Syracuse Football Week 6: Season on the Line

This could be the season right here. The Syracuse football team returns home for the first time in nearly a month. The treat? A critical game against No. 17 Virginia Tech. The Orange will be looking to snap a two-game skid, the latest of which came last weekend after a lousy performance against Wake Forest.

Dino Babers has spoken about his team’s need to be “consistently good and not occasionally great.” They might need to be consistently great, devoid of any mistakes in order to have a chance to win this game against the Hokies. These aren’t the Demon Deacons rolling into town. If the Orange play anywhere close to how they did last week, this will be over in the first quarter.

Virginia Tech is 4-1 this year with the lone loss coming in Week 2 on the road against No. 9 Tennessee. In that game, the Volunteers erased a 14-0 deficit by scoring 24 unanswered in the second quarter. They pretty much took control of the game from that point.

But since then, the Hokies have responded by taking care of business. During their three-game win streak, they’ve outscored their opponents 137-20. This includes an incredibly impressive 31-point victory at UNC, who came into that game ranked No. 17.

This will obviously be a tough match-up for Syracuse, which makes last week’s disappointing loss sting even more. The Orange probably won’t be favored to win another game this season, so they could be staring at a 2-10 campaign. But there’s still time left to shock some people, right?

It all begins on the offensive side of the ball for ‘Cuse. What happened last week was a catastrophe. The weather pretty much neutralized the passing attack and made the Orange one-dimensional. This isn’t a team used to play outdoors to begin with. And that’s not much of an excuse, they still should’ve been more aggressive late in the game, but the expectation is that much will be different this time around.

Eric Dungey, coming off his worst game of the season where he had more rushing attempts (18) than completions (16) needs to set the tone. Amba Etta-Tawo is, at least statistically, one of the best receivers in the country. There’s no reason why we should forget he’s in the game. Dungey has a responsibility: feed the beast.

And this has been a recurring them, but somehow, someway, they have to find a way to get the running game going. Syracuse is near the bottom in rushing yards in all of college football. Theoretically, this dual-attack opens up the field for the Orange to be able to take chances down the field with play-action. But the real reason this becomes important is because Virgnia Tech’s defense has been stout this year.

The Hokies have allowed just 37 plays of 10-or-more yards this year, which is the best mark in the country. So in order to crack this code, the pressure will be on Syracuse to try to attack this defense multiple ways. Whether it’s using trick plays or going deep into the playbook, there has to be some creativity on offense.

The season is on the line. It’s tough to imagine Syracuse being able to climb out of the hole with a loss against Virginia Tech. Crazier things have happened. And if the Orange can pull this off, couldn’t that be the foreshadowing of more positive things to come? I wouldn’t hold my breath though.