Notre Dame disaster: Syracuse football suffers historic embarrassment in South Bend (Axe’s quick take)
Syracuse, N.Y. — The Syracuse University football team put on one of its most embarrassing performances in the 136-year history of the program, getting blasted by Notre Dame, 70-7 on Saturday afternoon in South Bend, Indiana.
It was a football game over before the neurons in your brain could send the message you were even watching one.
Notre Dame opened the scoring with a 44-yard pick-six by Jalen Stroman off SU quarterback Joe Filardi less than a minute into the game.
The Irish followed up that jab with an uppercut on a blocked punt returned for a touchdown to make it 14-0 with 12:19 remaining in the first quarter.
Leonard Moore delivered a stiff uppercut to put the Irish up 21-0 with 9:43 remaining in the opening frame.
A haymaker from running back Jeremiyah Love running easily for a 45-yard score knocked the Orange into the corner.
Love would finish with 171 yards and three touchdowns on eight carries, becoming just the third FBS player since 1996 with three touchdowns and 170 rush yards on eight or fewer carries.
Running back Jadarian Price delivered the knockout blow with 4:01 remaining in the first quarter on a 58-yard touchdown run.
By then, the Irish had a record for most points scored in program history in the first quarter and Syracuse had an all-time mark for cringe.
This was a mismatch on the level of Mike Tyson knocking out Michael Spinks in 91 seconds or a fly challenging a windshield.
It defies logic, but Syracuse managed to lose by 63 points even in dominating time of possession 41:49-18:11.
Notre Dame needed just 396 total yards on 39 total plays to lock in the cremation of the Orange.
The worst loss in Syracuse football history came in 1891 when Union defeated Syracuse, 75-0 during the Benjamin Harrison administration.
SU’s loss to the Irish on Saturday became so comically bad, they may as well have just let Notre Dame get over the 75-point hump to ensure the defeat made head-shaking history.
The 70 points were the second-most scored by Notre Dame at home in school history.
Syracuse finished with 207 total yards despite having the ball for over 40 minutes, averaging 2.6 yards per play.
SU quarterback Joe Filardi finished 14-of-26 for 83 yards and three interceptions, locking in another futile effort by a rotating cast of incapable players trying to replace Steve Angeli, who stood on his former sideline in South Bend with a boot on his foot and helpless to put out the fire.
Man oh man.
Did Syracuse head coach Fran Brown consider asking someone to pull the fire alarm?
The game was so bad NBC would have been better off moving away at halftime to put on a re-run of “Friends” as it clearly was not SU’s day, its week, its month or, with a seventh-straight loss, even its year.
Syracuse fell to 3-8 with the loss and will stagger home to face Boston College in front of what will surely be a sparsely filled JMA Wireless Dome to mercifully close out a season that went off the rails.
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