THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 29, 1996 TAG: 9609290195
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: TOM ROBINSON
DATELINE: SYRACUSE, N.Y. LENGTH: 64 lines
Taped to the locker of every Virginia Tech player Saturday was an orange card with black words, fightin' words supposedly uttered this week by one Syracuse player or another.
``Overranked?'' the card blared. ``We've got something for them. Tech is just what we need.''
Maybe somebody really said it. Maybe they didn't. Football coaches are hardly above concocting inflammatory stuff in the hope of producing a lovely froth around their boys' mouths.
Turns out, though, that the card wasn't lying. Syracuse had something for Tech all right. Plenty of it. So much that the Hokies departed the Carrier Dome humbled, if not humiliated, the carcass of their 13-game winning streak dragging alongside.
The Orangemen had 52-21 for the Hokies. They had Donovan McNabb, a slippery option quarterback who accounted for 250 of his team's 461 yards. They had a jam-it-down-their-throat game plan that worked with stunning ease. They had an answer for nearly any question Tech, ranked 16th and 18th in the polls this week, put before them.
In the end, Syracuse, the heavy preseason favorite in the Big East, had a kind of whipping for the Hokies that they haven't endured for almost a decade, in a CBS feature fed to most of the country, no less.
``The scary thing is, we can still play better,'' Syracuse coach Paul Pasqualoni said. ``We're not error-free yet.''
The strange thing was this was Syracuse's first victory in three games. Already, the Orangemen have had sort of a wacky cloud over them, particularly last week when Minnesota returned fumbles for touchdowns on consecutive plays and beat them 35-33.
Folly and frustration dogged Syracuse in this game, too. Tech's Cornelius White lifted a punt from the foot of Sean Reali in the second quarter, just plucked it like a grape at a full sprint, and never broke stride until he was 60 yards away in the end zone.
On Syracuse's next play, memories of Minnesota. McNabb fumbled it away, Tech scored a couple plays later for a 14-7 lead, and you had to wonder if Syracuse could rebound.
``I just told the team, `It's my fault, I'm going to try to do something to bring us back,' '' McNabb said.
His teammate Kevin Abrams beat him to it. He, too, snuffed a punt that was recovered for the touchdown that put the Orangemen ahead to stay. Then tailback Tebucky Jones - and with a great name like Tebucky, you know he's got to be good - escaped a six-on-one trap, reversed his field and scored from 23 yards out.
Finally, in the second half, McNabb grabbed the stage. His 48-yard strike to Jim Turner set up his 10-yard scoring pass to Quinton Spotwood. Later, McNabb faked the numbers off of Tech's defensive front and raced 72 yards to the 1. That led to a 38-21 lead and the dimming of Tech's lights.
``We never know what our big play is going to be,'' McNabb said. ``I'm happy that we had a balanced attack against a strong V-Tech team that had a nice streak going. We were happy to end it.''
And to hand out a lesson that Tech's White said hit home with authority.
``We didn't answer the call,'' White said. ``I'm kind of embarrassed. It was like a wakeup call, and kind of what we needed, because we were riding high for a while. But we didn't come out to play.''
Even an hour after the game, it was as if McNabb was still playing. A Syracuse sports information guy poked his head into the press box to announce a new statistic - McNabb didn't gain 125 yards, he said. He actually ran for 127 on the finest day of his sophomore season.
Sad, but true - Tech was just what McNabb and Syracuse needed. by CNB