As I’ve said a few times the past couple of days, it’s my birthday. As a present to me, Sean Keeley from the great, great Nunes Magician has answered a whole bunch of questions that I asked him. Just like Brian earlier today, Sean is a very nice and very good at what he does. I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again. Nunes is one of the blogs that has influenced me as this whole thing has gone along. The fact that Sean has been very nice and supportive of the site is a great bonus that I didn’t expect. He’s got his hands full with all of the stuff going on with Syracuse and the allegations and that crazy situation that has spun out of control, Syracuse basketball, Thanksgiving and catching up on the 3 episodes of Chopped that were on last night. But he took the time to answer questions about the allegations, Orange football, basketball, Top Chef and the Walking Dead. Questions in bold.
Syracuse is facing a lot of heat with the Bernie Fine accusations, a topic you’ve handled quite well. Where do you see this ultimately going?
I honestly have no idea. Every time I think that the accusers are making it up, I see something that tells me otherwise. And vice versa. Throw in this burgeoning pissing contest between the Syracuse DA and the Syracuse Police and this has the chance to ruin way more careers than just Bernie’s.
If I had to take an uneducated guess, I’m going to guess that ultimately there will not be a case but the suspicions will remain. But that could all be undone tomorrow…
What would you say are the offensive and defensive strengths for this (football, kind of switched tracks really quick) team?
Offensively, this team has a great passing attack when it gets rolling. Nassib straddles the line between being a great game manager and a real playmaker. He’s got a dependable tight end (Nick Provo), solid RB (Antwon Bailey) and capable receivers (Alec Lemon, Van Chew, Dorian Graham). If they can get it together, it’s a dangerous group.
Defensively, the ends are our greatest weapons. Chandler Jones changes a game, which has been evident since his return. And Mikhail Marinovich is more than just a mustachioed (or formerly-mustachioed) face.
The weaknesses?
Syracuse fans have been at a loss to understand our play-calling in recent weeks. In spite of the evidence as a game goes along, OC Nate Hackett seems intent on establishing a run game that just isn’t there. His play-calling seems inflexible at times and to the detriment of the offense.
Our defensive secondary has been a mess all season, which is shocking given the talent back there. We’re giving up loads of yardage through the air and tons of big plays. Now that we’ve lost our leading tackler and Big East interceptions co-leader Phillip Thomas, things look even scarier back there.
The Orange football team has played many exciting games, but none the past month. Are we due for an exciting one on Saturday?
If nothing else, I feel like it’s going to be a close one. Doug Marrone is undefeated in his SU career coming off a bye and its Senior Day, so I expect the Orange to play a little better than they have been. With the Cincinnati offense struggling without Zach Collaros, that should give the Orange a chance. Whether or not they take advantage of it remains to be seen.
15 guys on the basketball team have played 3 of the 4 games this season. How deep is Boeheim going to go with this squad?
This season might just be the anomaly in Boeheim’s career and we could see 10 guys getting significant playing time for most of the season. I mean, who do you bench? If anyone, freshman Michael Carter-Williams could lose time. James Southerland has been playing out of his mind so he’s earning the right to play. Rakeem Christmas’ size makes it hard to send him to the bench. I really think this team is so loaded you can’t send all that talent to the bench.
Does Syracuse win the former preseason NIT?
I expect them too. On paper, they’re the best team there. And of course there’s the NYC factor. The shame is that we won’t get any credit for the wins, of course.
Why is that that everyone on the Walking Dead is a horrible person? Follow up, how is Andrea even more horrible than that?
Andrea is the WORST. And she’s the worst for two reasons. Because her character is unlikable and because the actress playing her isn’t very good. I mean, honestly, no one cares if Andrea kills herself or not. We kinda want her to, to be honest. We’re not all that bothered about her losing her sister, as Videogum said in their awesome show recaps, EVERYONE’S sister is dead.
There’s so many problems with this show but chief among them is that the writers don’t seem to know what to do with all this characters. They settled in on a plotline before they decided why it matters to each character and now they’ve worked backwards to give them all something to do. It’s been so boring and so uninteresting and so lame that we’re all openly rooting for the zombies to kill them all.
Except maybe Daryl.
From Videogum
How pointless was it 2 episodes ago when they tried to rescue the zombie from the well? If it was in the water already, it probably contaminated it. It’s not like they could test it.
You know what that was? That was, “we have this really cool zombie-splitting special effect we want to feature, how do we shoehorn that into the story?” Bingo! And to steal one more from Videogum, THERE ARE FOUR OTHER WELLS ON THE PROPERTY!
If you made a list of 3 things that really didn’t make sense about this season, what would they be?
1. Lori lives in rural Georgia, has a Sheriff for a husband and a Licensed Shooting Trainer for a sex-buddy and she FREAKS OUT when her son wants to learn how to shoot? What a load of crap.
2. Why they wasted all that time worrying about the zombie in the well.
3. Lori tells Glenn to go to the pharmacy to get her a “feminine product” but she clearly doesn’t tell him she needs a pregnancy test cause he doesn’t know what it is. SHE TOLD HIM A NAME BRAND. And then, miracuously, that name brand pregnancy test is in the cleaned-out pharmacy when they get there. PHEW!
4. Why Grimes was going to let his kid pet a wild buck in the first place.
5. When they were looking for Sophie and thought she was in the tent and all decided to point their guns at the tent as Daryl opened it…WTF?
6. The whole “cutting open the zombie to check the contents of its stomach” scene which was another waste of time for the purpose of showing us a cool special effect. Sorry, that was more than 3.
If one of those wasn’t why haven’t they taken everything from the pharmacy already, why haven’t they taken everything from the pharmacy already?
I KNEW I FORGOT ONE! Seriously, I don’t understand the writers of the show. They write as if they have absolutely no idea what actual human beings would do in this situation. I swear they base all their knowledge on how other TV shows have portrayed people.
What’s worse, the product placement with the Hyundai, or the product placement on Top Chef?
The Hyundai is silly, though I can live with it. The Top Chef product placement is so expected at this point I find myself being surprised when it doesn’t happen. “Wait, we haven’t seen the name of the oven in three minutes, what’s going on here?” I guess that makes the Top Chef product placement worse, it’s an understood portion of the whole show at this point.
Why do the producers want every season to feel like it’s lasting forever? All Stars had the final 4 compete for what felt like a month. This season started out with 2 episodes of the ridiculous bubble. Is one season of Top Chef eventually going to last a year?
What a waste of time that opening round was. I realize that you have to work the whole “things are bigger in Texas” theme into the show, but just make a Quickfire Challenge about cooking an entire cow or something like that. It was just too many people that we don’t care about. That’s bad news for a reality show.
Not really sure why Emeril is here either. Though I do love me some Hugh. He’s s bitchy but it all sounds so fun!
We only had 1 elimination, so that makes this part fun. Who do you think is going to win?
I’m going with Chris Crary. He’s not an over-the-top character and he’s going to fly under the radar for a while. Then, when the nutties are eliminated, he’ll start rising to the top. OR he’ll be eliminated this week. Either/or.
Padma, how is she so pretty?
Have you ever seen the first contestant to be eliminated each season ever again? You haven’t, right? I’m pretty sure Padma steals their essence for sustenance.
Wrapping up, do you have any plans for a second book?
I have a lot of plans for a lot of things. My problem is that I can’t settle on which one to do next. I have an idea for a non-Syracuse-related book. I’m also working on some plays, if you can believe it. Seattle has a big theater scene and it inspired me to give it a shot.
You have taught many blog writing classes, what’s the best way for someone one to sign up for one?
Go to SeanKeeley.com and check out the courses. I’m not offering a live one at the moment but there are some recorded ones (Boot Camp, Sports Blogging 101) that can be purchased.
Thanks so much to Sean. He’s great. I could have asked him a hundred questions about the Walking Dead. How that show was so good and interesting in season 1 and has fallen off the rails so much so that half the reason I watch is to read the Videogum recaps I don’t know. That’s another story for another day. Thanks a lot to Sean. Thanks a lot to everyone who has checked out the site the past couple of months. We’ve had the best traffic months in history. It’s really appreciated. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.
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