Syracuse Football Report Card: Who shined for the Orange against Pitt?

Listen, I am one who tries not to blame losses or anything on officials. With that being said, the officials this past weekend against Pittsburgh were some of the worst that I’ve ever seen. There were some blatant calls that were missed that are just inexcusable.

Multiple times it appeared that the line judge’s were misspotting the football, and in one particular instance, it cost Syracuse a first down on a Dungey scramble. I don’t expect the refs to be perfect, but there were a few too many poorly officiated plays on Saturday.

I thought that the offensive pass interference call against Steve Ishmael was very poor. It occurred on the first drive of the game for Syracuse and called back a touchdown that would have been about a 35-yarder. Ishmael and cornerback Avonte Maddox were battling for position and it appeared “Ish” may have slightly pushed off, but not enough to warrant a flag. Just a really bad miss by the officials. Especially on a play that you should let the players decide the outcome on, but this was not the play that upset me the most.

In the fourth quarter, Pittsburgh was driving and on the Syracuse 23-yard line facing a third and one situation. Syracuse’s defense had been great on third down all day as we mentioned and were looking for a stop when this happened:

This missed false start is simply inexcusable, and cannot happen at the Division I level. It is probably the easiest call to make in the game, and the fact that it was missed is very worrisome. This would have put at a third and six situation, one that gives Syracuse’s defense a much better chance of getting a stop.

Finally, this is more of an issue with the conference and college football as a whole. Syracuse runs an extremely fast offense and I’m sure it was very hot inside the Dome on Saturday during an 88-degree Central New York fall day, but the tempo-related injuries have to stop.

Pittsburgh defensive players were seemingly dropping every other play, essentially giving their team a timeout. This needs to be some sort of delay of game penalty to get these opponents to stop. They are cheating! This gives them an unlimited amount of timeouts, and breaks up Syracuse’s rhythm and up-tempo offense.