In the week leading up to Sunday’s season opener against West Virginia, Syracuse head coach Greg Robinson stressed the importance of forcing turnovers.

Robinson noted teams that have three more turnovers than their opponents win roughly 95 percent of the time. Sunday’s 15-7 loss to the Mountaineers, however, fell in the miniscule five-percent range.

Syracuse forced five turnovers – three more than West Virginia did – but didn’t turn any of them into points.

‘We played pretty well,’ Syracuse senior linebacker Kellen Pruitt said. ‘We caused a number of turnovers. It was a shame we couldn’t capitalize off the turnovers. But a great defense has to find a way to win.’

Syracuse allowed 339 yards of offense and just two field goals to West Virginia. The Mountaineers defense scored the other nine points, so Syracuse’s defense wasn’t to blame for all 15 points. That didn’t console them.

‘It obviously wasn’t enough,’ Syracuse senior cornerback Steve Gregory said. ‘Maybe we needed one more turnover. That’s our goal – pound, do whatever it takes to win the game. And we didn’t accomplish that.’

Linebackers coach Steve Russ agreed.

‘We didn’t play well enough – bottom line,’ Russ said. ‘You have to find ways to win football games. You win football games as a team. It’s a ridiculous notion that you win football games on one side of the ball.’

West Virginia had three drives of more than 50 yards Sunday but only one resulted in scoring.

The Mountaineers’ first drive took them 68 yards on eight plays but SU safety Anthony Smith forced Jason Colson to fumble and Tanard Jackson recovered inside the 15-yard line.

SU lineman Nick Santiago also forced a Colson fumble in the red zone with 14:05 remaining in the game. Santiago reached his hand around Colson as he was tackling the running back and jarred the ball loose, allowing Smith to recover and thwart a West Virginia scoring chance.

‘We pride ourselves on flying around and playing 100 miles per hour and I think we did that to an extent,’ Gregory said. ‘Obviously, we’re going to look at the film and see where we’re at. We’re definitely going to get better. This defense that you saw today is not going to be the defense that you see next week.’

Robinson, who also serves as the defensive coordinator, stressed the importance of forcing turnovers throughout spring and preseason practices. It’s been a staple of his previous units, with his defensive background attracting strong attention from Director of Athletics Daryl Gross during the interview process for the head coaching job.

Syracuse allowed fewer than 339 yards on defense just three times last year. SU averaged 427 yards and nearly 29 points against last year. The Mountaineers alone netted 423 yards against the Orange last year.

‘The main reason I brought Greg here was the defense,’ Gross said. ‘Obviously you’ve got to stop people. Whenever you stop people, you got a chance to win the game. The entire game, all the way down to the last play, we had a chance to win and that’s a good thing. It’s better than being down 42-0 at the half.’

Players and coaches agreed the unit needs to improve its tackling in future games. Pruitt also stressed the defense needs to improve its pass coverage, which didn’t hurt Syracuse as much on Sunday because of several underthrown balls on deep routes by a pair of inexperienced West Virginia quarterbacks.

‘I knew our guys were going to play real hard,’ Robinson said. ‘There are things that we could have done better, and they are going to continue to get better. … Is the tackling perfect? No it wasn’t, but it can be improved, and when we improve that we will play even better.’

Published on September 4, 2005 at 12:00 pm