Too bad 17 years of head-coaching experience has taught Paul Pasqualoni to have such a short memory.

‘We’ll enjoy this ‘til about tomorrow,’ the Syracuse head football coach said after his team upset Virginia Tech, 50-42, on Saturday. ‘Then we move on to the next game. You can’t spend too much time thinking about these kind of things.’

That’s a shame. Because this win does more than elevate coaches’, players’ and fans’ moods to euphoria status. It also wipes away memories, albeit temporarlily, of six losses and an inevitably poor season.

For a day, everyone forgot the atrocities of the 3-6 record that haunted Syracuse all of last week. They forgot about a loss at home to North Carolina, a missed extra point against Temple and embarrassment at West Virginia.

By tossing for 403 yards, quarterback Troy Nunes allowed everyone to forget the miseries of games where Syracuse barely cracked 100 yards passing.

By intercepting the last pass of the game in triple overtime, free safety Maurice McClain let everyone disregard an SU secondary that allows more big plays in any given game than a great one would in a season.

Instead, what stood out was a guy — who, if not for a miraculous comeback from injury, wouldn’t be on the field — making the biggest play of his five-year career.

A stadium full of fans drowned out background noise calling for the ouster of Syracuse coaches, perhaps appropriately silencing it for good.

‘That was the loudest it’s been in a long time,’ defensive end Josh Thomas said. ‘That spurs you on. It’s third down, and we know we’ve got 48,000 people behind us. That just makes you want to run a little faster, go a little harder.’

‘The fans tonight were tremendous,’ running back Walter Reyes said. ‘Thank you fans. You guys were great.’

Seems the win allowed the Syracuse players to forget about the boos that, at times this season, have rained down from the upper deck.

On Saturday, fans shied from such negativity. Instead, like loyal soldiers, the SU faithful obeyed the Syracuse players who stood on the bench and implored them to join in the one-day fantasy and make some noise.

As your reward, fans, Syracuse’s performance Saturday allows you to forget this season will still end in disappointment.

To have any chance at a bowl, Syracuse needs to beat Boston College on the road this Saturday and win against No. 1 Miami at the Carrier Dome on Thanksgiving weekend. More likely, Syracuse will suffer its first sub-.500 season since 1986.

But, for a few days, pay no attention to that. Make this one a bowl game.

‘I think (it’s like a bowl),’ tight end Joe Donnelly said, ‘to beat Virginia Tech at home when everyone else counts you out. We’re going out to celebrate like it’s a bowl.’

Fans should do the same. For a day, the Orangemen gave everyone a get-out-of-jail-free card. For a day, no one needs to think about sub-.500 seasons and humiliations and mistakes.

‘We’ve had a short memory all year,’ Thomas said.

Too bad this week will be no different.

Pete Iorizzo is an assistant sports editor at The Daily Orange, where his columns appear regularly. E-mail him at pniorizz@syr.edu.

Published on November 10, 2002 at 12:00 pm