They’ll smack you in the face and laugh. They’ll egg on your fans’ boos. They’ll celebrate excessively in a 42-point blowout.

Syracuse, meanwhile, will accept their taunts. It tucks its tail between its legs and sulks away from a 4-8 season.

After all, the Orangemen rationalize, we’re just Syracuse, and they’re, well, they’re the Miami Hurricanes. They’re the No. 1 team in the country, a squad of future National Football League players.

So what if they’re showboats? They’ve earned their swagger with 33 consecutive wins.

“The thing is, we’re good guys,” SU captain Will Hunter said. “We don’t go out there looking to beat people up.”

That’s the problem.

The Orangemen played like Boy Scouts all year. Their defensive backs gave receivers enough cushion to stock a furniture store. The most attitude they showed was in garbage time of a season-ending, 49-7 loss to Miami on Saturday at the Carrier Dome, when quarterback R.J. Anderson tussled with Miami defensive lineman Thomas Carroll.

“Coming into this year, we had (a swagger) a little bit,” SU safety Keeon Walker said. “Coming off a season like we had last year, who wouldn’t? But after the first three or four games, that’s when the swagger disappeared.”

Indeed, after starting the season with losses to Brigham Young and North Carolina, the Orangemen somehow forgot that they were 10-3 last year.

They started playing tentatively. There were no guarantees, especially after SU lost at Temple in October.

“(Miami has) no uncertainty about anything,” Walker said. “They’re out there, and they’re like, ‘We’re gonna win this game, so we can walk out here and do whatever we want.’ A lot of teams just don’t have that. That’s the difference. When you’re out there and you’re confident, you play confident.”

On Saturday, the ‘Canes were cocky from the start. They poured on 21 first-half points, drowning SU in its misery. After the Orangemen finally scored, Miami’s Jason Geathers tried to return the kickoff from deep in his own endzone when most players would have taken a knee.

The Hurricanes’ brashness continued in the second half, when Miami defenders repeatedly slung SU players out of bounds, drawing boos from the Dome crowd.

With 5:45 left in the game and Miami leading, 35-7, Hurricanes punter Freddie Capshaw faked a punt and threw a touchdown pass to Sean Taylor.

“Personally, I thought that was BS,” SU linebacker Clifton Smith said. “But, hey, do what you want.”

The ‘Canes did. And they did it at SU’s expense. As the remaining fans booed — and the Hurricanes drew a penalty for excessive celebration in the endzone — Miami defensive end Andrew Williams waved a towel, begging for more.

For the record, the fake punt was a set play to be run if SU brought its wingmen in to block the punt. Capshaw merely carried out orders.

Even if the fake was audibled, it would’ve been legit. Miami’s the best team in the country, and it has every right to show it.

Of course, the Orangemen never would’ve tried it, because they’re the good guys.

“Everybody needs a swagger,” Syracuse tight end Joe Donnelly said. “But we need to earn one first.”

The Orangemen, though, gave theirs up too easily.

“Once you get down, you don’t want to fight anymore,” Hunter said. “We kept struggling, we kept fighting for it, but when you keep getting hit in your mouth and you keep losing, sometimes you just say …”

Hunter trailed off, which seems appropriate given the timidness with which SU approached the season’s challenges.

When the Orangemen should’ve fought the current, they cried themselves a river. They failed to realize that no opponent much cared about how the poor SU secondary was shaken up by injury.

“Things could’ve been a lot worse,” captain David Tyree rationalized. “There were hardly that many games that we were put together as a full team.”

So, there you have it, with eight losses, the glass is half full. But, hey, at least they’re good guys.

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 December 2, 2002 at 12:00 pm