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

Here are the key takeaways from Friday in Las Vegas.

There is no way to sugar-coat it.

The special teams that had been poor this season went to egregiously bad against UNLV.

In a six-minute span 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 opted out of getting his punt blocked to instead get dropped for a 13-yard loss to set up the Rebels with a short field.

Even after the offense drove for a short field goal just before halftime to seemingly settle things down, the following kickoff sailed out of bounds to give UNLV choice field position.

Halftime did not help.

The Rebels blocked a punt in the third quarter with the ball flying, then bouncing over 40 yards back into the end zone for a room service score. Willis let the ensuing kickoff bounce twice in the field of play before grabbing it and eventually bringing it out to the 16.

In fairness, 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 dump the ball to avoid a sack on his next attempt.

That set the tone for a streaky night for the quarterback, who was 29-of-52 for 214 yards (a poor 4.12 yards per attempt) after that sizzling start.

One thing McCord did very well, save for one bad interception, was pass on third downs. Starting with the field goal drive late in the second quarter, McCord was 8-of-12 on third downs, earning seven first downs, including two touchdowns.

The offense’s inability to get a consistent push in the run game is distressing.

Neither personnel nor formation seem to make much difference. Multiple tight end heavy packages still do not generate running room and in four-wide alignments, running lanes appear infrequently.

There was a little promise shown against the Rebels with power run calls to Willis, so that maybe a slightly more frequent tactic, although it also runs the risk of being another personnel deployment that tips off the offense’s intent.

Also, Willis’ stat line of eight carries for 62 yards looks nice, but he had 47 yards on two rushes and 15 on the other half dozen.

The defense needs impact plays to offset their issues with tackling.

Duce Chestnut’s interception and Fadil Diggs’ pair of sacks were joined by two other tackles for loss in the game.

Through five games, SU has five turnovers, all interceptions, and one 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 as soon as he returns to the lineup.

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