There were a lot of people including myself that felt Virginia Tech was playing some of the best football in the ACC recently. Following a 34-3 route at UNC, it appeared the Hokies were about to get on a roll. Dino Babers and Syracuse were not having any of it.
Many of us considered Dino Baber’s a solid hire at Syracuse. His high octane offense had the potential to cause some real problems in the ACC. We saw some glimpses of Syracuse’s offense being far better than past years when they scored 28 on Louisville, then 33 on against Notre Dame. The problem was Syracuse would give up points nearly as fast as they scored them. The Cuse still seemed to be a couple of recruiting cycles away from being truly competitive in the ACC.
Today against Virginia Tech in a 31-17 win, Syracuse proved it was capable of competing right now. Dino Babers and one of the better QBs you don’t know about Eric Dungey shredded a Bud Foster Virginia Tech defense for over 550 yards.
The Hokies were off-balance the entire day, and struggled to keep up with the Syracuse pace of play. It wasn’t surprising that Syracuse had success on offense, but that much was. In addition Syracuse played probably their best defensive game of the year. Yes Virginia Tech moved the ball, but The Orange made timely plays in the redzone and held the Hokies to only 17 points.
There is no question Syracuse is a better team than they have been in long time. At 3-4, a bowl game is still going to be a reach, but for the first time in years, Syracuse fans can have some optimism about the futrue of their football program.
