Syracuse arrived home from Tulane at about 6 a.m. Sunday and put Saturday’s game to rest soon thereafter.

Now, heading into the Orange’s first bye week of the season, the SU players will get a little rest from game planning as well.

‘This week during the bye, we’ll take a little bit of separation from ourselves and the players so they can concentrate on academics,’ SU head coach Doug Marrone said in the Big East coaches’ teleconference Monday.

Marrone said he wants his players to straighten out their academics with midterms on the horizon before Syracuse starts thinking about its first opponent after the bye, West Virginia. After playing for six straight weeks, Syracuse (4-2, 0-1 Big East) has a week to evaluate how the first half of the year went before preparing to play four straight weeks against four Big East teams. The Orange’s next bye comes the weekend of Nov. 19.

Marrone said even the coaches will go through a self-evaluating period before considering the Mountaineers.

‘From a standpoint of our coaches, we’re going to take a good look at ourselves and what we’ve been doing, what we’ve been calling, a lot of quality control work,’ Marrone said.

He’s more worried about what SU needs to correct. All three phases have faltered for Syracuse in one of the past two games.

Against Tulane Saturday, the Syracuse defense allowed Tulane quarterback Ryan Griffin to throw for more than 300 yards for the first time all season. SU blew a 17-point lead and allowed Tulane to tie the game with less than three minutes remaining before winning 37-34 on a field goal as time expired.

The week before — in a loss to Rutgers — the Syracuse offense and special teams lapsed. Syracuse turned the ball over five times. Orange kicker Ross Krautman missed one field goal, had a second blocked and had an extra point blocked.

On Monday, Marrone said he was pleased with how Syracuse cleaned up its turnover troubles in New Orleans.

‘Obviously, we come out of a game with no turnovers, which was a good sign,’ he said. ‘How do we keep improving on that and keep our focus where we don’t turn the ball over and we can continue to move the ball in our third-and-short yardage situations, how can we improve that?’

Marrone said Syracuse will begin to look at WVU late in the week. West Virginia was the preseason favorite to win the Big East and has lived up to expectations. The Mountaineers are 5-1 on the season, with the only loss coming to No. 1 Louisiana State. Four of West Virginia’s five wins are by three touchdowns or more.

Syracuse hasn’t defeated an opponent by more than a touchdown all season.

‘You’ve got to know why, those are the things,’ Marrone said. ‘Why are we not fulfilling the expectations? So once we know that, we can change practices, put more emphasis on those areas, we’re going to need to improve on them as we go forward in the next six games.’

mcooperj@syr.edu

Published on October 11, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Contact Mark: mcooperj@syr.edu | @mark_cooperjr