The chains were still being moved when Terrel Hunt spiked the ball at the Louisville 41-yard line.

He had already tried to signal for a timeout he didn’t have on first-and-10, wasting crucial seconds. There were nine left in the second quarter and Syracuse was down by nine. After the spike, on second-and-10 he lofted a 39-yard pass between two defenders to Jarrod West, who fell at the Louisville 2.

If SU was to spike the ball again, three seconds had to be run off, per a 2013 change to NCAA rules. But only two seconds remained. Hunt spiked it and the half ended.

“We rushed judgment, we tried to spike it and we ran out of time,” SU head coach Scott Shafer said. “If we had had three we would’ve had a shot there.”

The Orange (2-3, 0-1 Atlantic Coast) ultimately fell to Louisville (5-1, 3-1 Atlantic Coast) 28-6 on Friday night in front of 37,569 in the Carrier Dome. But the series of errors at the end of the first half cost SU a chance to close the gap on the Cardinals and enter halftime with momentum.

Hunt was not available to the media after the game as he was getting treatment.

SU wide receiver Ben Lewis said his teammates knew they couldn’t spike the ball and simply got lost in the chaos.

“I think we know the rule,” he said. “It was just a hectic situation and obviously next time we’ll handle it a lot better.”

Published on October 4, 2014 at 12:05 am

Contact Jacob: jmklinge@syr.edu | @Jacob_Klinger_