Strong finish to the regular season
The Syracuse Orange have been much better on first downs this season. While I’ll break down the totals for next week, let’s look at how the Orange finished up against Boston College.
Syracuse started off finding success throwing on first down against the weaker Eagles defense. A litany of self-inflicted wounds meant that promising drives came up empty but still there was improvement in the passing game on Saturday.
Syracuse got the running game working in the fourth quarter to put the game away. While we won’t pretend that BC offered a challenging season, it is a good thing to see what Syracuse can do with a healthy (mostly?) Shrader operating behind center. He spread the ball around more in this game and showed that the Orange could move the ball through the air.
Next year it will be critical that Syracuse continues to find balance and some additional weapons. The more players opposing defenses have to pay attention to, the easier it will be to create the type of big plays a team like Syracuse needs against ACC opponents.