Winning Plays: Notre Dame | Syracusefan.com

Winning Plays: Notre Dame

SWC75

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THE SYSTEM: The offense wins a play if they get a third of the way to a first down on first down, half way to a first down on second down or gets a first down on third or fourth down. Otherwise the defense wins. Any score is a win for the team that scores. Any turnover is a win for the team that winds up with the ball. The kicking team wins a kick-off where the other team winds up with the ball from their own 25 in to their goal line: outside of that and the receiving team won. The kicking team wins any punt that produces a new +40 yard change in the line of scrimmage or forces the other team to begin from their 20 yard line in. Any successful place kick is a win for the kicking team. I’ve put the yards to go in parenthesis if it’s other than 10 yards. Penalties are simply tacked onto the play before the play is evaluated if they didn’t nullify it. If the penalty did nullify the play or was a dead ball foul, it’s listed separately.

When Syracuse had the ball:

KO- ND 18, ND 21, (onside) ND 50, (onside) SU 44 / SU 2 ND 2
P- 35 (ND 9), 26 (ND 32), 44 (ND 37), 32 (ND 4), 42 (ND 28) / SU 4 ND 1
FG- 38 good, 37 no good / SU 1 ND 1
XP- blocked, try failed / SU 0 ND 2
Total for kicking game: Syracuse 7 Notre Dame 6

1st rush- 2, 3, -1, 8, 1, 8, -1, 4, 0, -2v, 15, 2, 4, 1, 1, 7TD, 5, 5 / SU 9 ND 9
1st pass- 38, 3, -7, I, 33, I, 25, I, I, 16, I / SU 4 ND 7
First Down total: Syracuse 13 Notre Dame 16
2nd rush- 3(7), 3(2), 7(12), 3(2), 1, 7, 5(6) / SU 5 ND 2
2nd pass- I, 9(11), 1(14), 14(11), 14(17), I, 28(9), 8(9), 46, I, I, I, I / SU 6 ND 7
Second Down total: Syracuse 11 Notre Dame 9
3rd run- -5, -3, 6(3), 13(24), 0, 2(1) / SU 2 ND 4
3rd pass- I, I, 8(13), 1(3), 19(5), 6(15), 3(5), I / SU 1 ND 6
Third Down total: Syracuse 3 Notre Dame 10
4th run- 42, 0 / SU 1 ND 1
4th pass- 6(2), I / SU 1 ND 1
Fourth Down total: Syracuse 2 Notre Dame 2
Total for plays from scrimmage: Syracuse 29 Notre Dame 37
Running plays: Syracuse 17 Notre Dame 16
Passing plays: Syracuse 12 Notre Dame 21

Penalties (not added on to play): SU 2 ND 5 (penalties by the other team that each team benefited by)
Turnovers (by SU that benefited ND): SU 0 ND 1
Total for penalties and turnovers: Syracuse 2 Notre Dame 6

Total for when Syracuse had the ball: Syracuse 38 Notre Dame 49

When Notre Dame had the ball:

KO- SU 25, SU 25, SU 21, SU 25, SU 10, SU 25 / SU 0 ND 6
P- 37 (SU39), 43 (SU 16) / SU 1 ND 1
FG- 37 Good / SU 0 ND 1
XP- Good, Good, Good, Good / SU 0 ND 4
Total for kicking game: Syracuse 1 Notre Dame 12

1st rush- 3, 1, 6, 2, 4, 5, -1, -2, 5, -1, 3, 3, 1, 6, 9, -1, 8, 7, 2, -2v / SU 11 ND 9
1st pass- 6, 14, 12, I, 3, 10, 8, 6(15), 23TD, 72TD, 9, 12, 18, 22, 4, 9, I / SU 3 ND 14
First Down total: Syracuse 14 Notre Dame 23
2nd rush- 4(4), 5, 2, 2(9), 7(2), 2(6), 6(12), 4(6), 7(12), 6(11), 5(3) / SU 3 ND 8
2nd pass- 5(12), I, I, 9(8), 10(9), 3(5), 13(11), 23(6), 7(5), 8TD, 6(2), 8(9), 1(1), 13TD / SU 3 ND 10
Second Down total: Syracuse 6 Notre Dame 18
3rd run- 14(5), 8(4), 3(2), 7(2), 5(5), 1(1), 2(1), 5(1) / SU 0 ND 8
3rd pass- -7, I, 7(7), 7(6), 7(23) / SU 2 ND 2
Third Down total: Syracuse 2 Notre Dame 10
4th run- none
4th pass- none
Fourth Down total: none
Total for plays from scrimmage: Syracuse 22 Notre Dame 51
Running plays: Syracuse 14 Notre Dame 25
Passing plays: Syracuse 8 Notre Dame 26

Penalties (not added on to play): SU 5 ND 2 (penalties by the other team that each team benefited by)
Turnovers (by ND that benefited SU): SU 5 ND 0
Total for penalties and turnovers: Syracuse 10 Notre Dame 2

Total for when Notre Dame had the ball: Syracuse 33 Notre Dame 65

Overall kicking game total: Syracuse 8 Notre Dame 18
Overall plays from scrimmage total: Syracuse 51 Notre Dame 88
Running plays: Syracuse 31 Notre Dame 41
Passing plays: Syracuse 20 Notre Dame 47
Overall penalties and turnovers: Syracuse 12 Notre Dame 8
Game Total: Syracuse 71 Notre Dame 114

Comments: I had convinced myself that we’d seen a close game that turned on a handful of plays and a couple of officiating blunders. They gained 523 yards but we gained 429 and were +4 in turnovers. What if we’re granted that touchdown at the end of the half, the extra point doesn’t get blocked and that field goal doesn’t hit the upright? Now a 15-31 game becomes a 26-31 game. But the “winning plays” stats don’t’ show a close game in disguise. They show a blow-out in disguise. The two areas that made it so were our defense and the kicking game. Notre Dame got successful plays on 26 of 34 passes. They only got two really long plays, (consecutive TDs on first down). But they were able to keep control of the ball and march down the field because Bullough got gunshy after the two big plays and gave ND receivers huge cushions. Then, when the game had slipped away and it didn’t matter anymore, he tightened the coverage and Eskridge got a pick six by jumping one of those short routes. Would the game have turned out any better if we’d taken chances on defense, given up some big plays but also made some? I don’t know. They also had great success running on second and third down: 3-16. In fact, ever one of their eight third down runs got the first down. Contrast that with our filed attempts on both third and fourth down with a yard to go after Dixon’s big run off the fake punt. First Downs are often regarded as irrelevant of misleading as a stat. But in this game they mattered and ND got 29 of them to our 17. And every kicking play is a big play. Typically, the kicking team wins the vast majority of them, as Notre Dame did at 1-12. We countered with 7-6 which sounds good but is not. You are supposed to win those plays. We ran the ball a little better than I thought (17-16). And we got 5 “explosive” passing plays. One was on our first play of the game, another on the first play of the half. The other three came when we were way behind. Two of them came on a scoring drive- we got a field goal. The others went for naught because we were unable to sustain drives. But, hey! We got a lot of yards!

Rate of play: Notre Dame got off 80 plays from scrimmage in 33:17 minutes of possession time. Syracuse got off 68 plays in 26:43. Notre Dame got off a play in an average of 24.96 seconds and got 2.40 plays per minute. With Syracuse it was 2.54 and 23.57. We were operating at a faster pace but got off a dozen few plays because we were less efficient than Notre Dame.


TOTALS FOR YEAR

When SU had the ball:

KO- SU 10 OPP 8
P- SU 14 OPP 5
FG- SU 6 OPP 4
XP- SU 10 OPP 2
Total for kicking game: SU 40 OPP 19

1st rush- SU 51 OPP 41
1st pass- SU 15 OPP 22
First Down total: SU 66 OPP 63
2nd rush- SU 27 OPP 16
2nd pass- SU 22 OPP 24
Second Down total: SU 49 OPP 40
3rd run- SU 9 OPP 12
3rd pass- SU 11 OPP 25
Third Down total: SU 20 OPP 37
4th run- SU 3 OPP 1
4th pass-SU 2 OPP 2
Fourth Down total: SU 5 OPP 3
Total for plays from scrimmage: SU 116 OPP 109
Running plays: SU 90 OPP 70
Passing plays: SU 50 OPP 73

Penalties (not added onto play): SU 10 OPP 19 (penalties by the other team that each team benefited by)
Turnovers (by SU) : SU 0 OPP 3
Total for penalties and turnovers: SU 10 OPP 22

Total when Syracuse had the ball: SU 166 OPP150

When the Opposition had the Ball:

KO- SU 4 OPP 16
P- SU 6 OPP 12
FG- SU 2 OPP 6
XP- SU 1 OPP 9
Total for kicking game: SU 13 OPP 44

1st rush- SU 42 OPP 32
1st pass- SU 19 OPP 29
First Down total: SU 61 OPP 61
2nd rush- SU 17 OPP 30
2nd pass- SU 21 OPP 26
Second Down total: SU 38 OPP 56
3rd run- SU 5 OPP 17
3rd pass- SU 23 OPP 11
Third Down total: SU 28 OPP 27
4th run- SU 0 OPP 1
4th pass-SU 1 OPP 1
Fourth Down total: SU 1 OPP 2
Total for plays from scrimmage: SU 128 OPP 146
Running plays: SU 64 OPP 80
Passing plays: SU 64 OPP 66

Penalties (not added on to play): SU 14 OPP 10
Turnovers: SU (got) 7 OPP 0
Total for penalties and turnovers: SU 21 OPP 10

Total when the opposition had the ball: SU 162 OPP 200

Overall kicking game total: SU 53 OPP 63
Overall plays from scrimmage total: SU 268 OPP 289
Running plays: SU 154 OPP 150
Passing plays: SU 114 OPP 139
Overall penalties and turnovers: SU 31 OPP 32
Game Total: Syracuse 352 Opposition 384

Comments: We now fallen behind in the kicking game, 9and our opposition has had its problems, too). We run the ball a lot better than we pass it, especially on third down where we are 11 for 36 in making passing third downs. (Yeah, I know, farther to go…). Our defense had been playing pretty well until the ND game. If you want to look at the empty part of the glass, we should be 1-3 with the only win over a team that was missing its two biggest offensive weapons. But we’re not. We’re 2-2 with a beatable Louisville team coming up. And Florida State and Clemson, while still better than us, aren’t as good as they were last year. This season still has some possibilities. But we need to get in the right offense- and defense- and slow down the injury rate.
 
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