Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/380743
GAME PREVIEW: SYRACUSE a lot when your starting quarterback gets ejected in the second quarter. The offensive coordinator [George McDon- ald] after the game said 90 percent of the game plan on offense involves the starting quarterback. "As soon as you take that variable out of the equation, you're running on the fly and trying to put together a makeshift game plan and kind of escape with a win at that point." Hunt completed 61.2 percent of his passes a year ago for 1,638 yards with 10 touchdowns and eight intercep- tions. In ACC play, however, he tossed only three of his scores while throwing all eight of his interceptions. For Hunt — and, for that matter, Syracuse — to take the next step, he needs to protect the ball better in big games. "The big thing with him passing the ball and developing as a thrower this year is more anticipating throw- ing windows, not necessarily throw- ing the ball to receivers when they're open, but throwing the ball in antici- pation of where the receiver 's going to be," Mink said. "[It's about] hitting his targets, not necessarily hitting the receiver where he's at. "That's something that we didn't get a real good look at [against Vil- lanova] because he only played half the game." A week before facing Notre Dame, Syracuse begins a brutal four-week stretch of its schedule against Mary- land. During that period, the Orange will play the Terrapins, the Irish, Louisville and Florida State. The sil- ver lining for Shafer 's squad is that three come at the Carrier Dome and the fourth, against Notre Dame, is at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. "[Maryland] is kind of the defini- tion of a toss-up game and will give Syracuse a good measure of where they're at," Mink said. "They go play Notre Dame, which has gotten off to a really, really strong start shutting out Michigan. Then they have Louisville, which put on a really strong show in the opener against Miami. They have the defending champs Florida State at Senior quarterback Terrel Hunt was turnover-prone in the Orange's biggest games in 2013, throwing all eight of his interceptions and just three touch- down passes in ACC play. PHOTO COURTESY SYRACUSE ATHLETICS