Syracuse fans are popping alka-seltzer for heart burn today after a spectacular opening night win, which also left some lingering concerns. After a terrible start, negative tweets were flying, panic was rising and the Dome was dead quiet. But after some help from from a stumbling Wake Forest team and facing a backup QB, the Orange mounted a furious rally and staged a dramatic comeback win.
Despite emphasizing the importance of winning at home this season, Doug Marrone’s crew came out flat and was dominated by the Deacons and their passing game in the first half. Here are the three biggest concerns from the victory.
- Sluggish offensive start
Other than a lone touchdown drive, SU’s other six early possessions were all 3-and-outs. The¬†much scrutinized Ryan Nassib didn‚Äôt look comfortable in the pocket despite given time to throw.¬†The Dougie wasn’t happy with the first half offensive productivity.
“We haven’t played a game in 265 days, so you learn from it. The players will get excited about it, but they’ll come back and we have a long way to go. We never want to start like that. There were a bunch of three-and-outs, and at one time it was 42-45 plays to 19. You can’t do that, especially early in the year. That’s not the way we want it.”
The Orange responded though, with a spectacular second half aided in part by Wake starter Tanner Price going down. The SU offense made big plays and Van Chew seemed to emerge as a clear go-to receiver. Marrone thought it was only a matter of time until it clicked:
“We just caught them. Honestly, they were pressuring the heck out of us. They came out and pressured us, zero pressure, and we were looking to make a play on the perimeter. We had some leakage in the protection and then all of a sudden we had some big plays. That’s how it is.”
- Questionable clock management
DM elected to burn his last timeouts with over 7 minutes left and down only one possession (plus a two-point conversion). This ended up being a non-issue because of the win, but the Orange easily could have needed those stoppages late in the game. The Orange ran out of timeouts last year vs. Louisville in a game it lost. Not reason to panic, but it was debatable management.
- Linebacker struggles
We figured the ‘backers would take time to gel and the unit certainly showed its youth, unable to make plays early and leaving a heavy tackling burden on the safeties. This resulted in too many deep pass plays, which other teams could easily exploit if it‚Äôs not corrected.
Despite the concerns the Orange stole a win at home, one it desperately wanted having lost all of its home games to FBS teams last year. Encouragingly, the offense exploded in the second half and Chew emerged as a true number one. The Dougie and co. has plenty it can correct, but SU found a win when it seemed lost.
Posted: Alex Plavin
8 responses to “Three Concerns In Syracuse’s Dramatic Opening Night Win Over Wake”
I’m not sure what game you were watching but Nassib played well, especially considering he was running for his life most of the night. What you missed, and mislabeled as the QB, was the inconsistency in the offensive line play. Now that is a real concern given that it was supposed to be a strength.
Don’t forget to mention the Skytop parking only. It was crazy and other fans involved said they hated it. We can’t get fans to the games now. We don’t need outside problems like this parking issue to help keep the dome only 1/2 full!!!
I’ve heard a few people talk about the timeout management. That’s completely understandable – I don’t know why HCDM took those timeouts either. But I really don’t think it’s a problem. I’m wondering if there was some kind of fine-tuning Marrone was doing with the offense that he needed to take the final timeout. It seemed to work as Bailey was off to the races on the next play. Maybe he just needed to give the offense some kind of adjustment, maybe tweak the blocking scheme, who knows. But I can’t help but wonder, without that timeout, does Bailey go the distance on the next play? It may have been pure coincidence, who knows. But the more I see Coach Marrone in action, the more willing I am to give him the benefit of the doubt. He might prepare more than any other coach in the conference, if not the nation. If he calls a timeout at a certain time, it’s not done on a whim, it’s done for a reason. Everything I’ve seen about him tells me that, instead of saving a timeout for in case he MIGHT need it later, he’ll use it beforehand to make sure he WON’T need it later. Hey, if we can’t figure why he does stuff, and then it works, maybe that means he’s just way smarter at this coaching thing than even the fans realize. And that’s not a bad thing at all.
We’re really about to see what this coaching staff is made of. Bad games happen and the great coaches ensure corrections are made. I felt the secondary was rusty due to their injuries. I believe they will improve with shafer coaching them up.
Just watched the game again… I misremembered a couple of things. Whoops. After watching it again, it looks like the two timeouts HCDM took were most likely a time management strategy – he was talking with the defense during the timeouts, not the offense. That said, I still have no problem with the timeout strategy. It was an unusual time managment strategy but it appears to have worked. Sometimes doing it differently works out best – like the 2-3 zone, the freeze option (for a while) and the unbalanced line under Schwartzwalder.
I have to disagree on the linebackers. I think the backers played pretty good for most of the game. Now, the DBs for the most part of the game was awful but came together when it counted
the game was not broadcast over in mass and most other places, we had wisconsin.which brings up:one dimensional nfl pro set offense as usual. looked great in bowl game vs K-states dreadful defense.i would assume the light has gone on with marrones thought process about opton qbs-oops..” dual threat”, as in allready 2 incredible performances by wilson at wisconsin and griffin at baylor. if u have a qb who can throw downfield while on a sprint out opton , that is a massive problem for defenses vs geraric statue drop back types. seems like he is trying to recruit some of those types. but su still has a large talent disparity , as they are gonna find out if they are foolish enough to match a cloner nfl”saints ” offense pro set vs USC cloner i pro set formation.oregon wins vs usc by playing a freaky offense.. speed up opton with great mobile qbs and speed in all the backfield which even the usc talent on defense cant match.
Concern for the O-line is valid especially up the middle Mackey is not going to be able to handle big time DTs especially the ones at USC Who ever was doing the snapping must be replaced. It wasn’t Kratman’s flat on the blocked fg. On the other hand Ryan Nassib plated exceptionally well.