The Syracuse football team is back to .500 after their 27 to 24 victory over Pitt. But who shined for the Orange? ITLH breaks it all down.
The Syracuse football squad held on to beat out Pittsburgh this past weekend. The Panthers got off to an early lead in the second quarter, but Syracuse scored a touchdown late to tie things up at 10 going into halftime.
After the break, Syracuse Football once again came out of the locker room on fire; a developing trend throughout the season. The Syracuse offense was moving the ball more effectively due to a surprising surge in the run game by Dontae Strickland and the Syracuse offensive line. Syracuse scored two touchdowns in the second half, while the Syracuse defense was solid all game.
The Orange offense ended up with 500 yards of total offense, according to ESPN.com, while the defense chipped in with great 3rd down defense limiting the Panthers offense to just a 3-13 conversion rate.
This Syracuse defense is much improved from last season, and in this game they were without arguably their two best pass rushers in Josh Black and Kendall Coleman. The improvement of the Syracuse defense is evident, and defensive coordinator Brian Ward and the rest of the staff deserve a ton of credit.
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Eric Dungey did not look great throughout much of the first half of the game. Syracuse committed completely to the pass game in the first half, and as a result the offense couldn’t get into much of a rhythm.
As a result, Dungey missed a couple easy throws. Overall though, the Syracuse signal caller showed great improvement in the turnover department. Dungey held on to the football, never throwing a pick or losing a fumble.
On defense, Paris Bennett is having an All-ACC type of season. He once again led the way for Syracuse Football in the tackling column. Let’s breakdown who impressed for the Orange.
Syracuse fans were extremely excited to hear about the tight end’s commitment from a junior college this past summer. He was a four star recruit both coming out of high school and JUCO and was originally a Mississippi State commit in high school. Pierce is a specimen of a man, checking in at 6-foot 3 inches and 237-pounds while being fairly quick in the open field. Coming to Syracuse, he was supposed to be more of a pass catching tight end rather than a run blocking tight end.
Pierce has been used as the opposite, up until this game against Pittsburgh. Coming into the game this past weekend, Pierce had nine catches for 39 yards and two touchdowns. His height and size were used in the red zone, but the number of catches and yards per catch was very low. Pierce had a great game on Saturday though.
He was Syracuse’s best wide receiver option on the day, hauling in nine catches for 99 yards, but failed to find the end zone. He had a few big conversions in third down situations, and some solid gains including a 19 yard reception.
It’s nice to see Pierce play well as it means Syracuse was exploring its options in the middle of the field, where the big man presents a good target. This has been a criticism of the Dino Babers offense, most pass plays for the Orange come near the sidelines.
Pierce would present another nice option for Syracuse as a pass catching threat. He could be a nice complement to Erv Philips, who also makes his money on intermediate routes and runs after the catch. Pierce could really develop into a dangerous target for Dungey and Syracuse, he is a very real threat in the red zone.
Pierce did drop two passes, both of which were tough catches, but they were on a quick screen pass and a shovel pass on the 4th & 1 play at the end of the game. He and Dungey look like they have some chemistry to work on, but I would expect to see much more of Pierce throughout the season.
Finally, the Syracuse running back had a really solid game. Syracuse’s run struggles under Dino Babers have certainly been well documented, with some theories pointing to the offensive line, while others say it’s the personnel at the position.
Regardless, Strickland may have had his best game of the season, recording 80 yards on 25 carries. The starting running back also chipped in with two catches through the air for 32 yards including one for 26 yards. A few other times in the game Strickland was open downfield and Dungey simply couldn’t hit him. One particular case in the third quarter, Strickland found a seam in the middle of the Pitt defense only to receive a pass at the feet, had it have been up high, the play would have gone for big yards.
Strickland is the guy who makes the calls to the rest of the offense, not QB Eric Dungey. In the past, Dino Babers said that his knowledge of defense’s is sometimes why Syracuse keeps him on the field, but his time at running back this season certainly has not been great.
In this game in particular, Strickland looked decent on the ground gaining 3-5 yards much more than normal, but only recording a long of eight yards. We will see how effective the Syracuse run game is this Friday when Clemson’s elite front seven comes to the Dome to challenge the Orange.
Strickland needs to become more of a threat out there. What he did against Pittsburgh was fine, but he needs to focus on just hitting the best hole and running through it as hard as possible. Sometime it appears as though he is pressing and trying to make too much happen.
The New Jersey native needs to get much more involved in catching the ball out of the backfield as well. He makes plays in space and seems more comfortable running in the open field after catching the ball, rather than just running a typical run play.
Jordan Martin came back this week with a very solid game for the Syracuse defense. Last week, Martin really struggled to tackle NC State’s running backs in the open field. The graduate transfer from Toledo took over at the Free Safety position for Syracuse after senior leader Antwan Cordy went down with an injury.
When Martin came over from Toledo he was originally competing at the corner position. But with the improvements by Scoop Bradshaw and Chris Fredrick, Martin was moved to Free Safety, and has only been playing the position for just five weeks. As mentioned before, he has been burned at times in both coverage and open field tackling, but he was great against Pitt.
Martin recorded five tackles, all solo, meaning he was making the tackles in the open field in this game. Even more important than his tackling, Martin recorded two pass breakups and one that came in the end zone on a throw that would have likely been caught at the 2:12 mark in the third quarter. Instead of the touchdown that would have tied up the game, the Panthers had to settle for a field goal. In other words, Martin made a huge play that occurred at a big moment in the game.
Unlike preseason starter Antwan Cordy, Martin is a lengthy and rangy DB, standing at 6’3 inches and can lower the boom at 206-pounds. When he came to Syracuse from Toledo he had the reputation of being a solid cover corner and a big time hitter.
On the season Martin has 23 tackles, good for fifth most on the team. He is a valuable piece of Syracuse’s secondary, and his play should only elevate as he gets more familiar with the position. This weekend’s game will be a huge test for Syracuse’s defense. Last year, they were burned numerous times by the elite offense’s in the ACC like Clemson, Florida State, and Louisville.
Robinson has been a welcome edition to the Syracuse defense, and one reason for the improvement that you have seen out of the unit this season. Robinson transferred in to Syracuse from a JUCO school right before the start of camp. At 6’4 and 250-pounds, the Texas native brings SEC type size to the defensive end position for Syracuse. In fact, Robinson was a Texas A&M commit out of high school with offers from Michigan and college football’s best.
He has been thrust into action early, and is one of Syracuse’s only healthy and best pass rushers. The injuries to Kendall Coleman and Josh Black have forced Robinson into a starting role, and against Pitt he responded. Robinson recorded five tackles including one sack that forced a fumble, which Pitt recovered. Robinson got a great jump off the ball, flying past the lineman and sacking Pitt quarterback Max Browne, injuring him and forcing him to miss the remainder of the game.
He was getting a large number of snaps at defensive end and five tackles with a sack are very respectable stats. This guy is just getting adjusted to playing at the Division I level, and he has only played six games, but I would like to see his production go up from here on out.
With Black, Coleman, and Robinson all only Sophomores for Syracuse, they could have a trio of impact players at the defensive end position for years to come. Coleman was great in just one-quarter of play against LSU recording two sacks until he was injured. This is an extremely talented and young position group that will be fun to watch grow over the next few seasons.
Robinson just needs to continue to record the occasional sack, pursue the run, and make the quarterback’s life difficult. A breakout game could be on the horizon in the near future this season for Robinson. It would be great if that came Friday night.
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.