The Syracuse defense still had a little more rampage left in the tank. The Orange led 31-13 and Rutgers had the ball with 1:00 to go, but the defense took the opportunity to pad its stat line.

On the second play of the drive, Doug Hogue busted through for yet another SU sack as the clock ticked closer and closer to zero. Rutgers tried another play, and quarterback Tom Savage found himself on the ground again, this time courtesy of a sack by Randy McKinnon. The Orange just tallied its ninth sack, Rutgers walked off the field, and the game ended in a fitting way that captured the dominant effort of the defense.

‘All I can say is we keep doing what we do,’ Hogue, who led the team with a school record 6.5 tackles for loss. ‘We attack the quarterback always and it was working for us and we did a great job.’

Syracuse’s consistent defensive pressure on Rutgers stymied the Scarlet Knights as the Orange crushed Rutgers, 31-13, Saturday night at the Carrier Dome. Syracuse held Rutgers to just 130 yards of offense, the lowest of any team on the season, and tied a single-game school record with its nine sacks.

‘We just wanted to keep the pressure on a lot, we didn’t want to let up at all,’ Hogue said. ‘Going into this game we wanted to make sure the quarterback felt we were going to bring it and that’s what we were going to do.’

After losing top linebacker Derrell Smith for the season with a tear in his lateral meniscus Wednesday, Syracuse’s defense took the field Saturday without its starting middle linebacker, strong safety (Max Suter), and nose tackle (Art Jones). Despite the loss of these players, Syracuse played its stingiest game of the year.

‘Everyone could say, ooh the defense is not going to do good and we lost those big-time players,’ said Mike Stenclik, who filled in for Smith at middle linebacker. ‘It really shows how we could excel and overcome the adversity.’

The key was an incessant amount of pressure on Savage. Syracuse dialed up its blitzes and constantly came after the QB, tossing him to the ground like a rag doll for most of the day. The Rutgers offensive line could not stop Syracuse from finding its way into the backfield and causing chaos.

It didn’t matter if it was from the inside or the outside lanes, Syracuse parked itself in the backfield. On the Orange’s first sack of the game, Hogue burst through a gap in the offensive line and sacked Savage as he took the snap.

‘We’ve been an aggressive defense, and at times, we’ve been too aggressive with what coverage we’re playing behind,’ SU head coach Doug Marrone said. ‘Today, we did a nice job of mixing that up and today we did a nice job of going after it and winning upfront.’

At times, the Syracuse defense made it look too easy. Rutgers moved the ball to the SU 14 with under two minutes remaining in the first half, trailing 24-10. On the first play, E.J. Carter zipped into the backfield and sacked Savage for a 12-yard loss. Next, Hogue crushed an unprotected Savage from the right to force a fumble that set-up an eventual 3rd-and-49.

Late in the fourth quarter, with Syracuse leading 31-13 and 4:44 to remain, Syracuse sacked Savage on three consecutive plays. Shamarko Thomas got to the quarterback from the right side, McKinnon brought back Savage to the 15-yard line, and Carter capped it by bringing Savage down at the 1-yard line. An all-but-impossible 4th-and-44 scenario presented itself, and Rutgers punted.

‘That was fun being able to push them back 30 (yards),’ said safety Mike Holmes, who had two interceptions. ‘That was a testament to the guys up front and the gameplan and keeping the pressure on them.’

Rutgers finished with 130 yards of offense and just 26 yards on the ground. Holmes said he knew the Orange was in for a big day defensively when RU could not move the ball like it wanted and had just 13 yards of total offense. The secondary had two picks as well.

While Hogue paced the defense with his record-breaking day, Carter and McKinnon each had two sacks as well. Stenclik did a fine job replacing Smith, and the secondary had perhaps its best game of the season. Without its stars, the Syracuse defense shined as bright as it has all year.

‘The thing about it is when the players went down everybody on the defense stepped up,’ Hogue said. ‘We all stepped up and we kept pushing for each other and we kept feeding off each other throughout the game.’

mrehalt@syr.edu

Published on November 24, 2009 at 12:00 pm