ORLANDO, Fla. — A running joke on the Syracuse sideline goes something like this:

When the Orangemen are locked in a tight game and the offense is sputtering, senior quarterback Troy Nunes looks at longtime equipment manager Kyle Fetterly.

They’ll smile, nod and say together: ‘It’s about time we have a heavy dosage of Walter Reyes.’

The Orangemen overdosed Saturday night.

Reyes rushed 27 times for 130 yards and three touchdowns, leaving his teammates blissful and giddy after SU’s 38-35, comeback win over Central Florida.

‘It looks like (Reyes) punishes the defense when he runs,’ Nunes said. ‘He just seems to eat up chunks of yards, and every once in a while, he breaks one.’

Reyes did that with his first touchdown, a 38-yard, third-quarter scamper that cut UCF’s lead to 21-16. The Orangemen rode Reyes through the fourth quarter, pounding away at an exhausted Golden Knights’ defense. Of SU’s 17 fourth-quarter offensive plays, 11 went to Reyes.

After his second touchdown run, a 4-yarder, Reyes said he felt his confidence peaking.

‘I just felt it, looking in my linemens’ eyes,’ he said. ‘It looked like they were ready to go all four quarters and overtime if we had to. I wasn’t going to be denied in the end zone.’

Reyes, normally stoic during interviews, wasn’t going to miss his chance to smile Saturday night.

‘To win two in a row after all we’ve been through this season is amazing,’ he said. ‘We’re gonna keep it going.’

If the Orangemen do, they’ll need Reyes to keep up his feverish pace.

With 812 yards and 12 touchdowns this season, he’s proving a capable replacement for James Mungro, who rushed for 1,170 yards and 14 touchdowns last year.

At the beginning of the season, Reyes split carries with true freshman Damien Rhodes. But in SU’s last two games — Saturday night and last weekend’s 45-14 drubbing of Rutgers — Reyes has outgained Rhodes, 245-80. Against UCF, Rhodes carried just nine times.

‘(Reyes) is just like that Mungro kid from last year,’ said UCF head coach Mike Kruczek, whose team Mungro victimized for 121 yards and two touchdowns in SU’s 21-10 win in 2001. ‘He’s just like his clone, his twin.’

Chalk up much of Reyes’ success Saturday night to the SU offensive line, which contained UCF’s dangerous defensive end Elton Patterson.

And credit the Syracuse coaches, who didn’t try to match the Golden Knights’ air-assault offense but instead milked Reyes’ hot streak.

‘He reads the holes well,’ SU offensive guard Erik Kaloyanides said. ‘He runs extremely hard and tough. I love Walter. It’s a privilege to block for that kid.’

The question is: How will that privilege be divvied up next season?

Reyes would probably be a backup right now if Diamond Ferri hadn’t packed his gear and headed home to Everett, Mass. If Ferri returns, where will he fall in? And what about Rhodes, who’s shown promise this year?

If Reyes keeps playing like he did Saturday night — and Ferri returns — it would be a crime if the SU coaches didn’t peg Reyes as the starter, at least for spring practices.

In this two-win stretch of an otherwise sickly season, Reyes has been the Orangemen’s cure. All year, he’s soothed SU’s offensive wounds, atoning for R.J. Anderson completing just 43 percent of his passes.

And Saturday night, Reyes exhausted the UCF defense so much that several Golden Knights looked nearly comatose as they lied on their locker-room floor. To be sure, they’d received their heavy doses of Reyes, just as Nunes and Fetterly predicted.

‘I don’t know if (we) can overdose with a win,’ Nunes said. ‘If (Reyes) can get up tomorrow, then I don’t think it’s an overdose.’

Darryl Slater is an assistant sports editor at The Daily Orange, where his columns appear regularly. E-mail him at dpslater@syr.edu.

Published on November 3, 2002 at 12:00 pm