The first words out of Scott Shafer’s mouth to the media after Syracuse’s spring game were that he was happy to get through it. Saturday afternoon came and went with one touchdown on more than a dozen drives. Here are a few thoughts on the Orange’s offense.

Much ado about nothing

Shafer, the head coach, said he only called about three run plays all afternoon and didn’t show much aside from a lot of deep ball attempts because he didn’t want to put much on video tape or on television. There was no score kept, but regardless, there wasn’t much of a score to keep.

The only “scoring” play was a 36-yard touchdown pass from Austin Wilson over the middle to Adly Enoicy. The Orange tried numerous deep passes to Brisly Estime, who finished with two catches for 43 yards.

“A lot of the plays we feel good about we didn’t run today, to be quite honest with you,” Shafer said. “But it’s been good and more than anything else good to get out of spring healthy.”

Quarterback Terrel Hunt said there wasn’t much energy on the sideline because the players were upset to be limited by the lack of plays.

Said Hunt: “Guys were getting frustrated because we couldn’t run the plays we wanted.”

Know his name

It took the entire first half of the spring game for the public address announcer to properly pronounce Jamal Custis’ name — it had been “Jamel” up until that point.

Despite the mispronunciation, he had a beautiful 39-yard diving catch on a pass from Hunt for SU’s longest play of the day.

It was the only catch he registered on the day, but the Syracuse quarterbacks made a point of throwing to him deep.

After the game, Hunt said he sees him as a potential first-round pick in a future NFL Draft. He said the rising sophomore still has a ways to go, but has unlimited potential as evidenced by his play on Saturday.

“He shows glimpses of him Moss’ing somebody,” Hunt said, “you know he’s a fast guy, he’s like 6-6, I love throwing to him.”

Hunting season

Hunt has been bothered by a sore leg this spring, but it has healed up in recent weeks. He was 10-for-30 and had 145 yards. A lot of his passes sailed high and wide and he threw an interception on the first drive to rising junior cornerback Corey Winfield.

He made 30 throws while Austin Wilson had 10 and AJ Long only made eight. Shafer said Hunt’s done a nice job adjusting to Tim Lester’s new offense, but still has work to do.

“He’s had some real good days. Today I thought he was OK,” Shafer said. “I think he’s got a lot of things to work on, as do all the quarterbacks.”

Published on April 4, 2015 at 4:20 pm

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