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With John off I’ll take on his usual Sunday view of Syracuse Orange football, but in doing so I’m going to build from his post-game take.
Great win, and hopefully the “fire Babers”/“what if we go winless?” people are quieted for awhile.
— John Cassillo (@JohnCassillo) September 26, 2020
However, will say I don’t know how much of what went right today for Syracuse is repeatable... https://t.co/lq5yLeFdWj
Let’s look at some of the factors that I think Syracuse can replicate moving forward.
Defense
Syracuse used an opportunistic defense to beat the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets in the first home game of 2020. While we can’t count on the Orange generating five turnovers every game, we’ve seen that the 2020 defense has to ability to generate pressure and force opposing offenses into bad decisions. Even missing Andre Cisco, the Syracuse secondary was able to make some big plays yesterday. The Duke Blue Devils are the next team on the Syracuse schedule and yesterday they committed seven turnovers in a loss to the Virginia Cavaliers. Tony White’s 3-3-5 defense will have more opportunities to give the offense a short field.
Running Game
It took three games but Syracuse finally generated a consistent ground attack. Freshman Sean Tucker carried 24 times for 112 yards and two touchdowns. He was able to push forward after contact and his running in the first half helped open up some opportunities for the Orange passing game.
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Deep Throws
Speaking of that passing game it wasn’t great by any means but Tommy DeVito hit deep throws to Taj Harris and Nykeim Johnson at times when the Orange needed to regain control of the game. DeVito might have had a third touchdown pass if Johnson had held onto a well-timed tunnel screen in the first quarter. There’s plenty of room for improvement but the connections might give DeVito a boost of confidence moving forward.
Schedule
After two straight road games against ranked teams it looked like we were in for a long fall. At 1-2 there’s some hope because next is the 0-3 Duke and Liberty in the Stadium. Take away Clemson and Notre Dame and the other four ACC teams on Syracuse’s schedule have a combined record of 3-5 right now.
We have to see Syracuse repeat yesterday’s performance but I do think there are some repeatable areas from the win. Hopefully the Orange utilize the next two weeks to shore up some areas but we saw things to build open against Georgia Tech.