EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Notre Dame stretched Syracuse’s defense to both ends of the field, punching through the thinned unit and gaining chunks of yardage, practically at will. The Fighting Irish were going to throw screens and slants. It was going to work. There was only so much the Orange could do about it.

The Fighting Irish could pull up, screw up and give the ball up without consequence.

It was like watching a cocky point guard dribble his defender to the asphalt, only to back off and do it again without scoring anything, just to torment his opponent. But this was football on a professional stage. And it was only the first quarter. That’s not how it’s supposed to work.

With its own series of short passes to the perimeter mixed in with the occasional deep ball, Syracuse tried to beat Notre Dame at its own game. In that game, though, the Fighting Irish had the polish of a runway model.

Syracuse was more like a tipsy freshman trying to win a wet T-shirt contest on spring break. It was kind of fun to watch — an attractive idea — but it ended poorly. While No. 8 Notre Dame (4-0) could get away with its turnovers, SU lacked the execution the Fighting Irish used to punish Syracuse’s mistakes as the Orange (2-2) fell to a 31-15 loss at MetLife Stadium. In front of 76,802 fans on Saturday night, SU got beat by the kind of team it aspires to be and could be, someday.

The Fighting Irish threw screens at Syracuse all game. With good reason, SU couldn’t stop them. Orange quarterback Terrel Hunt threw screens all game long, too.

“Yeah, the problem is on the first drive we missed two,” SU quarterbacks coach Tim Lester said.

Notre Dame opened the game with four screen passes, two off-tackle runs and a quarterback scramble that took the Fighting Irish from its own 18 to the Syracuse 23-yard line. There, UND quarterback Everett Golson fumbled to Brandon Reddish.

Hunt hit back with a 38-yard completion to Brisly Estime down the right sideline, only to suck the momentum out of the drive by overthrowing a pair of screens. He didn’t find SU’s fastest receiving threat downfield for the rest of the game.

Despite forcing five turnovers, SU couldn’t count on its defense to keep taking the ball from Notre Dame. The Orange couldn’t catch Golson. He caught the ball out of the shotgun and released it too fast.  Hunt caught the ball out of the shotgun and threw it too high, low or behind his receivers.

“The defense did a great job, they gave us the ball, the offense fell short a couple times,” Hunt said. “I put that on myself.”

Syracuse lost to a more talented team, it’s true. But the Orange’s mistakes and its untimeliness took chances away from whatever talent SU has. On its third drive of the game, in a still-scoreless contest, Syracuse jumped offside on 3rd-and-2 on its own 24. On 3rd-and-7, Ben Lewis cut into the middle third of the field, open, with space to run into, but Hunt threw the ball 3 yards behind him.

At the time, Golson was three passes away from starting his streak of 25 straight completions that locked SU out of the game.

It’s hard to know if Lewis and Jarrod West could make the same play UND wideout Corey Robinson did, falling away from Reddish tearing at his uniform, to catch a touchdown pass with 9:39 left in the third quarter.

Hunt didn’t throw the ball well enough for those watching to find out. Where Golson zipped screens and swing passes, Hunt left SU receivers reaching for passes they couldn’t catch or waiting to clutch the ball just to hold onto it. The Orange’s offensive linemen didn’t do a good enough job of staying onside.

“We just did not execute anything that we did today,” SU running back Prince-Tyson Gulley said.

The stadium-record crowd for a collegiate game could have been treated to a duel between a pair of quick-hit spread attacks.

But there was only one. And it wasn’t the Orange.

Jacob Klinger is an assistant sports editor with The Daily Orange, where his column appears occasionally. He can be reached at jmklinge@syr.edu or on Twitter at @Jacob_Klinger_.

Published on September 29, 2014 at 12:17 am