To wrap up our Syracuse football coverage from the NC State game, here’s our weekly report card. ITLH breaks down who did well and who sucked.
The Syracuse football team suffered its’ third loss of the season this past weekend at the hands of NC State. The Orange once again came out very flat in the first half, struggling to get anything going on the offensive side of the ball. Syracuse headed into the locker room down by a score of 26-7.
Syracuse once again was punched in the mouth in the first half and didn’t respond well, allowing points on every one of NC State’s drives and only scoring on one of their offensive drives.
A fired up Dino Babers reportedly delivered an inspiring halftime speech to try to fire his team up a bit. What was encouraging to see was that the Orange responded to this halftime speech, made some adjustments and scored on their first drive of the second half.
All day Eric Dungey was spreading the ball in between his two favorite targets Erv Philips and Steve Ishmael. Philips finished the day with an astounding 17 receptions for 188 yards while Ishmael chipped in six catches for 120 yards.
One thing though.
If there is one thing that has become evidently clear in the Dino Babers era, it is that if you want to play wide receiver in college football Syracuse is a great school to choose. You will get the ball and have the ability to make plays. Give Babers some time to bring in his recruiting classes and I think we will see some future NFL receivers on the outside for the Orange.
The defense was shaky all throughout the game giving up a total of 33 points, 26 of which came in the first half. NC State has a very good offense led by senior quarterback Ryan Findley and senior H-back, Jaylen Samuels. But Syracuse’s defense wasn’t able to get the stops needed in the first half in order to keep the score close heading into the locker rooms.
Much like the offense, the defense came out much more fired up and were able to contain the NC State offense in the second half, only allowing seven points. Senior linebacker’s Parris Bennett and Zaire Franklin once again led the team in tackles at one and two. The Orange defense did not force any turnover’s which allowed NC State to get comfortable on offense.
Let’s see who Graded well this past week:
Erv Philips got off to a relatively quiet start this season in the first three games, but has since broken out in a big way against much better opponents in LSU and NC State. Philips increase in production should be a welcome sign for Orange fans, as he and Steve Ishmael are now a great tandem of receivers.
Philips caught the ball 17 times against the Wolfpack, an ACC record, and recorded 188 yards
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through the air. Philips never found the end zone but was instrumental in the Orange’s comeback and moving the ball in between the 20-yard lines.
He also made some huge receptions on third and long situations in the second half that extended drives for Syracuse and were key in their comeback.
Over the last two weeks Philips is averaging 14 receptions a game, 140 yards receiving and has one touchdown. This is a welcoming sight for Orange fans who know that if Syracuse has any chance of making a bowl they will need the senior receiver to play well.
Throughout last season and so far this year, “swerving Ervin” has served as a security blanket for Syracuse quarterback Eric Dungey. He is frequently open and makes his money on seven to nine yard routes where he will find gaps in the defense, catch the ball and immediately turn up field for any extra yards.
In the early part of his career, the Connecticut native was victimized by dropped passes. Sometimes the inside receiver still struggles with drops, but he is clearly much improved and will leave Syracuse as one of the schools most decorated wide receivers.
Look for Philips and the Syracuse wide receivers to have big games this upcoming weekend as the Orange take on Pittsburgh, a team they put up 61 points against last season.
Alright, this grade is going to be more of an overall grade for the season thus far, but there is one specific reason as to why it is coming this week. Cole Murphy is a senior kicker for Syracuse and has been the primary kicker on field goals, extra points, and kick-offs for the past three seasons.
Murphy was supposed to be a pretty polished field goal kicker by now in his career, which he really is not, anywhere over 40-yards he is pretty shaky. Murphy missed a 48-yard field goal against NC State, which is no gimme, so he gets a pass on that. His field goal miss is not even what prompted me to grade the Syracuse kicker either.
Murphy has been horrendous on kickoff’s this season. He once again kicked the ball out-of-bounds against NC State on the opening kickoff, setting he Wolfpack up with good field position at their own 35 yard line. This is simply unacceptable, a football field is 53 yards wide and if you cannot keep your kickoff in between the two sideline’s then you simply should not be taking the kickoffs.
Wide right.
Because of this screw up by Murphy, it puts the Syracuse defense with their backs against the wall on the first drive of the game and allowed NC State to put points on the board. According to Cuse.com, that is Murphy’s 4th kickoff that has gone out-of-bounds this season although it feels like there have been more.
In the third quarter Syracuse turned to punter Sterling Hofrichter to kick a 38-yard field goal after Murphy had missed the 48-yarder. An interesting move by Dino Babers hinting at the fact that the Syracuse head man has little faith in his senior kicker.
I really try not to be too hard on these kids, and if Murphy misses a deep field goal like a 48-yarder I understand. Where I have a problem is when Murphy kicks the ball out-of-bounds. This is just simply unacceptable and if he can’t keep the ball in bounds he should not be kicking off.
Hofrichter took two kickoffs in the game, which may indicate that Dino Babers is becoming fed up with Murphy. Hofrichter has kicked off five times this season and hasn’t recorded one touchback, but he has yet to kick the ball out-of-bounds. He should get chances to kick off if Murphy continues his struggles.
Chris Fredrick has been a pleasant surprise this season for the Orange in an improved secondary. Last season Syracuse struggled mightily against the pass as an injured secondary was historically bad.
This season, Syracuse’s secondary has been burned from time to time, but it has only been once a game or every other game as opposed to last season when it was multiple times a game. Grad transfer’s Jordan Martin and Devin Butler have added depth and chipped in to help improve the weak link in the defense last season.
When those two transfer’s pledged to Syracuse, they were though to presumably be the starters, instead, Fredrick and fellow sophomore Scoop Bradshaw held on to those starting roles and have been much improved this year. Credit Syracuse secondary coach Nick “Swag Daddy” Monroe for the improvement.
Chris Fredrick has been one of the more improved Orange in the defensive back group. Against NC State he was primarily guarding Kelvin Harmon, a lengthy 6-foot 3 receiver, who coming into the game, had recorded 25 receptions for 284 yards and a touchdown.
Definitely held his own.
Fredrick more than held his own holding Harmon to 2 catches for 17 yards. In addition to this Fredrick recorded four tackles (two solo) and also was tied for the team lead with two pass breakups. The Georgia native did his part for a Syracuse defense that held NC State senior quarterback to just 186 yard through the air, holding him 118 yards under his season average of 304 coming into the weekend.
Just a redshirt sophomore Fredrick will be a mainstay for years to come for Syracuse. His performance this week was graded as the 3rd best among college football corner’s by Pro Football Focus. Fredrick earned a 90.4 by Pro Football Focus, a tremendous rating very impressive against a receiver of Harmon’s caliber.
Fredrick will need to continue to play well as the brunt of the ACC schedule is still ahead of Syracuse. He has an interception on the season, but great coverage will continue to do the job.
This is going to be the first time that we discuss the Syracuse coaching staff and how they fared against the Wolfpack. Dino Babers delivered an inspiring halftime speech that fired up the Syracuse team, who responded by marching down the field and scoring to bring the game to within 26-14.
With this being said, Syracuse once again came out incredibly flat and making mental errors. Syracuse simply can’t expect to go on the road and win games against teams that have more talent than them like LSU and NC State. In both of those games, Eric Dungey’s first pass was picked off and this is just unacceptable and something that can’t happen if you expect to get a win against a more talented team on the road. Can’t happen.
The first week it happened against LSU I was upset, but you can forgive it. It has now happened in two straight weeks and whether it’s Dungey’s fault or predictable play calling by the offensive staff there is no excuse.
Babers and the staff must do a much better job at weathering the storm in the beginning of the games. The offense does eventually seems to get track once they wear out the opposing team’s defense, but until then they have struggled mightily to put points on the board. I think some creativity and better play calls can do the trick for the offense, who clearly needs to get into a rhythm in order to get in gear.
The Orange.
In the first half this year, the Orange has scored a total of 78 points. However, in games against Central Connecticut State and Central Michigan, Syracuse recorded 55 points. It appears that scoring early on in the game leads to a win for the Orange as the offense has scored 87 points in the second half, taking their foot off the gas against both the Blue Devils and the Chippewas.
Dino Babers is the right head coach at Syracuse and he can experience success here, changing the entire culture of the football program. He can recruit and we certainly need to give him at least two more years before even consideration of the “hot seat.” We need to see how his recruits develop as they become sophomores and juniors and learn the system. I can understand the frustration of a lot of fans, but if they got rid of Babers, they are going to have to pay him a lot of money remaining on his contract, and who can they attract with the current state of the program that would be better?
The team is improving, they are getting closer and I think that the talent gap between us and top-tier teams is closing. Give it time and the results will come. The staff’s play calling is questionable at times and the defensive improvement is undeniable.
Next: Syracuse Football: Top 5 bittersweet oranges from loss to NC State
But it is fair to say that the Syracuse coaching staff needs to get the team ready for the opponent, rather than relying on halftime adjustments to start scoring. Mental mistakes need to be cut down and the offensive coordinators need to get more creative and find ways to move the ball early on in the game.