Syracuse Football: The Good, the bad, and the ugly from FSU win

Our Paul A. Esden Sr. gives us the good, the bad, and the ugly from the Syracuse football squad and their huge win over the Florida State Seminoles.

This game can be summarized by the statement made by Nykeim Johnson: “We are definitely looking to run up the score and annihilate them.”

This comes from a 5-foot-8 167 pound sophomore wide receiver with 14 career catches. I am pretty sure people scoffed at this (especially the people from Tallahassee). His stats from yesterday were not overly impressive three catches for 32 yards.

However as a national audience can attest, he more than backed his statement up as he trucked a Florida State defender on his way to a 23-yard reception.

There was a lot of debate leading up to game whether or not this was a ‘skin’ game for the Orange.

My mindset was on the same wavelength as Nykeim’s. I expected them to win.

Breaking down the first two games for both teams the OITNF were just plain better. True they were unproven against an ACC team or even a school from major conferences and I acknowledge this is not Bobby Bowden’s Seminoles or the caliber of team that won the National Championship.

But this was as many Syracuse players stated 5 star recruits versus 2-3 star recruits. Dino Babers was quoted leading up to the game: “It’s an opportunity for them to have a fight with someone their own size.”  Well fight they did, it was not much of a fight as Syracuse pounded them from pillar to post.

The good for this game, was not good it was phenomenal.

Most of you probably think I am speaking to Tommy DeVito … I am not. The unit that was responsible for the dominant win over an ACC opponent, a team we had lost to 10 times straight is the Defense. With a capital D. The statistics are staggering:

• 11 first downs allowed
• Allowed one third down conversion which did not occur until the fourth quarter
• Held Cam Akers to 52 yards (one quarter of last year’s yardage total)
• This unit that gave up over 600 yards to Western Michigan, yet yielded only 240 yards to FSU (with a large chunk coming on Florida States only scoring drive in the fourth quarter)

When the Orange was struggling mightily on offense in the first half the defense pitched a shutout.

The defensive line spent the day hurrying, harassing and hounding Deondre Francois. This became readily apparent as several times Deondre anticipated a hit and failed to step into his throw as he braced himself for a punishing blow.

The bad for the game and something that needs to be broken down this week is play calling in goal line situations.

We were first down goal to goal within the five yard line on two occasions and ran six running plays and gained a total three yards.

These running plays were not innovative primarily being right up the middle our big uglies against yours. This coupled with another series where Syracuse was 2-and-2 at midfield and ran the ball three straight times (including a failed fourth down conversion) losing yardage.

I respect the effort to play smash mouth football but to a certain point, you can only ram your head into a wall so many times before you realize you can go around it.

The ugly for this game lies solely with our opponent.

I can find nothing ugly about this dominant win. The ugly comes from the Seminole’s pathetic attempt to slow down the OITNF. To come into the Carrier Dome (which we all know ironically has no air conditioning) which was hot and humid (90 degrees).

This is warm for Central New York but a mid-winter day in southern Florida. Players were flopping all over the field, ‘cramping up’ from dehydration is ridiculous. This clearly was designed to stop the game to slow down the New Fast as they were not accustomed to the pace at which we play football.

Outside of my normal format I wanted to take a moment for an extra ‘Good’ to our back up quarterback.

Eric Dungey who left game due to a potential eye injury and blurry vision late in the second half, Tommy DeVito came in and played exceptionally well leading the Orange on several scoring drives and showing a lot of poise. We all hope that this setback is temporary for our Heisman hopeful but we all know that if not, Tommy will be ready to step in and step up.

To summarize my game wrap up, overall grade for our performance is an A. We are halfway to the ‘Quest for 6’ with a winnable game versus UConn on the horizon. More on that later in the week for now let us enjoy this significant accomplishment by our team. The sky is the limit for this team, remember to Be Loud, Be Proud, Be Orange.