MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Pat Shadle posed for a picture or two outside Mountaineer Field after the game here Saturday, smiling a bit and laughing despite his team’s loss.

Why not? Shadle, the senior Syracuse kicker, had hit a career-long 53-yard field goal in his hometown. He bested his previous career high by three yards. And he made the kick under the gun, with the play clock winding down in the second quarter.

So rather than credit his leg, he credited snapper Max Leo and holder Rob Long.

‘Those guys were ready to go when we got the ball off one second left,’ Shadle said. ‘That play almost didn’t happen. We probably would’ve punted if we took a game penalty there, so I give a lot of credit to my teammates on that one.’

Shadle also hit a chip shot on Syracuse’s first drive. His 53-yarder was also the longest kick by an opponent at Mountaineer Field.

‘Pat’s a great kicker,’ quarterback Cameron Dantley said. ‘We have a lot of confidence in him.’

Shadle is now 9-for-10 on his field goals this season, and has made all 12 extra points. He leads the team with 39 points. Shadle was responsible for all the Syracuse points Saturday.

Afterward, Shadle took pride in his team’s performance, despite the end result.

‘We’ve been saying all week that we were going to come out here and play these guys tough,’ Shadle said. ‘And I don’t know if anybody believed that, but we did that. We accomplished that.

‘Unfortunately, we didn’t come up with a win.’

Where was Bruce?

Senior safety Bruce Williams was versatile enough to be converted to wide receiver and back this season. He was enough of a leader to be named a team captain.

But Williams wasn’t the right fit for Saturday’s defensive package, head coach Greg Robinson said at his Sunday press conference.

‘For what we were trying to do against that kind of offense, the people who we were working with was the way that we decided to go,’ Robinson said.

So Williams, who has 23 tackles and an interception this season, didn’t play in Syracuse’s new defensive package, a speed-based defense that featured five defensive backs. Mike Holmes, AJ Brown and Max Suter filled the safety spots. Kevyn Scott and Nico Scott played corner.

No field goal late?

Syracuse had a 4th-and-4 at the WVU 5 with fewer than five minutes remaining. Robinson’s team trailed 10-6 and the coach had a decision to make: Go for a touchdown or kick a field goal and hope his defense got the ball back.

Syracuse had settled for field goals all day. Not this time. The team wanted a touchdown, even if the defense had been outstanding most of the day, Robinson said.

‘I felt like,’ Robinson said, ‘if we could get down there and score the touchdown and put them in a position where they’re behind and they have to go into more of a two-minute mode, I thought we would be in control.

‘I also thought that if we were unable to score a touchdown right there, I thought that leaving them at the five-yard line, with the amount of time that was left, that we could stop them, use our timeouts and still get the ball back.’

Instead, the Orange got neither. Cameron Dantley was flushed out of the pocket on fourth down, and his pass to Donte Davis fell incomplete. Then Noel Devine burst down the sideline for a 92-yard touchdown two plays later.

Rotation stops spinning

As it stands right now, the touted running back rotation is null-and-void. It’s Curtis Brinkley’s show.

Delone Carter, still unable to go with a nagging hamstring pull, did not travel with the team Saturday. Doug Hogue hurt his ankle late in the week leading up to the game, and did not carry the ball Saturday.

Freshman Antwon Bailey filled in a bit, but it was mostly all Brinkley, who ran for 144 yards on 24 carries. Brinkley slashed through holes and leapt over the line of scrimmage late, always searching for more yardage.

‘I loved the way in those short-yardage situations, the way he gave up his body to get over the pile,’ Robinson said. ‘He’s been playing that way all year. It’s really what he’s been about. I just think it was a really fine effort on his part.’

Staff writer Kyle Austin contributed reporting to this story. ramccull@syr.edu

Published on October 12, 2008 at 12:00 pm