UPDATED: Nov. 5, 2017 at 12:43 p.m.

TALLAHASSE, Fla. — Syracuse (4-5, 2-3 Atlantic Coast) lost its fourth-straight road game of the season and second game in a row overall as it dropped Saturday’s contest, 27-24, to Florida State (3-5, 3-4) at Doak S. Campbell Stadium.

The Orange was coming off a bye week and wide receiver Ervin Philips said the team felt very prepared given the extra time it had to study its opponent. Still, the Orange never overcame FSU’s running attack and a gimpy Eric Dungey.

Here’s what we learned from the matchup.

True to form

Syracuse has never shied away from going for it on fourth down since Dino Babers became head coach two years ago. Coming into the game, their 25 attempts were tied for the most in the nation, and they ranked 24th in conversion percentage (64).

Down by one score near the end of the first half, the Orange gained control at the FSU 11-yard line after a muffed punt. Three plays later, Syracuse faced a fourth-and-3 with one minute remaining. Babers elected to go for it instead of kicking a field goal in that spot as Dungey’s pass fell incomplete. The Orange lost by three points. Babers explained his thinking in that spot postgame.

“We want to score touchdowns,” Babers said. “You go down 21-17, they (Florida State) are going to feel mighty good about that. You go in 21-21, it’s a different game.”

“If we were tied at the halftime, the odds are greatly going into our favor that we are going to win that game in the second half based off of the things we have done on the second half as a football team,” he continued. “We went for the touchdown. We went for the win.”

Getting tricky with it

Eric Dungey’s rushing touchdown in the fourth quarter made it a three-point game with 2:54 to go. Syracuse had all three timeouts left at that point.

Still, walk-on kicker Alex Grossman came on for the kickoff instead of Cole Murphy following that score. Grossman went for an onside kick. The ball dribbled low for several yards before flying up in the air. It had the distance and the hang time, but FSU recovered the ball.

“Your one thought is you kick it deep and you hold them for three plays and you have them punt it back to you somewhere in the minus-35, the minus-40 and you start your drive from there,” Babers said. “We know the percentages are low, even if we don’t get the onside kick. If we stop them in three plays we are still going to have the opportunity to kick for a tie.”

“I thought we looked at all of the options and it worked out okay.”

Staying positive

Cole Murphy missed two field goals in the game. One was tipped at the line but wasn’t very close at all. The other sailed left as Syracuse’s chances of winning the game slipped away.

Murphy has had a stellar year, missing just four kicks all year and nailing 17 of them. Still, the misses today contributed to SU’s loss.

Babers said his postgame speech was centered on Murphy and multiple players, including Philips and linebacker Parris Bennett, said they spoke with him postgame and encouraged him to keep his head up. Bennett said that he had faith in Murphy to make the last kick and still believes in him.

“If someone asked me if I was going to take that before the season started,” Babers said, referring to Murphy having just four misses on the year, “(then) heck yeah, I’m going to take it. Now, the thing that you can’t take is that you don’t know where those four misses are going to be.”

“He’s got four misses and a whole bunch of hits,” Babers continued. “I’m good with Cole. I think he’s done a great job.”

This post has been updated with appropriate style.

Published on November 4, 2017 at 7:32 pm

Contact Tomer: tdlanger@syr.edu | @tomer_langer