Zack Mahoney kept throwing the ball. On the first play of the game he took a shotgun snap and fired a pass to Ervin Philips in the slot, getting rid of the ball almost as quickly as he got it. The next play was a deep pass down the middle to running back Dontae Strickland for 36 yards. On the next play, he dropped back again.

He didn’t look like a quarterback who had found out 14 minutes before kickoff he’d be starting. Or a quarterback that hasn’t seen extended playing time all season and struggled in the few series he saw last week.

But there was Mahoney, slinging the ball all over the field for Syracuse. He took an aggressive shot deep to Steve Ishmael for one score. He found tight end Ravian Pierce twice for scores by getting the Wake Forest defense to bite on play fakes and then lofting the ball over the top.

“Obviously first half (I) played well,” Mahoney said. “But missed a lot in the second half.”

Syracuse’s (4-6, 2-4 Atlantic Coast) offense couldn’t keep up with its sputtering defense Saturday afternoon in a 64-43 loss to Wake Forest (6-4, 3-3) in the Carrier Dome. The Mahoney-led unit raced out to 38 points, its third-highest total of the season, in the first half alone. Mahoney racked up 297 yards and three touchdowns in the half.

But the Orange couldn’t sustain that production in the second half. The offense that had moved so fluidly struggled to advance the ball consistently. Mahoney ended that half 11-of-25 and threw two interceptions in the process, setting SU back as WFU ran away with the game.

“In the past we obviously haven’t been starting up fast, we’ve been more of a second half team,” running back Moe Neal said. “Today that kind of reversed … that hurt us.”

Mahoney and the offense moved crisply in the first half and strung plays together. In the second half, the Orange didn’t get into the red zone until there was four minutes left in the game.

Part of that could be attributed to play selection. Syracuse had possession on the Wake Forest 33-yard line at the start of the fourth quarter, up by three. The Orange was coming off a huge play in which it nearly gave up the lead, but then blocked an extra point and ran it back for a two-point conversion.

Mahoney took the first down snap and threw it past the left pylon, but wide receiver Devin Butler couldn’t shake free of his defender. On second and third down, Mahoney again took shots in the end zone, this time on the right side and down the middle to Steve Ishmael. Both fell incomplete, and kicker Cole Murphy missed the ensuing 51-yard field goal to cap off the drive.

“We liked the opportunities that presented themselves and we liked the matchups that we had,” Mahoney said about that sequence. “Unfortunately, like the second half, there were a lot of missed opportunities.”

As the second half wore on, Mahoney started making riskier passes. On one play late in the third quarter, Mahoney took a deep shot down field. Demon Deacons safety Luke Masterson jumped the route, but dropped the ball. He fell to his knees and put both hands on his helmet. There were at least two other times in the second half that Wake Forest defenders dropped potential interceptions.

That luck would eventually run out, though. After Murphy’s missed 51-yarder, Wake Forest marched down the field and scored, taking its first lead since early in the second quarter. Syracuse wanted to do the same.

But on a second-down play, the offensive line collapsed and pressure got in Mahoney’s face. He blindly threw a line drive downfield, hitting Demon Deacons linebacker Jaboree Williams right in the gut. Williams returned the ball all the way to the SU 20-yard line.

“Eleven-for-25’s (in the second half) not good,” head coach Dino Babers said postgame. “We need to find out if that’s wide-receiver error or maybe the ball wasn’t going in a place where it should be going.”

The overall numbers are still staggering. SU ran 99 plays and racked up 621 yards, both season highs. But more than two-thirds of that production came in the first half.

Mahoney was involved in one of these shootout games last year, when Syracuse lost to Pittsburgh, 76-61, in the season finale. In that game though, he played well throughout. That didn’t happen on Saturday.

“Wake played a great second half and they did a lot,” Mahoney said. “They had a great scheme to not let us get as many big plays as we had in the first half.”

Published on November 11, 2017 at 9:35 pm

Contact Tomer: tdlanger@syr.edu | @tomer_langer