Syracuse Football: Top 10 Plays of Week 3 Versus Central Michigan

3. Moe Neal 71 yard Run

Now we’re getting to the two big runs of the afternoon. Both were hugely impressive, but I gave the long quarterback run the slight nod because how often do we see long quarterback runs?! That’s not to say this play wasn’t impressive, it was, but the Dungey play was special. More on that next.

On this play though, Moe Neal would step back in the back of the I-formation. He would come forward after the snap as Dungey handed him the ball. He would immediately run into one of his blockers at the line, per usual, but then a miraculously wide hole opened for him to run through.

Once through, Neal kicked into high gear. He raced forward along the right sideline as the secondary tried to catch him. As he crossed the 50 yard line, he started running out of gas, so he constantly started looking behind him for defenders. That lack of focus on the path in front of him led him to be tripped up and end his run after a 71-yard gain. It got the Orange to the Central Michigan 19 yard line.

Two plays later, Dungey would do a quarterback keeper as we talked about before for one yard for the score. So if this play didn’t already have the big play potential, it also had the glory of setting up the Orange for a touchdown. That score would give the Orange a 14-point lead.