I don’t think any of these things were because of tactical errors, I’m really pointing out how just a few things going one way or the other could change a game in a very big way. It’s like if I said “Just think, if the 49ers hadn’t blitzed on (random play), the Giants wouldn’t have even made it to the Super Bowl.” I’m not saying Syracuse should’ve seen that option coming, or should’ve known what to do at the time, I’m just looking at it with the gift of hindsight. If John Desko had a time machine, I’m sure he’d go back and say “switch on those flips/fakes,” that’s all.

Speaking of the flips, I think that in clip #2, the fall itself was caused by the d-mid trying to catch up to, then running past a split-dodging Ranagan, then trying to cut back. I think the switch would have stopped that, but I don’t know either way. Maybe the field was slick over there, who knows.

And while Hopkins was flat-out better in the f/o department, here’s an example of what I was getting at: in one lost f/o, a Syracuse wing tried scooping a ball with one hand, messed it up, and a Hopkins guy ran up and got it. Seeing as that he messed up, I’m just saying if he’d gone in with two hands, he would’ve had a better chance of picking it up clean, and maybe Hopkins wouldn’t have scored on that possession. Don’t get me wrong, Hopkins did a great job and had some very clean wins, I was just pointing out that, looking back, the current Syracuse f/o problem (about 65% in their first two games, about 35% in their last three) might not be a problem with the f/o man himself. 

All that said, I’m going to disagree with you on #1 and #2 (#3 is a home run, good work).

Re Hopkins’ option: I’m not sure that Hop ran this enough times (only 3) to really game plan to stop it.  Nor am I sure that it wasn’t a lot of luck.  It comes together quickly and the two times that it actually worked can be attributed to an Orangeman taking an unexpected dirt nap.  (The dish on #3 was played perfectly by the top middie defenders, Benn’s defender was just caught sleeping in the middle).

Re faceoffs: I’m not sure you can fairly throw this into the hat when you’re talking about what ‘Cuse “shoulda done.”  They got beat on faceoffs because they weren’t as good at it, not because they were making some sort of tactical error.