Spring football notebook: Nunzio Campanile’s new role, o-line injuries

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After reading over his football notes, Dan Villari’s routine the night before the next day’s practice becomes pretty simple. He eats a lot of carbohydrates and pasta. Yesterday evening, Villari also decided to watch “The Godfather” while he ate. He added some popcorn to the viewing experience. During the day, Villari prefers the purple banana smoothie that the team will provide for the players.

This is all part of an effort by Villari to keep his body in working order. Following an intense season, whose latter half had the tight end take a plurality of snaps under center, Villari has this night routine and food preferences to keep up with the intensity of the current spring ball practices.

In today’s practice, Villari and fellow tight end David Clement were with the offensive linemen, focusing on blocking more. He still catches passes, though, and is looking forward to a closed-door scrimmage on Saturday. Villari feels there is plenty of chemistry amongst the offensive players, and the results will reflect that.

“I’m surprised about this team about how many touchdowns we’re throwing,” Villari said. “I mean, we look really good.”

Here are some more observations from today’s Syracuse spring ball practice:

Campanile and McCord

As Kyle McCord threw short passes in the middle of the field inside Ensley Athletic Center, SU quarterbacks coach Nunzio Campanile, the interim head coach for the end of the 2023 season, stood right there with him.

When McCord started to throw deeper balls to Georgia transfer receiver Zeed Haynes, Campanile walked right into the middle of the progression. It didn’t matter for McCord, though, who still completed the pass to Haynes.

“He’s a really accurate passer, he’s really smart, he’s doing a great job of understanding the scheme,” Campanile said.

With McCord now Syracuse’s field general, Campanile said building chemistry will be important for him while playing in a new offensive scheme. Part of working together has been learning the in-helmet communication system, which was approved by the ACC back in February.

Another aspect for Campanile in working with McCord is pressure. According to Pro Football Focus, McCord was the best quarterback in the Big Ten regarding passer rating in a clean pocket. But under pressure, McCord had one of the worst passer ratings. Campanile said with pro style quarterbacks, like McCord, there will be pressure coming from the middle of the field. So the coach wants to create stress for the quarterback to improve his decision making.

“The reality is you’re always trying to create an environment where they feel like they’re under stress and making decisions because other than the game, how else do they get it?” Campanile said. “They don’t get hit really in practice, they don’t see a lot of those things.”

Nunzio’s adjustment

Campanile now has his second role in as many years with Syracuse. Aside from being the interim head coach for the last game of the regular season and the Boca Raton Bowl against South Florida, Campanile was the tight ends coach for the Orange in 2023. But he has enjoyed his transition to quarterbacks coach.

“It’s about as much fun as I’ve had coaching football in a long time,” Campanile said of being the quarterbacks coach.

The last time he was a quarterbacks coach was in 2022 at Rutgers while he served as an interim offensive coordinator. But Campanile said he has coached quarterbacks his whole life. Now in Syracuse, Campanile wants to make the offensive terminology understandable for the players, making sure it translates which in turn makes the game as simple as possible.

Keeping the o-line healthy

After spending five seasons in Richmond, Joe More transferred to Syracuse ahead of the 2023 season. But due to a high ankle sprain, More only played in three games, totaling 29 snaps.

More wasn’t the only one in his position group to deal with injuries. Starting right tackle and Kentucky transfer David Wohlabaugh Jr. suffered a season-ending lower body injury in the second game of the season, while Kalan Ellis only played one game the entire season.

More mentioned the depth in the offensive line and said how the support staff has been helpful in keeping the players always healthy or in recovery mode. But More he that there has been a change when it comes to injury prevention which has come in the weight room.

“We’re spending a lot more time…strengthening those kinds of joints and ligaments, areas that kind of get overshadowed,” More said. From our strength and conditioning program, there’s a lot more injury prevention going on.”