Next week’s bye couldn’t come at a better time for the Syracuse football team. The Orange, which already had lost three starters to injury in the last week, suffered two more casualties Saturday against Buffalo.

SU running back Curtis Brinkley broke his right leg in the first quarter and will not return this season, leaving true freshman Doug Hogue at the top of the depth chart. Meanwhile, starting cornerback Dowayne Davis left the game in the second quarter with a head injury, though head coach Greg Robinson said Sunday at his weekly press conference that Davis seems to have recovered fully.

While the bye will not change anything in the tailback and cornerback situations, Robinson was hopeful an extra week of rest would help some of his other banged-up players.

‘Hopefully, we’ll get some people back,’ Robinson said Sunday. ‘Time will tell. I’m not really sure right yet, but hopefully, we’ll be able to recoup some of our guys.’

Some of the players Robinson was referring to include:

      – offensive guard Ryan Durand, who sprained his ankle last week against Rutgers. Marvin McCall started in his place.

      – fullback Tony Fiammetta, who suffered a concussion during the week. Paul Chiara started in his place.

      – outside linebacker Ben Maljovec, who sprained his knee during the week. Mike Stenclik replaced him.

Their replacements turned in laudable performances against Buffalo, though, prompting Robinson to lead off his postgame press conference by praising his backups.

‘You’ve got a lot of guys like that down – five, six guys – those are starting football players,’ Robinson said. ‘We had a lot of adversity thrown at us this week with the injuries, and we had a number of players that stepped up and got done what needed to get done.’

Robinson gave special mention to Stenclik, who saw his first action after missing the first seven games with a concussion. The sophomore suffered the injury during preseason camp, but even as team doctors refused to let him play, he attended every team meeting and studied game film on his own.

He recorded five tackles Saturday.

‘He did everything to prepare for a ballgame that a starting football player would do,’ Robinson said. ‘That’s why we made the decision to go ahead and let him jump in there and start.

‘I can tell you this – nobody believes in Mike more than Mike.’

Backing up his talk

Mike Williams, who was spurned by his hometown Buffalo program coming out of high school, picked a good time to notch a breakout game.

The sophomore receiver had jawed good-naturedly during the week with his close friends on the Bulls squad, Naaman Roosevelt and Domonic Cook, over who would prevail Saturday.

On the first play of the game, Cook, who covered Williams most of the game, again taunted Williams that he would not catch a single pass all game.

Andrew Robinson’s first pass to Williams fell incomplete, but the receiver reeled in his first catch midway through the first quarter, and he went on to a seven-catch, 113-yard performance.

‘(Cook) started calming down and saying, ‘Good pass, good pass. Good catch, good catch,” Williams said, smiling. ‘As he kept getting tired, and he kept saying, ‘Good catch.’

‘I felt a little good by coming out with the win, so I can finish the trash talking now.’

Scrambling for success

Andrew Robinson isn’t exactly known for his speed – in fact, his head coach even joked about that during his Sunday press conference.

But blazing fast or not, the quarterback scrambled for a career-high 62 yards on nine carries Saturday, including a 15-yard dash down the left sidelines in the first quarter. Robinson entered the game with a net rushing total of minus 31 yards, although the total also includes yards lost on sacks.

‘When you can get your quarterback involved in that, it helps, it truly does,’ Greg Robinson said. ‘It puts more pressure on the defense.’

This and that

Syracuse named Gerhard Schwedes, the leading scorer with 16 touchdowns on the 1959 championship team, its honorary captain Saturday. … John Barker, who normally holds the ball on field goal tries, unleashed a 71-yard punt on 3rd-and-30 in the third quarter. That tied for the third-longest punt in Orange history. … Nico Scott filled in for Davis at cornerback and notched a team-high nine tackles. … The announced crowd of 30,897 was the lowest at the Carrier Dome this season. The previous low came on Sept. 15 when 34,188 fans showed up for the Illinois game.

Published on October 21, 2007 at 12:00 pm