MIAMI – The Syracuse football team drove 23 yards and faced a third-and-10, looking to even the score with 1:06 left in the game.

The play was called. The quarterback barked. And Adam Terry moved.

False start. Five-yard penalty. Third-and-15.

Terry, an offensive tackle, provided the most glaring penalty on a day when SU accumulated 11 penalties for 76 yards.

‘Little things like penalties,’ SU tight end Joe Donnelly said, ‘that comes down to focus, mental lapses.’

Coaches said entering the game SU needed to limit its penalties. Instead, SU drew flags in key situations.

On SU’s first drive, SU was called for a holding penalty after it drove 45 yards to the Miami 13. Rather than setting itself up for a touchdown, SU fell into a first-and-20 and ended up settling for a field goal.

Another drive – with 8:08 left in the fourth quarter – started with promise and ended in disaster. Johnnie Morant returned the kickoff 29 yards to the 38-yard line. Two false start penalties later and SU was three-and-out.

‘What stopped us is ourselves,’ Donnelly said. ‘When you’re at second-and-four and you’re getting penalties, you can’t win games like that. You can’t win when you’re first-and-15 and on your own 10-yard line, because of a penalty call or lining up offsides. I mean, we’re college football players. We need to be more focused.’

Early start

All week, Syracuse players and coaches stressed a quick start for the Orangemen.

So when SU won the coin toss, you’d figure it would elect to receive. You’d be wrong.

‘We wanted to get field position,’ SU head coach Paul Pasqualoni said. ‘I wanted to kick the ball with the wind. I didn’t want to start the first quarter kicking the ball into the wind.’

As it turned out, the kickoff became a carnival of sorts. Returner Devin Hester caught the ball deep in the end zone, and walked slowly like he was planning to down it. When the Syracuse return team grew complacent and stopped on the play, Hester bolted.

He reached the 25-yard line before Ryan LaCasse tackled him.

‘It was only a 5-yard mistake,’ Pasqualoni said. ‘It wasn’t a bigger mistake. It could’ve been a disaster.

Footing the bill

Brendan Carney’s one bad game came against one of the best teams in the Big East – Virginia Tech.

Under heavy pressure, Carney, a freshman, hurried his kicks, resulting in an array of shanks and line drives.

So how would he fare against the other top Big East team? Much better.

‘He punted,’ Pasqualoni said. ‘Boy, he grew up a little today. He punted in the right direction a few times, too.’

Pasqualoni meant the wind was at Carney’s back.

Carney’s first punt, with his foot just inside the back of the end zone, booted the ball 58 yards to the Miami 40-yard line.

His next punt, also with the wind at his back, was pounded 64 yards to the Miami 13.

For the day, Carney punted seven times, averaging 50.4 yards a punt.

Good impression

Miami got a good taste of Walter Reyes last season, when he rushed 15 times for 110 yards. So after his 24-carry, 89-yard day, what do the Hurricanes think now?

‘Let’s face it,’ Miami safety Maurice Sikes said, ‘they have the best back in the league. He is an awesome talent and we saw that last year. We knew coming into the game that their game plan was going to be to run the ball. We really focused this week on stopping the run.’

The Hurricanes had varied success at that. Reyes broke a couple big plays, including a big 27-yard run with SU deep in its own territory. The junior back averaged 3.7 yards a carry.

Said Donnelly: ‘We were running the ball downhill on this team.’

This and that

When Syracuse took a 3-0 lead on Collin Barber’s field goal, SU led Miami for the first time since the second quarter of the 1999 game. That marks a span of 14 quarters or 223 minutes, 17 seconds. … Linebacker Rich Scanlon’s first-quarter interception was the first of his career. … Reyes hit the 1,000 yard mark with a 6-yard run with 11:15 left in the second quarter. … Syracuse held a 3:44 advantage in time of possession at halftime. In the second half, though, Miami held the ball for 17:51 compared to just 12:09 for SU. … SU’s game next Saturday against West Virginia will be televised on ESPN2.

Published on November 16, 2003 at 12:00 pm