members, administrators and former coaches and players selected Syracuse running back Jim Brown as the greatest college player and Georgia running back Herschel Walker as the runnerup.
Brown indeed was a magnificent college player. Born on Saint Simons Island, Georgia, he arrived on the Syracuse campus from Manhasset High (Long Island, NY) without a scholarship and left as the the school’s greatest athlete of all time. As a sophomore at Syracuse (1954), Brown was the second-leading rusher for the 4-4 Orangemen. As a junior, he rushed for 666 yards (5.2 per carry) as Syracuse went 5-3 and reached a high of No. 18 in the country. In 1956 during his senior year, Brown was a consensus first-team All-American and finished fifth in the Heisman Trophy voting. He finished third in the country in rushing with 986 yards, scored 14 touchdowns and led the Orangemen to the Cotton Bowl as Syracuse finished 7-2 and reached No. 8 in the country during the season.
Mandatory Credit: Rich Barnes-USA TODAY Sports
He also was standout defensive back and place kicker in college. Perhaps more impressive was his success as a multisport athlete. In addition to his football accomplishments, he excelled in basketball, track, and especially lacrosse. As a sophomore, he was the second-leading scorer for the Orangemen basketball team (15 ppg), and earned a letter on the track team. During his junior year, Brown finished in fifth place in the decathlon national championshp, averaged 11.3 points per game in basketball, and was named a second-team All-American in lacrosse. His senior year, he was named a first-team All-American in lacrosse (43 goals in 10 games to rank second in scoring nationally) and legendary sportscaster Dick Schapp once commented that Jim Brown was the greatest lacrosse player in history.
Brown went on to a Hall of Fame career with the Cleveland Browns and many still consider him to be the greatest NFL running back of all time. He had a successful acting career, appearing in over 40 films, and was a champion of social activisim.
As great as Brown was during his three years of varsity football competition at Syracuse, Herschel Walker was simply better. Herschel (like Napolean, Michelangelo, Cher and for our Generation Z readers, Zendaya, specifying the last name is not necessary) was a game changer and a difference maker. Never before had such a package of power, durability and world-class speed been witnessed on the football field. The stats were incredible, but Herschel was more than that… he was transcendental. The legendary tales of running over defenders, sprinting past speedy cornerbacks and soaring over defensive lines in the “missle” play were all true.
After the most heated recruiting battle the nation had seen, Herschel came to Athens from Johnson County High in Wrightsville, Georgia (only 150 miles north of Brown’s birthplace). “My God, a freshman!” exclaimed Larry Munson over the radio during Herschel’s first collegiate game on that sultry summer night in Knoxville in 1980. From the beginning, he carried the Bulldogs to victory, elevated his team to new heights and introduced a new style of running back to the college ranks. He was a three-time consensus All-American, The SEC Player of the Year three consecutive years, winner of the 1982 Heisman Trophy and Maxwell Award, the only player in history to finish in the top three in Heisman voting in each of his collegiate seasons and the first “true freshman” to become a first-team All-American.
Some players become great, a select few are legendary and even fewer raise their teams to champions. Herschel took a 6-5 Georgia team that averaged 18.7 points per game in 1979 and led the 12-0 Bulldogs to a national championship with 1,616 rushing yards and 15 touchdowns in 1980. He led Georgia to a 10-2 record in 1981, another SEC Championship and a national ranking of No. 2. During Walker’s junior year, Georgia (11-1) captured its third consecutive SEC Championship as the Dawgs reached No. 1 in the country again. He totaled 5,259 yards and 49 touchdowns during his 33-game (prior to 2002, bowl games were not included in stats) Georgia career.
In addition, Herschel also was a two-time, NCAA track and field All-American selection. He was a member of the SEC champion 4 × 100 meter relay squad in 1981 and ran a 10.10 seconds 100 meters. While playing for the Philadelphia Eagles, he competed in the 1992 Winter Olympics on the USA Bobled team. Herschel has a fifth-degree black belt in tae kwon do and in 2010, at the age of 48, won his two MMA contests.
Herschel finished his 12-year NFL career ranked second to Walter Payton in career all-purpose yards. Including his 3 years in the USFL, Herschel has 1,737 more all-purpose yards than all-time leader Jerry Rice (in 5 fewer seasons). How much did Herschel mean to the Dallas Cowboys? The security code at their Valley Ranch facility was 3412 — 34 for Herschel, 12 for Roger Staubach (No. 11 on the ESPN list). Why this man is not in the Pro Football Hall of Fame — that’s a discussion for another time.
Sep 17, 1989; Atlanta, GA, USA; FILE PHOTO; Dallas Cowboys running back #34 HERSCHEL WALKER in action against the Atlanta Falcons at Fulton County Stadium. The Falcons defeated the Cowboys 27-21. Mandatory Credit: Photo By USA TODAY Sports (c) Copyright USA TODAY Sports
His physique, his durability, his drive, his speed, power, the humility…. there has always been a certain mystique about Herschel and 37 years since he last carried the ball for Georgia, that mystique is even stronger. No player cast a longer shadow over the rich tradition of college football than Herschel.
To honor 150 years of college football, ESPN’s mandate was to select the all-time greatest college football player….not the greatest all-round athlete or greatest professional player. To that end, they failed. There are four major things in life that are immutable; these unchangeable things include death, taxes, the laws of physics and Herschel Walker being the greatest player in college football history.
