Syracuse football defeats Liberty 24-0: Brent Ax's recap

Syracuse coach Dino Babers stepped onto the podium last week and explained why he was worried about his team's opening match at Liberty.

"We really do not know what these guys are going to do," Babers said last week. "We watch games from Ole Miss, Georgia Southern, Liberty and the staff. There are a lot of movies to watch and you try to link them together and try to understand what they are going to do. So we are worried about it. "

After a week of chasing the ghosts in the movie, Babers said his team did its job in the 24-0 win against Liberty on Saturday night.

"We won a bandless road match, a new coach, a new team," said Babers. "It's not easy to do, in the way I see it, do not get me wrong, you win the game with the most of Jimmy and Joes, no, I understand, but you know what?" coaching counts too.

"Games like this really keep coaches away until you're at play," Babers said. "Now you can make the adjustments that are correct, but young men have not had the chance to practice these adjustments.Now they must be right.Normally, in this situation, the offense takes a a little longer than the defense, but I'll tell you what, I'm glad we won, this football team is happy, our job was to be 1-0 with a chance of being 2-0. and we did our job. "

Biggest surprise

When I was asked to provide an article for the "biggest surprise" in the 2019 forecast for Syracuse football, I submitted the following:

"A discussion about a team led by Dino Babers always goes on the offensive, and for good reason. But let's not forget the huge leap made by the defense last year, including being among the top five teams in the country in terms of turnover. It can be difficult to replicate this torrid pace by creating mistakes, but the Orange defense will be better this year. "

It's just a game, but I like that prediction so far.

The Syracuse defense was relentless in its pursuit of offensive Liberty players on Saturday night.

The Orange has amassed 14 tackles for one loss, including eight sacks. Quarterback Liberty Stephen Buckshot Calvert is going to have visions of Orange defenders who have been dancing in his head for a long time.

The Flames were limited to less than 4 rushing yards, the first time that an opponent from Syracuse had been caught in a downward race since 2012 (UConn).

Syracuse imposed four turnovers, which allowed his group to have 15 digits. Trill Williams forced a fumble inside the 10-meter line. Ifeatu Melifonwu and Andre Cisco eliminated Calvert. Kingsley Jonathan forced a fumble and then engulfed him.

Worried for linebackers, you say? Lakeim Williams led Syracuse with 11 tackles, including 2.5 for the loss.

Syracuse allowed the Flames to accumulate only 234 yards and no zero allowed the players to reach the 40 Flames line between the nine minutes of the first quarter and the seven minutes of the fourth.

The dynamic Syracuse defensive line duo, consisting of Alton Robinson (1.5 TFL) and Kendall Coleman (two sacks), gave Calvert happy feet at his feet all night long. The total of Robinson's bags should have been higher if he had not exceeded Buckshot in several games. Josh Black also launched two bags in the boxscore.

Larry David pointed to this Orange defense and attributed to his brand "pretty, pretty, pretty good".

Babers would take that a little bit higher.

"You know how difficult it is to get a shutout," said Babers, "that's important in today's game, here's the other thing, if you look at the last 5 to 7 minutes of the game. part, those who start are not at the rendezvous.These were the two and the three who were arguing this white game.To get this white game? This is not a good job. excellent work. "

Two backs

You do not want to show all your tricks during the first game, but Babers had to extract an intriguing one to guarantee victory over Liberty.

With the Syracuse offense blocked in neutral, Babers unveiled a set of two halves. As noted by my colleague Stephen Bailey, the training has never been used by Babers in his first seven years as a head coach, but SU has been practicing it quietly since the beginning of the preparatory camp.

It was the shot in the arm that the SU Running needed to overcome the slow start of the offensive line.

Moe Neal finished with 89 yards in 14 runs, including a flamboyant 42-yard race in the end zone with 12:35 remaining in the game that Babers called "a thing of beauty."

"What's really great is that he had the speed to finish it," Babers said. "We've been watching him for four years now, we've seen a lot of pictures of him in this situation, he had between 20 and 25 family members here, it was a good thing to do this big game in front of his eyes. family and friends. "

Abdul Adams finished with 49 yards in 14 carries and one touchdown. Jarveon Howard entered the end zone for a touchdown in the third quarter.

There is no race situation for which Syracuse is not equipped. Neal has the speed and can catch passes off the backfield (receiving 54 yards). Adams is an almost perfect hybrid of speed and power. Howard is a demolition ball and a threat to score each time he touches the ball inside the 10-yard line.

Syracuse is deeply behind. This will produce a good headache for Babers to know how to feed them the whole ball.

DeVito is fighting

Syracuse quarterback Tommy DeVito had the perfect way to take over as quarterback from Orange.

DeVito learned at a brisk pace for two years with record quarterback Eric Dungey. He has seen the field a lot during the 2018 season. DeVito delivered the winning strike against North Carolina (generating a short quarterback controversy) and relieved Dungey in several games.

Despite all this preparation, DeVito's first attempt as a starting quarterback from Syracuse brought back a score below average, scoring 17 of 35 goals against 176 yards without any touchdowns and two interceptions against Liberty.

DeVito never found a rhythm with its recipients, who often seemed confused after pieces with a lot of body language and did not ask an expert to read it as a frustration.

SU supporters tried to seduce with a powerful arm last season, but his gun was lost all Saturday night. His first interception was an easy choice for Liberty on a marginal side road. The second interception of DeVito was a bad decision to try to corner a pass in the end zone where Liberty jumped.

Among the true receivers of Syracuse, Taj Harris led the way with a catch for 31 yards.

To be fair, Syracuse missed several receivers at training camp due to minor injuries. Whatever the reason, DeVito and its recipients never had the same page on Saturday night.

"It's his first start," said Babers. "We can say what we want, it's his first start, he's a gunman, he wants to go and take everybody, and I say it's cool to be a gunman, but the best gunslingers are old you become an old fighter, you do not take everyone, you take it when you have to do it, it will be more patient and it will be better in the next one. "

DeVito sees better days to come.

"In terms of the offensive, we have not played our best football," said DeVito. "Every week we will be better."

Fight against O-Line

A quarterback is only as good as his offensive line, which helps to explain DeVito's struggles against Liberty.

At his weekly press conference, Babers warned last week that his injuries had led to a "frustrating" camp. That's what appeared on the Syracuse offensive line, which has not kept pace with most Liberty matches.

An injury to Sam Heckel's center late in the first half caused a game of musical chairs, which is not ideal to settle once the match is launched.

Carlos Vettorello rocked from right to left. Airon Servais returned to the center. And Ryan Alexander, a graduate student, was inserted at the right tackle. The lack of cohesion has shown.

The offensive line was considered in pre-season as the biggest crutch that the Orange had to overcome in 2019.

After a match, this is clearly the case.

The Orange offensive line is now playing a very public catch-up game.

• The Syracuse defense has launched the program's first shuttlecock since 2015, the first out-of-home whiteout since 1997 and the first closed game since 1991 – a 24-0 win at Tulane.
• Syracuse started the season 1-0 for six years.
• Syracuse has 84-42-4 openings at all times.
• What a strange site it was to see Liberty coach Hugh Freeze coach his team from a hospital bed in the box of the coach. First time for everything in football, I guess. We wish him good luck in his recovery from back problems and a staph infection that required surgery during the training camp.

Go down and give me 10, Dino.

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