By all accounts, we can agree that Delone Carter is having a fantastic renaissance, right? A quick look at his stats would seem to confirm it...284 yards, 5 rushing TDs and 1 receiving TD.
Then again, remember 4 of those 6 touchdowns came last week. And he has yet to break the 100-yard mark in a game. And his YPG average was under 4 in three of the four games.
This isn't to put the blame on Delone. Far from it. Rather it's to point out that the SU rushing attack hasn't clicked as well as it might seen at first glance. In fact, as Donnie points out, it's not going that well at all.
The Orange is ranked last in the Big East Conference and 103rd nationally in rushing with an average of 93.33 yards per game. Things are better with the passing game where Syracuse is sixth in the Big East and 63rd nationally with an average of 216 yards per game.
Donnie notes that almost 70 percent of Syracuse's offensive yards are coming from the passing game. That cannot possibly be a good thing for the long-term growth of this offense.
Doug Marrone sees a wealth of areas for improvement. Perimeter blocking is a huge issue for him and he's working with the RBs, WRs and TEs to improve. And of course, the offensive line continues to be a work in progress.
At the end of the day it's not specifically about balance for Marrone. He'll take the yards and the points anyway he can. Obviously though, the Orange need to establish themselves on the ground if they want to keep defenses honest. For Marrone, it all depends on your standpoint.
"I don't look at is far as yards and how productive they are when we run the football," he said. " I look at it from a standpoint of what's being defended. In other words, do we have goal in our mind of yards in a game? No. Our only goal is to win. At the end of the year, we'll look at where we are from a standpoint of ratio. In other words, we may go into a game and we may have to throw the ball 70 percent and run the ball 30 percent to win. Or it might be vice versa in other situations with a different opponent we play. At the end of the year, what I want to see from the self scout is 50-50. That's in a perfect world. Most of the places I've been have been 60-40, but 50-50 is the goal offensively. Each game plan will take you a different way to defeat a team."