“When you’re not in the moment, not where your feet are, you don’t have mental toughness.”
When the Syracuse Orange took a 24-7 lead over NC State with 10:20 left in the fourth quarter, there was cause for celebration on the Orange sideline. The impending victory would be Syracuse’s first win on the road in ACC play under Fran Brown.
The eventually 24-17 win for Syracuse would secure a 5-1 record for the Orange halfway through the season. However, the message still is very clear from Brown.
“We just gotta learn how to stop losing,” said Brown on the ACC Huddle postgame show. “A lot of the things that we done, towards the end of that game right there, it’s still like, ‘Guys. We’ve still got that losing mentality.’”
@FranBrownCuse postgame on ACC Huddle pic.twitter.com/awe2zCp45b
— Syracuse Football (@CuseFootball) October 13, 2024
The main gripe that Brown had with his team was seeing players turning around at NC State. He saw them interacting and talking with some of the fans, presumably after Syracuse took the 17-point lead at the beginning of the fourth quarter. This is also not a new issue for Brown that he has raised. He even called out his team for interacting with fans during the Syracuse Spring Game in April while play was happening.
However, the overall message that Brown has worked on drilling is simple: finish the game.
“I’m just trying to get them to consistently be in the moment, be in the moment,” said Brown. “Because all of those little moments end up becoming a big moment.”
It was evident that Brown felt like Syracuse didn’t live in the moment and focus on the task at hand towards the end of the NC State. It’s what allowed the Wolfpack to score 10 unanswered points and make the final score line slightly less representative of the overall story of the game. And it’s also not the first time that Syracuse has allowed their opponents to crawl back into games.
Photo by Ian Maule/Getty Images
The Orange led by 10 over UNLV the previous week with 8:31 left to go in the 3rd. By the time the clock hit 2:58 in the fourth, the Rebels led by seven. Syracuse needed a two minute drive to send the game into overtime, which the Orange executed for the eventual win. Syracuse seemed to be cruising against Holy Cross with 21 points in 15:06 minutes of game time. However, the Crusaders quickly answered with 14 points in 6:49 minutes to cause concern.
“That’s kind of been the team all year for this team,” said Kyle McCord. “We play really good football. And when we think we have the lead stored away, we kind of take our foot off the gas.”
Brown has maintained that he was the one who lost Syracuse’s only game of the season against Stanford. No matter who exactly is to blame, the Orange couldn’t hold on to their one-point lead with 3:13 left to go in the game. Syracuse had a 17-point lead against Georgia Tech with 8:39 left to go, much like against NC State. But the Yellow Jackets scored two touchdowns to trim Syracuse’s lead to three before faltering.
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The Orange have seen leads late in games wither away to almost disastrous results. And the focus in practice during Syracuse’s second bye week of the season has been to play the full 60 minutes of football and finish the game strong.
“We’ve had great starts, and the we’ll slowly them them back in the game,” said Jackson Meeks. “Being able to keep endurance throughout games, being able to kill your prey. Just being able to finish game is the biggest thing we’ve been able to practice on this week.”
And it’s not like the task gets easier for Syracuse as the Orange play Pitt. The Panthers have played one-possession games against three of the four Power Four opponents on their schedule. Pitt remains undefeated and is No. 19 in the AP poll.