KALAMAZOO, Mich. — After a facemask gifted Syracuse a first down at the Western Michigan 21-yard line, Eric Dungey’s pass looked like it had been thrown too far behind. But as the receiver looked for the ball on his five-yard out route, it wasn’t too far. Not on Jamal Custis’ career night.

The redshirt senior stretched his left arm behind him and snagged the ball with one hand. With possession, Custis side stepped past a dividing defender and dashed 21 yards to the endzone.

“Probably my greatest catch in my life,” Custis said. “To be honest, like, I didn’t even realize I caught it with one hand, people were telling me that once I got to the sideline.”

Following his six receptions for 168 yards and two touchdowns, Custis responded to a number of family and friends on Twitter who shared his catch. He even appeared as the top play on Sportscenter’s Top 10.

Entering the game, Custis had tallied 142 yards and two touchdowns on 13 receptions through three seasons. Still, the 6-foot-5 target was one of the names in the conversation this offseason when discussing who would replace Ervin Phillips and Steve Ishmael at the wideout spots. In Syracuse’s first game without the pair that accounted for 63.6 percent of the team’s receiving yards a year ago, Custis was the lone wide receiver with a reception.

“He came on and he played a fantastic game, he had a rough spring and he really didn’t have a fantastic early fall,” head coach Dino Babers said. “But I will tell you this, the last week, the last seven days of practice, he came on and he made enough plays to get the start and I’m really proud of him … it’s like an alien takeover, who’s in the body, right?”

Through six seasons, Babers’ offense has produced top-tier receiver talent, even when it wasn’t inherently present. In 2012, Eastern Illinois Erik Lora grabbed 13 balls for 151 yards and two touchdowns in the season opener. He went on to breach the 1,000-yard mark in both the 2012 and 2013 seasons. While Lora excelled in his second season, so did teammate Adam Drake, who mustered 14 yards in the season opener but had 1,305 by seasons end.

In 2015, Bowling Green receiver Gehrig Dieter had 133 yards and a touchdown in the season opener and finished with more than 1,000 yards on the season. In 2016, graduate transfer Amba Etta-Tawo tallied 210 yards and a touchdown in the season opener before recording an SU single-season record 1,482 yards. Last season, Steve Ishmael racked up 134 yards in game one before ending 2017 with 1,347 yards.

Each receiver — besides Lora in 2013 — never had a 1,000-yard receiving season prior to their breakout year.

“These guys learn what we want,” Babers said after the spring game April 13.  “They go into the summer. They keep practicing. They work on the timing with the quarterbacks. And then every year that we’ve been in this offense somebody pops up that you really don’t know about, or someone that’s here all of sudden turns into something you never thought.”

Custis said he caught passes one-on-one with Dungey over the summer to improve timing. He said he wants to be a reliable option and, as the oldest member of the position group, step up into a leadership role.

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In early August, when talking about the receiver position battle, Babers singled out Custis. He remembered Custis standing out as the best receiver during fall camp in 2016 before being sidelined for the entire season with an ankle injury. Back then, he said Custis had the potential, the coaching staff just hadn’t seen it on a consistent basis.

Last Friday, Custis began many plays out of the slot, the inside wide receiver position, including for both of his touchdowns. Matched up against a safety or linebacker, Custis noted that he used his speed to blow by the defenders. On his first touchdown, he made a one step cut to his left before taking off on a fade past the defender.

“I always believed I can be that guy,” Custis said. “You know this is my opportunity now, and I’m going to try to take advantage of it.”

Dungey after the game said the receivers need to be better. And Babers said Monday that there were too many drops. But of those comments weren’t targeted at Custis. Through one game, he passed the test.

“He was occasionally great,” Babers said Monday of Custis. “I want him to be consistently good. And I’m looking forward to being able to say, ‘Hey he’s done it again, he’s done it again and now he’s one of our guys. I can’t say that yet. I want to.’”

Published on September 3, 2018 at 10:14 pm

Contact Josh: jlschafe@syr.edu | @Schafer_44