A breakout game from Delone Carter. Breakneck speed from Antwon Bailey and the entire Syracuse offense. A blowout win for the Orange. And it all was expected.

On a day when everything seemed to go by in a flash, the SU offense made the most of its measly 15 minutes of possession, defeating Colgate 42-7 inside the Carrier Dome Saturday in front of 38,068. SU (3-1) is now off to its best start since 2003 as it heads into Big East play.

‘I think it was a matter of opportunities,’ SU head coach Doug Marrone said. ‘Opportunities, and what we were looking to get done.’

A week after it took 29 minutes for the offense to wake up, Marrone wanted a quick start. In that abbreviated start, the unit dominated when it needed to. It started with the performances of its two running backs — Bailey and Carter — via sudden scampers and breakneck speed after receptions.

Bailey started it up, and Carter continued it throughout the rest of the game, racking up a career-high 172 yards rushing and four touchdowns.

And for Bailey, the ‘breakneck’ was almost literal on the game’s biggest play.

On the strength of that game-changing 37-yard catch-and-go by Bailey — concluded by a flip into the end zone that saw Bailey’s helmet nearly graze the turf as he spun — the Syracuse offense erased the thoughts of its slow start against Maine. Bailey, Carter and the offense throttled the Raiders (1-2) from the get-go to the tune of 267 total yards between the two backs in the game.

But it wasn’t an effort time-dominated throughout. It was the exact opposite.

‘When you have 40-something plays and only hold the ball for 15 minutes and have over 400 yards of offense and score five touchdowns, that’s pretty good,’ Marrone said.

The backs and the Orange did what they needed to when they needed to. In just six minutes of offensive possession in the first half, Syracuse averaged 28 yards per minute of possession, yielding 169 total in the half.

In the second half, Carter carried SU. Finally. For Carter and Bailey, it was a welcome change from their underwhelming performances in the first three games of the season. Entering the game, Carter averaged just more than 82 rushing yards per game. Bailey rarely touched the ball — just 17 rushes and six catches.

‘This is what me and Antwon expect out of each other,’ Carter said.

Saturday, Bailey and Carter averaged 11.6 yards per touch in the game. It was a stark contrast to the performance of the option-heavy rushing attack of the Raiders. Colgate starting running back Nate Eachus rushed an astounding 20 times in the first half, but gained only 3.1 yards per play.

Far from the breakneck speed of Syracuse’s backfield duo. Rather deliberate and drowsy, yielding zero first-half points.

Friday night in the team hotel, wide receiver Van Chew and Bailey said they spoke about how Bailey would split Colgate’s two safeties on that touchdown-scoring route. But what was not planned was the last-second flip. Bailey told Chew he would not flip.

But he did. He had to.

‘Plays like that, you kind of have sense of what is going to happen when the defense lines up,’ Bailey said. ‘So (Chew) asked me what was I going to do when the safeties came toward me. I said I wasn’t going to jump, but I ended up jumping.’

And one play prior to Bailey’s Raider-splitting run and jump, Carter realized the backfield duo’s day was going to come as well. It came following a start to a half in which SU blitzed the Raiders when it could. It came preceding a halftime during which Carter told his teammates they needed to play fast. And it came before a second half in which Carter was able to continue the quick pace by slowing down on each play prior to hitting the hole like Marrone wanted him to.

It was Carter’s realization of a clown who was ready to speed toward the cameras.

But in a game in which the two had fun in an amount of time that came in a blur, a little clowning around seemed fitting.

‘I know when Antwon gets near that end zone and he has some people around him, he can see the cameras lighting up already,’ Carter said. ‘I told him when we got back to the sideline, ‘I knew you were going to do it. You’re a real clown.”

aolivero@syr.edu

Published on September 24, 2010 at 12:00 pm