Greg Robinson ran alongside his defense, shepherding them from one end of the field to the other. The third quarter had just ended and Pittsburgh was driving – threatening Syracuse’s eight-point lead. So the SU head coach tried to spur his lagging defense, leading the charge as the teams switched sides between quarters.

He shouted, clapped and motioned with the rolled up sheet in his hand. One more quarter. That was all Syracuse needed. All it needed for a banner win in its Big East opener. All it needed to show its season wasn’t lost quite yet.

Instead, Robinson watched as his team folded and allowed the Panthers to seize control and run away with a 34-24 win at the Carrier Dome. Pittsburgh scored the game’s final 21 points, its ball control-style wearing down a Syracuse team that had played front-runner all day. The Orange was limited to 27 total yards and one first down in the final 15 minutes, unable to answer the Panthers’ offensive flurry.

‘I give Pitt credit, especially there in the fourth quarter when they got control of the game and did a lot of things,’ Robinson said. ‘It’s still a 60 minute game … I think we had our chances, that’s the thing that I say, that we had chances and didn’t really capitalize enough.’

Missed opportunities have been a common occurrence for Syracuse (1-4) this season, but the Orange needed this game, needed a bright start to its conference schedule.

Any loss Saturday would have been difficult to swallow. But Syracuse’s fourth quarter collapse made it even harder.

‘We shoulda won the game,’ said senior tailback Curtis Brinkley. ‘The momentum was in our favor. The offense was executing, the defense was doing good. I’m very upset right now.’

That’s because Saturday looked destined to be Syracuse’s day.

Like when sophomore cornerback Mike Holmes gave the Orange a 7-3 lead, taking a first quarter kickoff and streaking down the left sideline for a 90-yard touchdown return.

Or when Brinkley, who ran for 119 yards on 16 carries, broke a highlight-reel run in the second quarter, shaking Pitt defenders and scampering 43 yards. That set up a 25-yard Pat Shadle field goal to give SU a 17-13 lead at the half.

Or when freshman wideout Van Chew – with one career catch coming into the game – made a circus grab in tight coverage for a 36-yard score to put the Orange up, 24-13, in the third quarter. It was Dantley’s second touchdown pass.

With each big play and defensive stop, the Orange sideline swelled. That confidence – evident only in flashes these past three-and-a-half seasons – was all of a sudden brimming.

Then the fourth quarter came.

The Orange’s bend-but-don’t-break defense was gashed open by the Panthers’ tailback tandem of LaRod Stephens-Howling and LeSean McCoy, which combined for 220 rushing yards. Stephens-Howling scored both of Pitt’s fourth quarter touchdowns, the first of which knotted the game at 24 less than a minute into the frame (the ensuing two-point conversion try was good).

‘I don’t feel like they made any adjustments,’ said senior safety Bruce Williams. ‘They ran a power (run) play seven times in a row. We’ve seen it. It’s just a matter of us getting right and tightening down.’

Amid the Panthers flurry, Syracuse’s run-fueled offense stalled, failing to keep hold of the ball and give the Orange defense a breather. (The Panthers dominated time of possession by a nearly 2-to-1 margin.) ‘One thing goes wrong, or one series goes wrong or we go three-and-out, it just seems like our rhythm gets upset,’ Dantley said.

The junior quarterback also committed one costly turnover. With Pitt clinging to a 27-24 lead, defensive end Greg Romeus forced a Dantley fumble that the Panthers recovered deep in SU territory. Eight plays later, Stephens-Howling bounced right and loped into the end zone from three yards out to give the Panthers a 10-point edge with under four minutes left.

Robinson stood motionless on the sideline as the play unfolded – no reaction from the coach who has now won twice in 22 Big East games. After a few seconds he looked up toward the video screen just in time to watch a replay of the score: A second glance at yet another game slipping through the embattled head coach’s grasp.

‘I thought we were going to be good enough to win the football game, and there was moments in that game that I thought we had our chances to win the football game,’ Robinson said. ‘They played better in the last 10 minutes of the football game than we did.’

jsclayto@syr.edu

Published on September 28, 2008 at 12:00 pm