4 takeaways from Syracuse's 44-41 win over No. 25 UNLV

In a back-and-forth affair, Syracuse earned a thrilling overtime victory over No. 25 UNLV on the final play of the game.

Here are the key takeaways from Friday in Las Vegas.

There's no way to sugarcoat it.

The special teams, which had performed poorly this season, performed extremely poorly against UNLV.

Within six minutes of the second quarter, Yasin Willis had a seven-yard kickoff return, the punt return unit gave up a 23-yard return and Jack Stonehouse forgot to have his punt blocked and instead left it for one 13-yard return fall -yard loss to give the Rebels a short field.

Even after the offense went for a short field goal just before halftime to seemingly calm the situation, the ensuing kickoff sailed out of bounds, giving UNLV free field position.

Halftime didn't help.

The Rebels blocked a flying ball punt in the third quarter and then bounced back 40 yards to the end zone for a room service score. Willis let the ensuing kickoff bounce down the field twice before grabbing it and eventually taking it to the 16.

To be fair, Jayden Oh had a clean game as the new placekicker, although his workload was five extra points and a 21-yard field goal.

McCord completed his first 11 passes for 141 yards before having to throw the ball away on his next attempt to avoid a sack.

That set the stage for a mixed night for the quarterback, who was 29 of 52 for 214 yards (a poor 4.12 yards per attempt) after the hot start.

One thing McCord did very well, aside from one bad interception, was passing on third downs. Starting with the field goal drive late in the second quarter, McCord was 8 of 12 on third downs and scored seven first downs, including two touchdowns.

What is concerning is the offense's inability to generate consistent forward momentum in the run game.

Neither personnel nor formation seem to make much of a difference. Multiple heavy narrow-ended packages still do not create travel space, and lane lanes rarely occur in four-lane alignments.

Against the Rebels, a bit of promise was shown with power run calls to Willis, so it may be a slightly more common tactic, although it also carries the risk of being another personnel deployment that undermines the intent of the offense reveals.

Additionally, Willis' stat line of eight carries for 62 yards looks good, but he had 47 yards on two carries and 15 on the other half dozen.

The defense needs impact plays to make up for their tackling issues.

Duce Chestnut's interception and Fadil Diggs' two sacks, along with two other tackles, resulted in the loss of the game.

In five games, SU had five turnovers, all interceptions and a forced fumble by Marlowe Wax.

As a team, they have 11 sacks, four of which belong to Diggs and four of the others came in the fourth quarter of the Holy Cross blowout.

They need Wax to be an impact player once he returns to the lineup.

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