Inside The Loud House breaks down and grades the play of Sean Riley now that the season is over for Syracuse Football.
Syracuse football and Sean Riley are like two peas in a pod. What do they both have in common? Sometimes they show up, and sometimes they don’t.
We were singing Riley’s praises earlier in the season; especially after that Central Michigan game where he exploded on the scene after Erv Philips got injured. We thought he might have a bigger role in this offense after that and end up being one of the stars of the team, considering how fast he is.
One area we thought he’d continue to excel in was in the return game as he showcased he has a knack for big returns.
However, teams were smart in the second half of the season and avoided him on punts and kickoffs altogether and we barely got to see those highlights for the rest of the season. I guess that’s why they’re only expectations though and sometimes they fall through.
The Syracuse Football coaches did make a solid effort to try to make sure he got the same kinds of looks he did in that Central Michigan game. They put him in similar scenarios in which he could catch the ball, however defenses clamped down on him knowing what he was able to do. Instead Syracuse had to look to the outside to Ishmael and Philips and down the middle to Ravian Pierce more when passing a ball.
Plus with Dontae Strickland playing well running the ball, Riley was no longer needed to run as much. The few times he did, the defenses saw it coming and usually stopped him behind the line of scrimmage.
So how do I grade this young man considering he didn’t have as much of a role as he did earlier in the season? It’s sort of hard to gauge whether he was good or bad, but I’m going to lean towards the latter if had to choose.
Riley did have a few solid catches throughout the rest of the season after that Central Michigan game and did have some decent returns to put the Orange in good field position in multiple games. However consistency was a problem so I’m only going to give him an average grade.
I still believe that Riley have lots of potential in the years he’s got left with Syracuse football however I think he really needs to make an effort to find ways to break double teams and run better routes.
Riley is going to be an upperclassman next years so he needs to act like it. He needs to make himself available for passes and make himself a threat on offense every week. If he can do anything similar to the way Steve Ishmael did over the last year and the way that Amba Etta-Tawo did the year before that then the Orange could be in for big things next year.
Next: Syracuse Football: How the hell did we end up 4-8?
The one thing that worries me is that Devin Butler who shined towards the latter end of the season last year may steal more targets from Riley even though he technically has faster wheels than Butler. We’ll have to wait and see what happens, but for now Riley is just another guy on offense and that’s something he and the Orange need to rectify next season.