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New York – Taj Harris knew what he had done wrong and, as his coach alluded to after a 36-3 loss to Notre Dame, could help relieve the pain of flopping on the national stage.
To be sure, the Fighting Irish (11-0), who were heading west to qualify in the college football playoffs, were the best end-to-end team on Saturday afternoon at Yankee Stadium.
A room would not change that.
But one piece highlighted the offensive mistakes that led Syracuse football (8-3, 5-2 ACC) to be kept out of the end zone for the second time under Dino Babers.
Harris, the true first-year receiver who has been part of the receiving corps since a close defeat at Clemson at the end of September, said he made a technical mistake by catching the ball in a back pass at second quarter.
"I caught it behind my face," Harris said, "instead of in front of my face, and doing so well allowed the DB to easily play the ball, and it's a good thing. jumped."
You know what rhymes with shamrock? Falcon ball. #ShamrockSeries pic.twitter.com/XzEJX8u76D
a Notre Dame on NBC (@NDonNBC) November 17, 2018
One of the few promising Syracuse offensive series (13-0 at the time) was converted into an interception game by Alohi Gilman (54 yards) to allow a 9-yard touchdown and a 20-0 lead at the halftime.
That night, no match made the difference between stunning the Irish and seeing the Orange's four-game winning streak break suddenly and emphatically.
Nobody played tonight between the top 10 and the free fall in the polls.
But that corresponds to the message that Babers tried to send in the middle of this decisive 2018 season.
The SU is not there yet.
Can his team, his fully intact team, be with anyone in the country? Babers believe him.
But it was not that kind of night. He lost starting quarterback Eric Dungey as a result of an injury in the middle of the third series of the match. The offense resulted in three turnovers against a playoff candidate at one of the best defensive nights of the season.
The SU had to rely on too many young contributors against an undefeated veteran.
"(The veterans) played a game of heckuva," said Babers, but the rest of the team was not ready yet. We were not mature enough. We were not old enough to manage this football team. "
The coach of Notre Dame, Brian Kelly, knew that his team had to stop the race to participate in the match. He disguised part of the defense, showing a box of five players before bringing in an extra defender late for more support.
We had to stop the game of urn up to the level that put them behind the chains. We had some stunts that could affect the counter-game, which is a big game for them,
"If you can not stop them from running," Kelly said, "you have no chance of slowing them down."
With Dungey out of the game, he has removed one of the best offensive weapons in the league in this zone. While Notre Dame went off the dash, the song played by Dontae Strickland and Moe Neal did not mean anything because Notre Dame was chewing its time in the last three games in the third quarter of the game, which put the game out of reach.
"The offensive did not really help (the defense)," Babers said. "They beat us with 33 points, which is not a lot of points for us."
While all bowl dreams have been shattered, another opportunity for Syracuse to stay on track for its first season of 10 wins since 2001 awaits next week at Boston College. Unlike Saturday's national televised match against the undefeated Irish, it will not be the university football game of the week. It will not carry six New Year's issues.
But it will be the one that could still shape the image of the SU cup this season, in which SU will need the same team of young contributors who were hesitating here against a better opponent to play well in another road environment against a clean defeat difficult.
To do this, it may be necessary to draw inspiration from the hard experience lived here in the Bronx.
"It will make them grow," said Babers. "They will go home, they will ache, I will be hurt, and with all these open wounds they will turn to closed scars and we will get better and we will remember."
"If it does not kill you, it makes you better, we'll grow from that, we'll be better the next time we get into this situation."
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