Turnovers Hurt Syracuse in 31-14 Loss to Clemson

By Nick Luttrell | @nickluttie

Turnovers are costly. And that surely was evident in today’s game as Syracuse suffered its first loss of the season, 31-14 to the hands of the Clemson Tigers. Opportunity after opportunity was missed for the Orange. After the game, SU Head Coach Dino Babers said, that’s just part of the game.

“And then with the turnovers, that’s part of football. I think that based off of what we’ve done offensively so far, that this offense is going to have an opportunity to be exceptional,” Babers said. “We just have to have make plays. There are certain plays that you have to make to keep the momentum of a game going. We weren’t making those plays today.”

SU Quarterback Garrett Shrader, who had a season-low 181 passing yards alongside a fumble and interception, gave credit to the defense, but said his unit has to step up.

“I mean, for the offensive end, I’ll speak for us, I thought the defense played studly, and they gave us every opportunity. So I take the responsibility on the offense, and you can’t have three turnovers,” Shrader said. “And then you can’t have guys going out, and then we got to go out and make plays. And if we’re not doing that at a high level and we turn the ball over how I did, then I give us no chance to even compete.”

“That’s kind of where it started. And then we just got to make sure that we’re being more efficient. And getting first downs is the big thing. But the turnovers absolutely killed us,” Shrader continued.

As for the reason why Syracuse had so many turnovers and so many penalties? Babers said that maybe the lights were a little too bright for them. Maybe the stage was too big. Well, the stage only gets bigger from here on out as SU travels to Chapel Hill on Saturday to face off against No. 15 North Carolina.Be sure to follow Braden Reed (@BradenReed6) for live coverage of that game.