Orange fans finally got to enjoy a relatively stress-free win last night as Syracuse piled on the offense against Colgate. With a road trip to Clemson ahead next week, let’s look at three takeaways from last night’s game.
Angeli and Gil light up the stat sheet
After a 400 yard outing last week, Angeli became the 1st Syracuse quarterback to go back-to-back as he put up 417 yards on 24/32 passing. Angeli tied the school record with 5 touchdown passes and 6 total touchdowns. Commenters might not like
the way his passes look, but they were pretty accurate most of the night as the Orange receivers had a couple of drops.
With Justus Ross-Simmons leaving the game early with a finger injury and Johntay Cook still less than 100%, it was Darrell Gill who became the beneficiary of the Orange passing game. Gill achieved career bests with 6 catches for 152 yards and 2 touchdowns. He continues to show that he can make big plays downfield and that might open up more underneath for the Orange passing game.
Friday Firsts
As expected a lot of Orange players saw action against the FCS and as a result we saw Demetres Samuel get his first interception and first reception. Jamie Tremble came up with his first sack and we saw Rickie Collins in action on two drives. Sixty-one players saw action in the game with many getting their first snaps for the Orange. There was a lot of mixing and matching of players on the defense all night and it looks like the coaches continue to tinker a bit with the offensive line grouping.
Five players scored their first Syracuse touchdowns last night:
Will Nixon
Jaylan Hornsby
Darien Williams
Gabe Daniels
Luke Carney
Clean up time is now
Syracuse committed six penalties last night and had two turnovers. Colgate was able to average 10 yards per completion as the Orange rotated players, and the Raiders won the time of possession battle. While it’s not cause for panic, it just highlights some things that I’m sure the Syracuse coaches will be stressing as they prepare to head to Clemson.
This is a Syracuse team with talent, but not enough to overcome good opponents if they aren’t taking care of the little things. While there is a good chance the Orange get better as the season progresses, the next three weeks means there is a bit more urgency to make those improvements sooner than later.
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What were your takeaways from last night’s win?
