Syracuse, N.Y. — A small crew of coaches’ wives, family members and friends of the program lined up outside the Carrier Dome holding signs in appreciation for a 1-8 football team as it stepped off the bus Saturday morning.
Campus had already emptied because of the novel coronavirus. Nobody was allowed in the building — not even the head coach’s wife. This small group comprised the Senior Day festivities before the final home game of a season everyone wants to forget in what has been an unforgettable year.
Syracuse entered the game on a six-game losing streak, shut out last week by a losing team for the first time since Boston College in 1972. There have been so few bright spots in a season full of lows, the pregame signs amounted to one of the touchstone images of 2020.
By the end of a 36-29 loss to North Carolina State, another materialized.
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With 24 seconds to play in the game and SU just 7 yards away from a potential game-tying score, Rex Culpepper scurried around the field hoping a receiving target would emerge. When he was sacked with no timeouts remaining, Culpepper spiked the ball on fourth down with only a couple seconds left on the clock, dramatically ending SU’s best chance at its first win in two months in a masochistic manner.
As SU approaches the finish line next week at Notre Dame, its most endearing quality has been being one of two ACC schools to survive this late in the season without getting tripped up by a Covid-related issue. In a college football season defined by postponements and cancellations, SU has hung its hat on a small consolation: We’ve played them all.
The much-needed payoff for sticking through this bumpy ride nearly arrived two days after Thanksgiving. Nobody will celebrate this team outside of Central New York. It will be written in the annals as one of the worst records in school history. And yet for one day, SU nearly made us forget about all that — until one of the biggest blunders of the year.
The defense harassed NC State’s quarterback into four sacks and a safety in the first half. Twelve of the Orange’s 22 first-half points came off special teams and the defense. Freshman Trebor Pena’s 98-yard kickoff return score was SU’s first since Dorian Graham against West Virginia in 2011.
Later in the first half, cornerback Ifeatu Melifonwu delivered a punishing shoulder to CJ Riley to pop the ball up in the air and into the hands of Mikel Jones, who returned it to the 5-yard line. Syracuse settled for a short field goal. The defense later forced a safety when NC State quarterback Bailey Hockman threw a backward pass out of the end zone to avoid a sack.
Syracuse built its largest lead since the Georgia Tech game on Sept. 26, it’s only win this season, and the offense showed more life than it had in months, with Culpepper uncorking a 60-yard touchdown pass and shaking off a hard hit to fire a dart to Taj Harris for a 13-yard score.
SU took a 22-14 lead into halftime and didn’t succumb the lead until early in the fourth quarter when Emeka Emezie high-pointed a ball while blanketed by Melifonwu to give NC State a 33-29 lead before a failed two-point try.
From there, it was mostly a march to a familiar ending, with NC State bottling up the run, chasing down an end-around with its 6-foot-3, 265-pound transfer defensive lineman from Penn State and surrendering little over the top until Harris tip-toed inbounds on a deep throw down the sideline with 4 minutes remaining in the game to move the ball across midfield.
It sparked the late-game threat that might have turned into the kind of storybook ending everyone hoped for when they stepped off the bus more than four hours earlier.
Instead, a miserable season had one last cruel twist before it ends.
More SU football coverage:
Best and worst from Syracuse football’s 36-29 loss to NC State
You grade the Orange after loss to NC State
Syracuse QB JaCobian Morgan will not play vs. NC State
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