Syracuse football: becoming bowl eligible is still a big deal for this program

Can the Orange build from the comeback the next month?

It was sure looking like the same old November Syracuse Orange football team yesterday in the JMA Dome. Virginia Tech had taken a 21-3 lead and the fans in the Dome and online were rightfully upset about what they were watching.

After the debacle at Pitt, the Orange had returned home and let a team without their starting QB and RB go up and down the field on the defense, while the offense had two turnovers in three trips inside the Virginia Tech 40. There were dropped passes, missed tackles, bad penalties. You name something coaches get mad about and Syracuse was doing it repeatedly. It certainly looked like yet another November nosedive…..

but then Justus Ross-Simmons made his first catch of the season and took it to the house.

It was the big play everyone had been begging for Syracuse to make and it sure seemed to wake up the team and the crowd. Veteran leaders stepped up: Duce Chestnut forced a fumble, LeQuint Allen started to unleash angry runs, and Kyle McCord led the Orange on a 75 yard drive in the final 5 minutes to send the game to overtime.

There it was Allen and Marlowe Wax delivering the final blows and sending the Orange back to their third-straight bowl game- the first time since they went to five straight from 1995-99. It’s important for a program trying to establish a foundation to get to bowl games to help change perception among recruits (and transfers) while providing extra practices for player development.

Look there are plenty of negatives to review from this one, but the reality is that Syracuse is now 6-2 as they head into the final four games. They bounced back from the Pitt disaster and got a win. No one outside of Virginia Tech cares who was missing from this game. There is no Apology Tour for beating a back-up because we sure know that the Orange didn’t get any when it’s happened to them over the last decade.

Bowl eligibility doesn’t mean this is a “good” season, but as the long climb back to being a top 25 program continues, it’s an important step along the way. If the team had folded again, everyone would have brought back the “same old Syracuse”, now as the team heads to Boston College next week, it’s another opportunity to write a new November narrative.