How Important was Syracuse's Bye Week?

What's going on Fizz Nation? Tyler Akin reporting here in the midst of Syracuse's first bye week

And I know that's weird to say because Syracuse has only played two games, so it's pretty early for a week off

But that is going to be so helpful, especially with Fran Brown, a coach who's only been a head coach for two games in his whole career at any level

Both of them have been at SU and both of them have been wins. Still, it'll be nice for him to have a week, a full week, to make some adjustments

And that really needs to happen, especially on special teams, because in that Georgia Tech game, it got ugly

There was a blocked field goal by Syracuse. There was a blocked punt. There was a kickoff that went out of bounds

There was an onside kick that Georgia Tech recovered. There were a few decent special teams plays

There weren't any great ones, but there were a lot of really bad ones. Now, I do have confidence that the Orange can fix this

And the reason why is because Syracuse's starters will be playing on that special teams unit moving forward, and they have been

Arande Gadsden plays special teams. Marlo Wax, before he was injured, plays special teams

Derek McDonald, a starting linebacker, plays special teams. Syracuse wants to play starters on that special teams unit

James Volano, the special teams coordinator, has made a point of that. And so, when Syracuse is going to have all these elite players that know how to make adjustments, that have all these other responsibilities

I do think that overall, they will be leaders for the rest of the special teams unit

You think about Arande Gadsden, he's a guy that doesn't often make the same mistake twice

So when he's on that special teams unit that's covering a kick, or maybe he's out there to block

he's going to be setting the standard, and I think the rest of the starters are going to do that

It was very ugly against Georgia Tech, and the special teams needs to be better

But because the Orange have such a unique strategy of playing so many offensive and defensive starters on that unit

I have a lot more confidence in them fixing that problem instead of it just being a bunch of guys that are buried in the death chart everywhere else