After quick start, offensive complacency ruins Orange
SEATTLE — Two drives, two scores. Now breathe.
After scoring on its first two possessions and protecting a narrow 10-0 lead early on the road, the Syracuse offense began to exhale. All that talk of being a 13-point underdog was just nonsense.
But instead of going for the jugular, the Orange took its foot off the gas. The lead was comfortable, so it seemed. Complacency set in.
All of a sudden, SU’s bubble began to burst. And just like that, the game’s momentum began to shift, leading to an eventual 41-20 Washington win on Saturday.
‘We made a lot of mistakes,’ SU running back Delone Carter said. ‘And I feel like we got comfortable, and that’s when the mistakes started to come.’
It was after those two drives, and two scores, that Carter said the complacency set in.
‘When we saw the 10 up on the board,’ Carter said.
Every player knew the statistics coming in. SU was just 1-11-1 on the West Coast since 1964. The Huskies were 23-2 at home against East Coast teams since 1970. Those numbers didn’t lie. Yet, despite jumping out to an early lead, SU failed to take advantage of an opportunity to go for the kill early.
Minor mistakes turned into a tidal wave of momentum that left the Orange as just another statistic. Just another West Coast loss to add to the numbers.
‘We knew our backs were against the wall,’ said Washington cornerback Desmond Trufant, who finished the game with four tackles. ‘The sense of urgency was there.’
Once the Washington offense got on the board late in the first quarter, Trufant and the Husky defense started to rally. The Washington defense had heard all week how good SU’s defense was, Trufant said. After allowing a quick 10 points, the group got the wake-up call it needed.
After Washington quarterback Jake Locker marched the Huskies on an 11-play, 49-yard scoring drive, the Husky defense, huddled together on the sidelines, figured this was the time to pounce.
‘I just wanted us to settle down,’ UW head coach Steve Sarkisian said. ‘Once we settled down, I knew we would be OK. I was proud of our guys for not panicking.’
From that point on, Washington didn’t allow an Orange drive that lasted more than three and a half minutes. On the other side, Locker and the Huskies offense grinded out drive after drive, keeping the SU defense on the field for long stretches.
Meanwhile, the UW defense stayed well rested. The results were evident. After allowing SU to score on its first two drives, Washington only allowed points on two of the Orange’s remaining 13 drives.
‘Once we got that first score,’ said UW receiver Jermaine Kearse, who tied a single-game program record with three touchdown catches, ‘we knew our defense wasn’t going to let (Syracuse) score again. That was it.’
The Orange had its opportunities to pull the game within reach, but it couldn’t capitalize. For the second straight week, turnovers prevented SU’s offense from maximizing its full potential. Against the Huskies Saturday, dropped passes also contributed.
And each time SU failed to turn drives into points, the Husky offense took advantage of the energy created by its defense.
‘Our offense and our defense, they just feed off each other,’ Trufant said. ‘Once we saw our guys start scoring, we knew we needed to do our part. We knew they couldn’t do it by themselves.’
As Syracuse became unraveled, the sea of purple and gold continued to fuel the fire. Eventually, there was little SU could do to distinguish it. By the time all was said and done, UW had turned an early 10-point deficit into a 21-point victory.
And it all came back to that swing of momentum.
‘Syracuse came out strong,’ Kearse said. ‘But we are the ones who finished.’
