Syracuse (2-0) enters its matchup against Florida State (1-1, 0-1 Atlantic Coast) coming off a 62-10 win against Wagner. Eric Dungey threw for five touchdowns while SU had four players rush for over 40 yards. After being dismantled, 24-3, by No. 13 Virginia Tech, Florida State snuck by an FCS opponent in Samford, 36-26, last weekend. The Orange will host the Seminoles at noon Saturday.
The Athletic’s Florida State football beat writer Tashan Reed answered a few questions for The Daily Orange ahead of the game.

The Daily Orange: How much stock do you put into Florida State’s first two games with a Virginia Tech loss and the close Samford win?

Tashan Reed: I don’t think you can really write either one off. Against Virginia Tech, they pretty … much got thoroughly outplayed in that game. They made a few plays here and there where it could’ve been close. But either way they would have probably went on to lose that one. Early on against Samford, it was just losing one-on-one battles both on offense and defense. In the secondary, they couldn’t stick with Samford’s receivers as crazy as that sounds.

The offensive line has so many injuries with bunches of less experienced guys playing there. The Samford guys were giving them a lot pretty much on the offensive line. When you’re struggling on both ends of the ball with positions, it makes it tough. It’s hard to overlook that going forward.

Heading into this week looking at the depth chart, it doesn’t look like Florida State’s offensive line is going to be any different than it was. Obviously, they can improve and get better in certain areas, but they’ll probably end up having some similar issues that they had the first two weeks. It just comes down whether or not they can execute.

The D.O.: Florida State’s run defense has been relatively solid through the first two games. How do they normally try to stop a running quarterback like Eric Dungey? What do you expect to see from them Saturday?

T.R.: You can kind of pull from week one when they went against Josh Jackson. They didn’t have a ton of success running. Yet he didn’t look to run too much. Florida State was looking for that. Leading up to that game, they talked about how much Jackson likes to run and how to prepare for it. They said similar things this week, too.

They’re pretty athletic up front, inexperienced with the linebackers. They might be able to find success in the second level, but up front it’s probably, along the defensive line, that’s their strongest overall position in the defense. They have guys like Brian Burns and Demarcus Christmas up the middle, so I think it could be a little bit difficult for a quarterback to run against them. It’ not impossible by any means, but they’re definitely looking to key on that.

The D.O.: Which player might surprise Syracuse fans and have a big impact game that may not have known going into the game?

T.R.: I think Tamorrion Terry — he might not be a household name yet. He’s somebody that’s been really impressive throughout camp. He’s a 6-foot-4 redshirt freshman, so it’s his first year playing. First game, he had a really nice jump ball against Virginia Tech, and in the last game both of the catches he had went for touchdowns. He’s a really big guy who’s fast and is a pretty good route runner and blocker. The thing is (Deondre) Francois likes to go to him when he needs somebody who can go up and get the ball. I can see him making a few big games other than a Francois or a (Cam) Akers.

The D.O.: Who do you think wins the game?

T.R.: It’s hard to call it because on Syracuse’s end they’ve had a great offensive start. They played lower-tiered opponents, though. With Florida State, given how they looked against a FCS opponent and how Virginia Tech outplayed them, it’s kind of hard to judge them. Florida State’s first road game of the year — last three years even though it was under a different coach — they’ve been kind of up and down on the road. I believe they’re 7-6 in road games in the ACC the last three years. They’ve really been hit or miss on the road, so it’s hard. I think it’s going to be a close game, something like a three-point game or so with Florida State pulling it out because I think they have a little better defense. If it ends up coming to an offensive battle, I think Florida State would be better.

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Published on September 14, 2018 at 12:21 pm