In the Huddle: Western Michigan

sept. 21, 2019

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Cover photo and spread photos by Max Freund Staff photographer

inside Cream of the crop Syracuse’s Andre Szmyt and Sterling Hofrichter are one of the best kicker-punter combos in the nation.

Page 6

Stuck in place The Orange’s running group, which was expected to be one of their best units in years, has struggled through three games.

Page 7

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This has been my dream job since when I played here.

I love this place. This is my goal.

Tim Lester western michigan head coach

TIM LESTER wanted to be Western Michigan’s head coach in 2012, but needed more experience. He lost his job at Syracuse in 2015 and another position at Purdue the following year. Now, he’s the leader of the Broncos. daily orange file photo

LONG DRIVE

Tim Lester got fired twice in 13 months. Now, he has his dream job — the head coach of Western Michigan

By Andrew Graham senior staff writer

T

im Lester’s phone rang on a Friday and he was expecting the call. He was at home on the couch in West Lafayette, Indiana, with his wife, Dawn, and their 3-year-old son, Camden. His two older sons, Cooper and Carter, 7 and 5 years old at the time, were at school.

It was January 2017 and a year ago, Lester was sloughed off the SU coaching staff payroll when Dino Babers took over for Scott Shafer. He chose to be the quarterbacks coach at Purdue but was simi-

larly out of a job a year later. The Lesters were looking at their second relocation in 13 months.

On the other end of the line was Kathy Beauregard, Western Michigan’s athletic director, who offered Lester the head coaching position. She told Lester that he needed to be in Kalamazoo, Michigan, by 5:30 p.m. that evening so he could sign his yet-to-be-negotiated contract and meet with his new team at 6 p.m.

“He looked at me and he gave me a thumbs-up,” Dawn said. “And then he got off the phone and he was like, ‘That’s it. I got it. We gotta go. Let’s go pack.’” see lester page 7

Being the head coach at Western Michigan was Lester’s dream job when he played there as a quarterback in the 1990s. It was his dream, but he didn’t get the job in 2012 because he needed some more experience. And it was still a dream when he left Syracuse — where he returns for the first time as a head coach on Saturday — in 2015.

Maryland wanted him to coach wide receivers and Toledo offered him an offensive coordinator position, the same job he had at SU. Purdue needed a quarterbacks coach. Lester leaned toward keeping his job title. A conversation with his college

TUNNEL VISION

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ANDRE SZMYT AND STERLING HOFRICHTER are one of the best specialist duos in the nation. Szmyt won the Lou Groza award last season, given to college’s best placekicker and Hofrichter won ACC Punter of the Week against Clemson last Saturday. max freund staff photographer

TWO OF A KIND Behind the relationship, new approaches of Syracuse’s elite specialists

By Josh Schafer

senior staff writer

T

he best kicker in college football changed his form of kicking before the season and his roommate, a threeyear starting punter, has taken a new approach to mental preparation.

Not a season removed from winning the Lou Groza Award, which is given annually to college football’s best kicker, Andre Szmyt decided to move a foot closer to the ball before he kicked a field goal. Punter Sterling Hofrichter now lies on the ground of Syracuse’s locker room before a game and visualizes his punts while listening to Imagine Dragons.

Together the pair have an obsession for golf games and Syracuse barbecue not named after a distinct animal.

They’re two quirky kickers but they produce at a rate rarely seen from a punter-kicker duo in college football.

In 2018, Szmyt won the Groza after nailing 30-of-34 field goals and with three field goals this season, leads in the nation over the last two years. Hofrichter just picked up ACC Punter of the Week following an average of 52.2 yards per punt against Clemson. He currently ranks fifth in the country in punt average (48.1 yards).

Szmyt, a redshirt sophomore, is more outgoing than his introverted roommate, redshirt senior Hoftricher.

But the two have grown close and together have influenced a special teams unit that ranked first in the nation at points last season.

“We want to be known as the best special teams in the country,” Hofrichter said. “So we really focus on pushing each other to be better than we were like a week ago, a year ago.”

After finishing his redshirt freshman year as a unanimous All-American, Szmyt cut the diagonal distance from the point of contact to the start of his kicking motion by one foot — 106 inches to 94.

To those outside the kicking world, the change may seem slight. But the extra inches closer to the ball allow Szmyt to start his run to the ball later, allowing holder Nolan Cooney more time to catch, spin the laces out or adjust to a bad snap.

The move helps Szmyt keep his form as well, something he noted tends to break down as the season carries on. When Szmyt returned to his kicking coach following the 2018 season, his chest was bent forward during his kicks. It was a product of starting too far away and “attacking” the ball.

Now closer, his two steps are short and controlled rather long and lunging.

“Trying to stay everything compact and just controlled,” Szmyt said, “and just good form, proper form.”

Hofrichter adjusted more to the mental side of the game this offseason. This summer at a Kohl’s Professional Football Camp, known for elite specialist training, Team USA sports psychologist Marty Martinez discussed visualization and the benefits of picturing positive performance before it happens.

Before each game this season, Hofrichter plugs his Powerbeats headphones into his ears and lies on the locker room floor. The playlist includes Imagine Dragons and Boys Like Girls song “The Great Escape.” From the ground, he pictures perfect punts. He does the same when he’s on the sideline, dropping the ball on his foot nearly 500 times throughout offensive series in a game. The imagined punts come to fruition to like the lofty strikes against Clemson that led to the best single-game punt average in SU history with at least five punts.

“He’s an NFL kicker if you saw him,” Syracuse head coach Dino Babers said. “Some of the hang time that he got on some of those kids? Like O-M-G.” As Hofricther’s grown as a punter, he’s also become increasingly interested in golfing. He started golfing often his freshman year when he learned Drumlins Country Club was free for students. On Tuesday, Hofrichter walked a full 18 holes before practice instead of using a golf cart. By the evening, he’d had walked more than six miles, per his Apple Watch. They play Golden Tee, the arcade golf game in the football facility before practices and competed in punt golf during practices over the summer.

Starting on one side of the field, the kickers punt the ball repeatedly until hitting a target, such as the crossbar. Like golf, whoever reaches the target in the least amount of strokes wins. Hofrichter doesn’t always win, either.

“We’re in Ensley, so it has the roof,” Szmyt said. “So if Sterling boots one and hits [the roof], I’ll just line it.”

Outside of football, the pair play Fortnite in their off-campus apartment and go out to eat at the Bull and Bear Roadhouse, which they believe is better than Dinosaur Bar-B-Que. Former long snapper Matt Keller turned Hofrichter onto the spot where both Szmyt and his punter rave about the cornbread.

Before last year’s Western Michigan game, Szmyt began what’s become a superstition for the kicking unit.

The then-redshirt freshman played Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York.” Now, before the kickers leave their team hotel for the last time a reminder of their goals booms through the old Italian voice: I wanna wake up, in a city that doesn’t sleep And find I’m king of the hill Top of the heap jlschafe@syr.edu | @Schafer_44

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IN A RUT Syracuse’s ‘juice of the offense’ has struggled in 2019

By Eric Black

senior staff writer

T

he talk surrounding Syracuse’s group of running backs heading into the season was always positive. How talented they were, how deep they were, how well they got along, how they’d fill in for the loss of Dontae Strickland to the NFL. Moe Neal’s goal heading into the season, he said, was to rush for 1,000 yards. Chris Elmore believed that Neal wasn’t the only running back on the team that had the potential to hit the millennium mark.

And in the first game of the season, that potential was apparent. During a game in which SU’s passing game struggled, Neal rushed for a team-high 89 yards, including a 42-yard touchdown scamper. Abdul Adams added another 49 yards and a touchdown.

Jarveon Howard got in on the action too, adding nine carries and a third score for the position group.

But two games later, Syracuse’s (1-2, 0-1 Atlantic Coast) expected success on the ground has vanished. For the first time since 2016, SU’s been held to 70 rushing yards or fewer in back-to-back games. Forty-nine combined rushes by Orange tailbacks during their two losses have resulted in a long run of just 13 yards. They’re not solely responsible for the offense’s struggles, but at this point, Syracuse’s run game is essentially non-existent.

“We just all gotta be on the same page,” Neal said. “From offensive linemen, quarterbacks, running backs, receivers, we all just gotta be on the same page for the running game to come [together].”

The senior running back noted that too often this season, offensive players haven’t been doing their specific jobs on plays. Missed blocks, poor pass protection by the running backs themselves and wide receivers missing hot reads have contributed to the team’s slow start, Neal said. The offense as a whole hasn’t been as consistent as it was last year or in years past, and that’s prevented the running game from clicking.

Perhaps the primary cause for the running game’s issues thus far has been Syracuse’s lack of success through the air. Despite a seemingly-solid game versus Maryland in Week 2 from a statistical standpoint, Tommy DeVito hasn’t handled the transition to starting quarterback smoothly. The redshirt sophomore has turned the ball over in each of SU’s first three games and still has communication issues with his receivers.

“If you’re gonna play us right now, there’s no reason for you to let the passing game get going,” SU head coach Dino Babers said. “[They] want to take away the run and see if we can beat them with the pass, and I think those smart coaches out there, that’s how they’re beating us.”

That’s the strategy Clemson deployed against the Orange last week, as the Tigers brought extra blitzers all game and dared DeVito to beat them over the top. And it worked, as he completed just 56% of his passes and failed to connect on a deep pass all game.

Even in instances when it looked like he found a man open downfield, the plays weren’t completed due to drops or penalties.

That gave Clemson the ability to blitz freely

MOE NEAL rushed for just 22 yards against Clemson last Saturday. He’s averaging 4.5 yards per rush this season. max freund staff photographer

and stack the box against the SU running backs, who struggled to find any room to run all game. Adams and Neal both averaged 2.4 yards per carry on 23 combined carries, with a long run of just six yards each. In his goal-line role, Howard earned two carries inside the Clemson 2-yard line but managed just one yard out of them.

“We try to be the juice of the offense,” Neal said. “We try to bring life into practice with how we carry the ball, how we run … we’re trying to get better.”

Another factor that has contributed to the stagnation of the running game has been the inconsistent play of SU’s offensive line. Already inexperienced coming into the season, the group has been without starting center Sam Heckel since midway through the

team’s first contest of the year. Neal said that last year’s line’s experience was a big part of the reason why the run game was so effective, ranking fifth in the ACC in rushing yards per game and 32nd nationally.

For them to reach the levels they did last year, though, it’ll take much more than an experienced offensive line. Every player on the Syracuse offense needs to be on the same page and begin to find the consistency they had last year. And the team as a whole, Neal said, needs to realize what’s at stake.

“The hype is over. We’re not ranked no more, we’re 1-2,” Neal said. “We’re the ones that believe, so it’s time to work now. It’s time to get back to doing what we do best, and that’s just coming together.” erblack@syr.edu | @esblack34

football

Opponent preview: What to know about Western Michigan

By Josh Schafer

senior staff writer

Following two losses by a combined 78 points, Syracuse will host Western Michigan in the Carrier Dome on Saturday at noon. While the Orange limps into the Week 4 matchup having scored a combined 26 points in its last eight quarters of play, Western Michigan comes to SU following a 57-10 win over Georgia State.

Here’s what to know about the Broncos.

All-time series: Syracuse leads 1-0 Last time they played:

Syracuse defeated Western Michigan 55-42 in its 2018 season opener in Kalamazoo, Michigan. The Orange jumped out to a 24-point lead in the second quarter and then-backup Tommy DeVito entered the game for Syracuse.

The Orange offense stalled in that third frame while the Broncos offense racked up 336 yards and 28 points.

Late in the third quarter, Eric Dungey from page 3

lester coach, Gary Darnell, changed Lester’s perspective. Lester remembered Darnell asking him what his dream job was.

“I’d love to be at Western when P.J. leaves,” Lester answered.

“Well they’re never going to hire the offensive coordinator from Toledo,” Darnell said.

After Lester got hired over the phone, he and Dawn briefly celebrated with Camden before hustling upstairs. They rapidly threw clothes into suitcases as Camden tried packing his stuffed animals.

Dawn got behind the wheel and picked the older boys up from Burnett Creek Elementary.

She decided not to take Interstate-94, using two-lane state highways. As Indiana faded into Michigan, Lester sat in the passenger seat, working his phone. He called his parents, he

returned to quarterback and finished the game with 200 yards rushing as the Orange hung on to their lead and escaped the season opener unscathed.

The Western Michigan report: The Broncos are coached by former Syracuse offensive coordinator Tim Lester, who’s entering his second season at the helm of Western Michigan.

Similar to Syracuse, Western Michigan lacks a quality Power Five victory through two games.

The Broncos’ lone loss came in a 51-17 drubbing at Michigan State.

In Western Michigan’s most recent win, the Broncos rushed for 450 yards on Georgia State, including 192 yards and three touchdowns from senior running back Levante Bellamy.

The Broncos running back is one of several key players in the Western Michigan offense that returns from last year. Quarterback Jon Wassink, who threw for 379 yards three touchdowns and two interceptions in last year’s game is also back, along with D’Wayne Eskridge. Last year, Eskridge dominated Syracuse with 240 receiving yards and two touchdowns.

Normally, that’d be a daunting sight for Syracuse entering Saturday’s matchup. But through three games this year, Eskridge has played most of his snaps at defensive back, not receiver and has caught just one pass in 2019.

Opponents have gained nearly equal yards on the ground and through the air against Western Michigan. Having played three games against struggling offenses, it’s tough to evaluate the Broncos defense too closely. Though it’s worth noting they allowed 51 points to a Michigan State offense that’s become a national college football punchline.

called friends and he called his agent, because between then and Lester’s arrival in Kalamazoo, they had to work out a contract.

He also began writing a speech to his new his team that he’d meet at 6 p.m. that night. When the Lesters arrived, they dropped the kids at a hotel with Lester’s mother, Pat, before Lester put a pen to paper and made his five-year deal at Western Michigan official.

He went to meet the team while Dawn went to check on the kids. Later, she met her husband at a recruiting event. Just hours after signing his contract, a day before the announcement was even public, he bowled with 13 recruits, already trying to build the program he’d just took charge of.

Dawn found the whole day — the call, the rush out the door and the immediate dive into the job — all surreal. That morning she woke up in Indiana, took the kids to school and had no

reason to expect her day would unfold as it had.

“It was just a whirlwind of a day,” Dawn said.

His new experience and close proximity made him a worthy successor to P.J. Fleck, WMU’s departing coach. And on a January afternoon in the passenger seat of his white Chevrolet Suburban, Lester went from unemployed for the second time in a year to holding the position he had coveted for 20-plus years.

“This has been my dream job since when I played here,” Lester said. “I love this place.

This is my goal.”

Though he took a demotion in title and pay to go to Purdue from Syracuse, he moved closer to his goal, closer to his home in Illinois, coaching at a Division I program. And like Darnell said to him, if he went and had a good year with quarterback David Blough, whom Lester tried to get at SU, that’d put him on the radar as a potential head coach.

Blough threw for 3,352 yards in 2016, third

How Syracuse beats WMU:

The arrival of Syracuse’s offense. Last week, Syracuse’s defense did its job against No. 1 Clemson but its efforts received no help. At points last week, Syracuse’s offense appeared to have life, particularly on a drive which featured to back-to-back passes to Moe Neal out of an empty backfield set. Look for the Orange to establish their run game for the

first time since Week 1 and find consistency keeping drives moving if the game’s going to end in an SU victory.

Stat to know: 100%

Western Michigan’s offense has gone for it on fourth down five times this season and converted all of them. A key to Syracuse winning on Saturday will be getting up early and not allowing second-chance opportunities. With a struggling offense, it’ll be crucial for the Orange to get off the field early.

Player to watch: D’Wayne Eskridge

As previously mentioned, Eskridge carved up the Syracuse defense a season ago for 240 receiving yards and two touchdowns. In Tim Lester’s return the Carrier Dome, it’s fair to assume he’ll want to try some different things in hopes of pulling off an upset. Was Lester holding Eskridge out of the offense for the first few weeks all part of a master plan? His explosive speed could be a game changer either way. jlschaf@syr.edu | @Schafer_44

in the Big Ten that season. But Purdue finished 3-9 and head coach Darrell Hazell, along with his staff, were out the door. Lester began to look for other jobs.

“We got fired,” Lester said, “but we almost led the Big Ten in passing, which allowed me to get this job.”

When Fleck left for Minnesota after the 2017 Cotton Bowl, Lester hung onto offers to be a coordinator in the Atlantic Coast Conference and a quarterbacks coach for a ranked team. But he wanted to wait it out and see if the job at WMU opened up. He finally had the experience he lacked before when he didn’t get the job in 2012.

While Lester addressed his team the night of his signing, Dawn drove past Waldo Stadium on her way to see the kids. It all set in when she saw a message on the video boards in bright, bold letters.

It read: “Welcome home Tim Lester.” aegraham@syr.edu | @A_E_Graham

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