Syracuse football has a lot of reflecting to do during bye week

Our Paul A. Esden Sr shares his top takeaways from Week 5 and why the Syracuse football team has a lot of reflecting to do during bye week.

With the Syracuse football bye week upon us, it gives us a chance to reflect on the Holy Cross game.

We learned a lot from that game and it puts a new light on the 2019 campaign. I hear you, Paul has gone off his rocker again, what could we possibly learn from a 41-3 blow out? Plenty for a moment let’s reflect on some of my keys to the game:

The Orange will win this game hands down. 

"“The important piece is to seize the opportunity to fire on all cylinders prior to the schedule heating up against ACC opponents. They need to go out and dominate this game to help build chemistry on the offensive line, Tommy’s pocket presense and running game. These are the keys to the push for Bowl eligibility.”"

Sadly this did not happen, yes if you look at the team statistics you could fool yourself (269 yards passing for Tommy DeVito) until you realize that 70 yards of this were on one pass play (that happened in the fourth quarter) and 47 yards on another reception both of which involved significant yards after catch.

Removing those two second-half scores Tommy DeVito went 17-of-29 for 152 yards against an FCS opponent. This is a warning sign for the remainder of the season.

"“Not a key to the game but a key insight into the future of the 2019 game will be the Orange defense pitching a shutout. This is not a stretch, Syracuse has NFL level talent on the defense (Kendall Coleman and Andre Cisco to name a few). This game will allow them to work as a cohesive unit and prepare them for the next 8 games of the season.”"

For me this was the bright spot of the game, the defense came out and executed as they should have. Syracuse allowed .6 yards per rushing play and 3.4 yards per completion. Complete dominance. This is a positive sign for our push for bowl eligibility.

Other nuggets from this week:

This game was almost a déjà vu of the Clemson game, except in this version Holy Cross played the role of the Orange.  Overmatched but never giving up the plucky Crusaders fought until the end. Syracuse fans say that the score of the Clemson game (41-6) doesn’t tell the full story. Guess what neither does this score (41-3).

The Orange offense was embarrassing. Here are a few key stats:

5-of-16 on third-down conversions.

1-of-3 on fourth down conversions.

Three turnovers.

As a reminder this was against a team with 70 fewer scholarship players than the Orange;
As we reflect on this game our revised goal for the Orange is to become bowl eligible is possible, without some major improvements on the offensive side of the ball.

This starts with the offensive line, to allow the establishment of the running game and to allow us to see if Tommy DeVito is the quarterback of the future or is it Clayton Welch time. Time will tell. I cannot wait until the Thursday night lights get fired up next week until then Be Loud, Be Proud, Be ORANGE!