We’ll introduce them in simple terms, because Saturday, they seized a game known for its complexities and made it simpler than left-right-left.

First meet Rob Spence. He calls the offensive plays for Toledo. He likes throwing the ball. He thinks short and quick passes are the best way to score, and he’ll repeat such plays whether they’re working or not.

Now meet George DeLeone. He calls the offensive plays for Syracuse. He likes running the ball. He mixes formations and ballcarriers, but he’ll keep the handoffs coming whether they’re working or not.

Each man believes that, with enough repetition, his team can impose its will on the other, and that’s why Syracuse delivered such a basic, but strong message with its 34-7 marooning of Toledo this weekend at the Teflon Tank.

Doggedly, both Spence and DeLeone called the plays they always call. The Orangemen (3-1) stuck by the run on offense, and though the Rockets (3-2) always knew what was coming, they couldn’t stop it – evidenced by Walter Reyes’ 17-carry, 162-yard, two-touchdown highlight reel.

Toledo, meanwhile, rarely strayed from its trademark short-passing game, and SU’s defense stopped it almost every time. Quarterback Bruce Gradkowski threw 50 times, but averaged just 5.1 yards per pass – in short, the SU defense made Toledo’s strength appear like a weakness.

‘We’ve been studying this team for a long time,’ DeLeone said, ‘and we prepared for this game, as coaches, for a year.’

Maybe longer, in fact. When Syracuse played the Rockets last in 1999, DeLeone and the other coaches noticed an alignment in Toledo’s short-yardage that could be exploited. At first chance Saturday, SU did just that. On a third-and-one play midway through the first quarter, DeLeone barked for a power formation. He wanted two tight ends. He wanted Reyes and fullbacks Thump Belton and Darryl Kennedy in a wishbone-formation backfield.

The junior running back accepted the handoff and waited patiently behind the right side of his line, needing only to bury into the pile for a first down. Sixty-one-and-a-half yards later, Reyes stood in the end zone, and SU gripped a 10-0 lead.

‘He just bursts through that hole, and it opens like the Red Sea,’ tight end Lenny Cusumano said. ‘Walter gets up in there, the hole opens up and he takes it to the house. It’s just unbelievable the way he hits that hole.’

Syracuse ran the play three more times. Reyes’s next touchdown, a 43-yarder, unfolded on the identical play call. So did two rushes for first downs later in the game. Sticking fiercely to the ground game, the Orangemen, prior to halftime, had run 38 plays. Wide receivers had touched the ball on two of them. In all, SU rushed 47 times, producing 303 yards and six players with double-digit rushing totals.

Spence’s offense answered SU’s determined running game with an offense that operated mostly out of shotgun and single-back formations, using, for better or worse, more screens than the Sundance Film Festival. A week earlier, in Toledo’s upset of Pittsburgh, Gradkowski had completed 49 of 62 passes for 461 yards.

Yet against Syracuse, Gradkowski struggled, and his receivers, upon catching the short passes, couldn’t elude the SU secondary.

‘We knew they were going to come at us with the slip screen and those type of plays,’ senior linebacker Rich Scanlon said. ‘But if you get him after the catch, it’s only a two-yard gain.’

Said Syracuse defensive coordinator Chris Rippon: ‘Their passing game is really more like a running game. It’s a lot of short passes, a lot of screen passes.’

Toledo attempted 13 screens – most of them to wide receivers – but those plays produced just 57 yards. The Rockets’ only touchdown passed harmlessly at the end of the third quarter, when the Orangemen led 27-0. Gradkowski exploited a busted coverage, one that Rippon took blame for, and completed a 35-yard toss to wide-open wideout Lance Moore.

‘I can’t say that we anticipated that they would only score seven points,’ SU head coach Paul Pasqualoni said. ‘But one of the objectives on defense was to bend, slow it down and try not to break.’

Published on September 28, 2003 at 12:00 pm