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Orange Spits out Pitt
For most of the past year, Syracuse University football players had a lot of four-letter words they could have used to explain how they felt after their games, most of which, of course, could not be printed here.
But when center Macky MacPherson was asked what it meant to beat the Pittsburgh Panthers 14-13 in SU’s Big East Conference opener on Friday, Oct. 5, before 40,394 fans at the Carrier Dome and a national TV audience on ESPN, MacPherson used a four-letter word that’s suitable for the whole family.
“H-U-G-E. It’s huge,” MacPherson said, doing his best Billy Fuccillo imitation. “I remember the last time we beat Pitt, I was a ball boy. No one on this team had ever beaten Pitt. Ever.”
Yes, Friday night’s win was that H-U-G-E for an Orange squad that had one win this season against Stony Brook, but hadn’t defeated an FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision) team—a Division IA big boy team—since last Oct. 21, when SU whipped No. 11 West Virginia 49-23 on another Friday night at the Dome. The Orange had lost eight consecutive games to FBS teams.
And it was the Orange’s first win over Pitt since a double-overtime 38-31 victory at the Dome in 2004, when Paul Pasqualoni was in his final season as SU’s head coach and MacPherson, the grandson of legendary Orange coach Dick MacPherson, was a 12-year-old ball boy.
Snapping the losing streak against the Panthers might have a long-term effect, too. SU, as you might have heard, is joining the Atlantic Coast Conference next season. While SU and Pitt will be in different divisions (SU in the Atlantic and Pitt in the Coastal), the Panthers will be SU’s crossover opponent, meaning they will play each other every year. So it was probably a good idea to end that losing streak and get the pendulum swinging the other way.
For his part, MacPherson said he and his teammates never thought about Friday’s game as the last Big East opener in school history, or as an opportunity to turn the tide against Pitt as both teams head for the ACC. Instead, MacPherson said the players were looking at the Big East opener as a way to erase SU’s 1-3 start, which include tough-to-swallow losses to Northwestern and Minnesota.
“All of our goals and focus are on the Big East,” MacPherson said. “We’re 1-0 in the Big East, and that means everything for us.”
Coming off its only bye week this season, the Orange (2-3) defeated Pitt with a ferocious, gang-tackling defense that limited the Panthers to one touchdown and an erratic offense that saved its best for its first and last drives of the game. SU built a 14-0 lead after 14 minutes and held on thanks to timely sacks and a final drive that ate up the final 4 minutes, 52 seconds by producing four rushing first downs.
“I am happy that we won,” SU head coach Doug Marrone said. “I do understand that we have a lot of work ahead of us when you look at that game. We left some stuff out there. There are some things we did well, don’t get me wrong. I’m excited for the players. They worked hard. It’s been a long time since we’ve played and we put a lot of work into getting better. Credit to them and the coaches. We can enjoy ourselves {Friday night} but we have a lot to work on and we need to get back to work.”
For one quarter, it appeared SU was going to blast Pitt the way it blasted West Virginia last year. On its first possession, the Orange breezed 70 yards in eight plays. Running back Adonis Ameen-Moore capped the drive with a 1-yard plunge behind the lead blocking of reserve linebacker Lewellyn Coker, a new wrinkle because SU failed to score after having a first-and-goal at the 1-yard line in its 17-10 loss to Minnesota Sept. 22. It was the first career touchdown for Ameen-Moore, a sophomore who hadn’t carried the ball this season before the Pitt game.
“I mean, as far as a running back, it’s fun when you can go and score a touchdown,” Ameen-Moore said. “I mean it feels great. I haven’t scored a touchdown since the 12th grade.”
Entering the Pitt game, the Orange defense hadn’t scored a touchdown for more than a year. But late in the first quarter, Pitt quarterback Tino Sunseri connected with tight end Drew Carswell on a short completion and Carswell was leveled by safety Jeremi Wilkes. Carswell coughed up the ball and linebacker Dyshawn Davis picked it up and rambled 52 yards for the touchdown that made it 14-0 with 1:06 left in the first quarter.
“Jeremi Wilkes did a good job of stripping it and I saw the ball on the ground,” Davis said. “My eyes got big and I knew I had to get in the end zone.”
While the Orange offense sputtered and stalled, Pitt scored 10 points in the second quarter and added a field goal in the third to slice SU’s lead to 14-13. In what turned out to be their final possession, the Panthers drove to the SU 17 and were in position for a game-winning field goal.
But on first down, SU defensive end Brandon Sharpe recorded his fourth sack of the game on what was also whistled as an intentional grounding call against Sunseri. On second-and-25 from the 32, the Orange pushed the Panthers completely out of field goal range with its fifth sack of the game on a corner blitz by Brandon Reddish.
“I felt like the whole D-line got into a groove,” said Sharpe, a senior who had recorded 3.5 sacks in each of the last two seasons before breaking out against Pitt. “The coaches did a good job of helping us out on the sideline so we just went out there and played with passion and played our game.”
Pitt (2-3, 0-2 in the Big East) ended its final possession with a punt and, considering the way SU’s offense had played and that the Panthers had all three of their timeouts remaining, it appeared Pitt would have one more chance to win the game. But the Orange offensive line, which welcomed the return of senior tackle Justin Pugh, overpowered the Panthers’ defensive line with a clock-eating drive highlighted by running back Jerome Smith’s hurdle over a defender for a first down, quarterback Ryan Nassib’s scramble for a first down on third-and-6, and Ameen-Moore’s bullish 4-yard run for the first down that clinched the win.
In four years under Marrone, SU is now 4-1 after a bye week and 15-22 in “regular” weeks. This week, the Orange will travel to Piscataway, N.J., to face No. 20 Rutgers (5-0, 2-0) Saturday, Oct. 13, at noon at High Point Solutions Stadium. Rutgers stuffed Connecticut 19-3 this past Saturday.
“We have to keep working just as hard as we have worked, except that we don’t have a bye week,” Marrone said. “We can’t afford it. We don’t have any more bye weeks. We don’t have that luxury of sitting back and not working.”
—Matt Michael
Boeheim Strikes Gold… Again
Fifty years ago, in the spring of 1962, Syracuse University men’s basketball had just finished its worst season in team history: 2 wins and 22 losses. That year would be Marc Gulley’s last season as head coach of the Orangemen. That fall, however, a 17-year-old freshman named Jim Boeheim arrived at SU and earned a spot on the team as a walk-on, marking the beginning of a career that would forever change basketball in the Salt City.
This fall marks Boeheim’s 50th year as a member of the now-storied program, both as a player and a coach. But rather than celebrating the occasion with a party or an award (are there any he doesn’t yet have?), Boeheim and his wife Juli decided to commemorate the milestone by being charitable, literally.
“Most people know my husband doesn’t like to toot his own horn,” said Juli Boeheim. “He’s a guy who’s very modest when it comes to celebrations. For his birthday he never asks for much more than a cake.”
Instead the couple’s charitable organization—the Jim and Juli Boeheim Foundation—partnered with Manny’s Quality SU Apparel to create a commemorative golden anniversary T-shirt whose proceeds will benefit the foundation. The shirt costs $19.98 and is available at Manny’s, 151 Marshall St.; University Sport Shop, Great Northern Mall, 4155 Route 31, Clay, and Shoppingtown Mall, 3649 Erie Blvd. E., DeWitt; or at mannysonline.com.
The T-shirt details all of Boeheim’s accomplishments, both as a coach and a player—a sprawling list that occupies nearly every square inch of space on the back of the garment. Highlights include his 890 wins as head coach and his rank as the winningest coach in Big East history.
“It’s amazing someone’s been here for 50 years as a player, an assistant coach and a head coach,” said Mike Theiss, general manager of Manny’s. “You could see it happening in Miami or some beautiful location like that, but to stick around cloudy, gray Syracuse for 50 years really says something about this community and this man.”
The idea for the shirt, Theiss explained, originated with Juli Boeheim. “He was thinking aloud at church one Sunday and just said, ‘You know, it’s my 50th year here,’” Juli said of her husband. “We both saw it as a great opportunity to raise money for the foundation.”
The Jim and Juli Boeheim Foundation has become a charitable fixture in Central New York since its creation two years ago. It raises money to fund organizations for children in need as well as cancer research and advocacy programs. According to Juli Boeheim, the foundation will give away its 1 millionth dollar this October.
The charcoal-colored shirt commemorating the occasion reads more like a resume than fan gear. And the fact that it’s not orange means Juli can safely sport it at home games. “I can wear it because it’s gray,” she said with a laugh. “If I wear orange to the games, we don’t win. I’m not superstitious, it just always works out that way.”
—Chris Baker
