Syracuse and Pittsburgh’s single-game FBS scoring record falls to Tim Lester

As you well know, the Syracuse Orange and Pittsburgh Panthers participated in the highest-scoring FBS game of all-time last November. While we didn’t want to lose a game 76-61, it was fun to be part of some positive offensive history.

That record’s time is over, however. And Tim Lester is the reason why. As someone that watched all of Lester’s games as OC twice, this is a stunning turn of events for me to take in.

Western Michigan beat Buffalo, 71-68 on Saturday. Yes, the game went to seven overtimes, so we’ll still have the regulation record. But when you look up the single-game scoring record, it’ll list Buffalo (woof) and WMU. The same WMU team coached by former Syracuse offensive coordinator Tim Lester.

Lester, you’ll recall, spent about a year and a half as OC and in that time, the offense was largely a trainwreck. After he took over in 2014, the Orange scored more than 20 points just once (and that still featured defensive scoring). In 2015, the offense was better, but was still an ineffective option-based attack.

In 2017, Western Michigan’s offense hasn’t really looked much better than Syracuse did from a yards per game perspective (going into this game at least). But they’ve been scoring over 35 points per game — an average that will balloon after today’s 71-point outburst.

Good for WMU and Lester. But bummer that we no longer own the record (and ironic Lester was part of that). We’ll miss you, single-game scoring record. You were too beautiful for this world.