Shouldering three months worth of frustration, Joe Donnelly expressed mixed emotions after the Syracuse football team’s miserable season finally ended.

The Orangemen had just endured a 49-7 loss on Saturday in front of 45,679 at the Carrier Dome to No. 1 Miami (11-0, 6-0 Big East) to finish the year 4-8 (2-5 Big East), their worst season since going 2-9 in 1982.

“In a sense, I’m glad it’s over,” the tight end said. “I know that over the next six or seven months, I’m going to have that awful feeling in the pit of my stomach. This is not going to happen again. Having to sit through Christmas and watch Boston College play in a bowl game, that’s ridiculous.”

Donnelly can also watch Miami play in the Fiesta Bowl for a national championship if the Hurricanes beat Virginia Tech next week. Syracuse, meanwhile, will miss a bowl game for the second time in three seasons.

The Orangemen finished last in the Big East in points allowed (33.8 per game), pass defense (303.8 yards per game) and total defense (475.7 yards per game).

‘Defense hasn’t played good all season,’ SU linebacker Clifton Smith said. ‘We expect to win the game on defense, and we just haven’t done it.’

On Saturday, the Hurricanes racked up 565 yards against the SU defense, the sixth time this season the Orangemen surrendered at least 500 yards. Last year, SU did that once.

SU defensive coordinator Chris Rippon said he’ll sit down after the season and break down the Orangemen’s deficiencies.

“Things have to change, there’s no question,” he said. “The No. 1 thing we have to do is get back to the fundamental aspects of the game, and that starts with tackling.”

The Syracuse secondary — which allows 87 more passing yards per game than any other Big East team — didn’t do much of that Saturday.

Miami receiver Andre Johnson tore the Orangemen apart with six catches for 181 yards and a touchdown. Hurricanes quarterback Ken Dorsey was 16 of 25 for 345 yards and two touchdowns. Running back Willis McGahee chipped in 134 yards and two touchdowns.

‘I don’t know if (Miami has) a weakness,’ SU head coach Paul Pasqualoni said.

While the Hurricanes exposed the Orangemen’s defensive drawbacks before a national-television audience Saturday, the SU offense showed promise.

Sophomore running back Walter Reyes rushed for 110 yards, giving him 1,135 for the season, the fourth-highest single-season total in school history.

Reyes and fellow running back Damien Rhodes should play big roles in SU’s offense next season. R.J. Anderson will likely replace Troy Nunes at quarterback. Nunes took Anderson’s starting job after seven games, and the Orangemen averaged 32 points with Nunes under center. They had averaged 17 in Division I-A games with Anderson starting.

After the Miami loss, some Orangemen hinted that SU’s troubles stemmed more from confidence than execution.

“I don’t want to point fingers at anybody,” captain Will Hunter said, “but the older guys were saying that we have young guys, and the young guys were saying, ‘We’re young, we’ve got to live with it.’ We were using that as an excuse not to play well, and it hurt us.”

Though 10 of the Orangemen’s 11 defensive starters — including an all-senior secondary — were juniors or seniors, injuries shook up the defense.

Linemen Christian Ferrara and Josh Thomas and defensive backs Keeon Walker and Maurice McClain missed games.

Now the Orangemen, finally awake from the nightmare season, will sit home wondering what went wrong.

‘I don’t feel relief at all,’ Pasqualoni said. ‘I feel a sickness in my stomach to be honest with you.’

Published on December 2, 2002 at 12:00 pm