WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Let’s not get crazy here.

To put it frankly, Syracuse (3-4, 1-2 Atlantic Coast) hit the road and embarrassed Wake Forest (2-5, 0-3) 30-7 on Saturday, snapping a four-game losing streak in the process. SU did a lot of things right on both sides of the ball and starting the second half of the season 1-0 is worth something.

“It was a must-win,” left tackle Sean Hickey said adamantly. “One hundred percent a must-win. If we’d have lost — I don’t know. But it was a must-win and we got it.”

Yet Wake Forest is — almost admittedly — not an accurate model to go up against, so let’s not put too much stock in the blowout.

SU and Wake Forest have to play each other every year and a 23-point victory indicates how well-prepared the Orange was for Saturday’s game. But it should be clear that the Demon Deacons are not the type of opponent you can turn your season around against.

“Today is as disappointed as I’ve been,” WFU head coach Dave Clawson said after the game. “We are in the first step of building the program.

“… We are seven games into the season and our longest play is 36 yards. We do not have skilled players to make explosive plays to take the pressure off the offense to execute perfectly.”

Leading up to the game, Syracuse defensive coordinator Chuck Bullough alluded to Wake Forest’s rebuilding process and head coach Scott Shafer pointed to the bye week — the bye week — as a reason to expect a tough offensive game plan from WFU.

The Demon Deacons were barely an admirable opponent when they brought their established offensive weapons, four-year starter Tanner Price and slot machine Michael Campanaro, to the Carrier Dome last year.

Price completed just 41 percent of his passes and took three sacks, Campanaro left with a season-ending broken collarbone and SU won an ugly, ugly game, 13-0.

This time around, WFU came in ranked dead last in yards per game in the country and averaged 31 rushing yards a contest.

Riley Dixon topped that mark with his 42-yard scramble against then-No. 8 Notre Dame on Sept. 27.

For a team that squeezed five takeaways out of the Fighting Irish, anything less than a turnover-filled destruction of Wake Forest would’ve been a drop-off for the consistent Orange defense.

Still, the Syracuse defense can’t carry this team to a bowl game if the Syracuse offense continues to shoot itself in the foot in the red zone. The penalties inside the 20 have to stop at some point, right?

If not for the Orange’s two defensive scores against Wake Forest, we might’ve had to hear Shafer again tell us that the reason for SU’s red-zone struggles is, too simply, not getting the ball over the goal line. We’ve heard that one too many times.

Three field goals in your first four red-zone trips doesn’t cut it, and you can’t bank on your defense to score two touchdowns against Clemson next weekend or down the road. Fortunately for the Orange, that insurance worked against Wake Forest.

“The past four weeks, we haven’t been the best team,” quarterback AJ Long said. “We haven’t put together a whole game. Today, thankfully we were able to put a game together enough that we could win. But we still have to do better than this.”

I agree. So now go back down to the Carolinas next weekend and beat a real opponent.

Phil D’Abbraccio is an assistant sports editor at The Daily Orange, where his column appears occasionally. He can be reached at pmdabbra@syr.edu or at @PhilDAbb.

Published on October 20, 2014 at 12:29 am