There was an illusion during the summer that Andrew Robinson was the stalwart of the Syracuse offense. That the junior quarterback was one of the few Orange players whose job was safe.

Not exactly. Toward the end of the summer, head coach Greg Robinson couldn’t help but notice that junior backup Cameron Dantley was simply outplaying the Orange’s incumbent passer.

Save for a bit of sentimentality, Dantley’s second career start might have come a week earlier.

‘I sat Cam down and said, ‘Cam, you’ve had a great camp,” Greg Robinson recalled after the Orange’s bitter, 42-28 defeat to Akron. ”Many days out here you’ve outplayed Andrew. But I feel like I owe it to Andrew … that he deserves to go out in that first game and play.”

Those feelings dissipated in the wake of the Orange’s opening day loss, in which Andrew Robinson was ineffective. That led Robinson to name Dantley the starter prior to the home opener.

Dantley responded with an efficient effort Saturday, leading an Orange offense that shined amidst the bleakness of an embarrassing home defeat. He completed 13-of-20 passes for 135 yards and tossed a trio of touchdowns. Dantley managed an offensive effort Greg Robinson said was as good as any he could remember during his tenure at Syracuse.

‘I thought that Cam Dantley did an outstanding job,’ Robinson said. ‘He threw three touchdown passes and ran the offense very well. He got us in and out of plays and did what he had to do.’

Dantley’s defining performance capped a whirlwind 24 hours for the former walk-on. The previous night, Cameron had been in Springfield, Mass., to watch his father, former NBA star Adrian Dantley, be inducted into the Hall of Fame. Cameron didn’t get back into Syracuse until late Saturday night.

‘I’d sacrifice almost anything to get down there,’ Cameron said. ‘So I got back late last night, but it was all worth it.’

Especially considering the way he played.

There were some jitters early. Like the time Dantley tripped while dropping back in the first quarter. But the senior quickly settled down to lead the Orange’s furious second-half comeback.

Certainly, Dantley was buoyed by a potent running attack. The Orange rushed for 218 yards, 143 of those from senior Curtis Brinkley. But Dantley – who is a senior academically, but has junior eligibility – was solid when he needed to be, often opting for short safe patterns to tight ends and backs.

‘The week took a long time to get to Saturday,’ said Dantley, who started in place of an injured Andrew Robinson in a 41-10 defeat to South Florida last season. ‘I was just thinking a lot, just more than usual. I was nervous in the beginning, just wanted to get that couple plays out of the way.

‘I felt like I did pretty good today,’ he said.

Dantley found a security blanket in tight end Mike Owen, who had a team-high five grabs, including a pair of touchdown catches. The first of those was a dart from Dantley up the seam that Owen snagged and scampered for a 32-yard score.

‘Once he got his feet in the ground, his performance kept building and building,’ said SU tailback Delone Carter. ‘I thought he did real well’

Dantley had to be good. Four separate times, the Orange found itself down two touchdowns. But Syracuse battled back in the second half. First, Dantley found Owen for a four-yard touchdown pass in the third quarter.

Then, on a first-and-10 from the Akron 15, Dantley rolled right and fired a laser into the corner of the end zone to tight end Nick Provo. It was perhaps Dantley’s best pass of the game and tied the game at 28 with 12:56 left in the contest.

‘The crowd was going wild, everybody on the bench was up, everybody was excited,’ Dantley said. ‘To get back into a tie game after we’d been down early and came back in the second half, great. Just seeing the excitement on everybody’s face was great.’

It wasn’t all pretty for Dantley. He coughed up a fumble in the third quarter – a ball Greg Robinson said he should have thrown away – and took a pair of sacks, the last of which forced a turnover on downs with just over two minutes left with SU trailing by 14.

All things Dantley will likely get a chance to work on next week when the Orange takes on Penn State.

‘I’m not going to say what our decision will be,’ Robinson said on Sunday. ‘I’d be surprised if we made a change right now. I think Cam deserves another shot.’

jsclayto@syr.edu

Published on September 7, 2008 at 12:00 pm