PITTSBURGH — Antwan Cordy didn’t try and pretend to be something he’s not.

After seeing his most action of the season and playing a bulk of the second half due to upper-body injuries to Julian Whigham and Corey Winfield and Wayne Morgan still out, the freshman cornerback said he was both exhausted and overwhelmed.

But he did seize his opportunity in a game that Syracuse head Scott Shafer said would be a good chance to look at the Orange’s younger players.

“I felt like I came out and did what I had to do,” Cordy said after Syracuse lost to Pittsburgh, 30-7, on Saturday. “I just wanted to show that I can be a true freshman.”

On a night when the Orange (3-8, 1-6 Atlantic Coast) couldn’t do much against the Panthers (5-6, 3-4), Cordy gave a quick look into the secondary’s future with his fill-in performance at Heinz Field. He intercepted a pass at the end of the first half to keep Pittsburgh from burying SU early, and collected four total tackles, the most of any cornerback.

“I was happy for Antwan Cordy,” SU head coach Scott Shafer said. “He did a nice job in the kicking game for us, kind of an unsung hero, and when Winfield and Whigham went down with upper-body injuries, he got thrown in there and they went right at him, just like they always do.

“They went right at the young corner and he did a nice job, which was good to see.”

SU sophomore quarterback Mitch Kimble had just been intercepted by linebacker Bam Bradley and the Panthers had 32 seconds to stretch its lead to 24 points before the half.

Pitt quarterback Chad Voytik dropped back and looked for wideout Dontez Ford in the left corner of the end zone, but Cordy knocked the ball out of Ford’s hands and snatched it out of the air while tapping his feet inside the white chalk.

He came out of the half lining up on the opposite side of Brandon Reddish as SU’s second cornerback.

With less than five minutes remaining in the third quarter, Voytik gift wrapped Cordy’s second interception of the game with Pittsburgh marching deep into SU territory. But the pass hit Cordy’s chest and then the Heinz Field grass, leaving the freshman face down on the field before Chris Blewitt came on to hit a 31-yard field goal to give the Panthers a 20-7 lead.

But as a whole, there was more growing than growing pains.

“I was honestly thinking about scoring and took my eyes off it,” Cordy said. “But I think it was my only real big mistake of the night.”

Published on November 22, 2014 at 9:15 pm

Contact Jesse: jcdoug01@syr.edu | @dougherty_jesse