Brandon Harris took a snap out of the shotgun and less than two seconds later was lying on the Carrier Dome turf with 5-foot-8, 175-pound Antwan Cordy staring down at him. Two plays later, Cordy forced a pass destined for the hands of Malchi Dupre to the ground, capping of an LSU three-and-out.

The sophomore safety carried his weight on an afternoon when the rest of the Syracuse secondary didn’t. Wayne Morgan, Chauncey Scissum and Rodney Williams were left chasing Leonard Fournette. Julian Whigham had the two most costly mistakes of the game in the fourth quarter. But Cordy, all in his compact stature, led the Orange (3-1, 1-0 Atlantic Coast) in tackles and tackles for loss in a 34-24 loss to No. 8 LSU (3-0, 2-0 Southeastern).

He sat in a chair adjacent to Scott Shafer in the postgame interview room, hands on his knees as he listened to his head coach talk about what could have been. Shafer talked big picture, but also took time to highlight less than a handful of individual performances.

“The little guy over here that we call Giant, Cordy has eight tackles, two (tackles for loss), a sack,” Shafer said. “That’s a good job. I’m proud of you.”

During Syracuse’s training camp, Shafer told a story about Cordy conquering a military obstacle course despite an overwhelming fear of heights. His smaller frame carries over to his personality in some areas, but 6-foot-6, 300-plus-pound linemen were no obstacle as he darted through the line twice on Saturday.

In the fourth quarter, Cordy tackled Fournette for a 6-yard loss, his only negative run on the afternoon. A week ago against Auburn, the LSU running back wasn’t even touched in the backfield.

LSU is built around its run game, but the Tigers also aired it out over SU’s struggling secondary to keep the hosts within comfortable distance.

Cordy was more disruptive in the box, but against teams focusing less on a Heisman-caliber running back, Cordy’s outing, and SU’s, could be indicative of an upward trend Syracuse knows some don’t expect.

“I felt like we got more confidence after playing LSU. They only beat us by 10 points,” Cordy said. “So I feel like we can hang with any team now going forward.”

Published on September 27, 2015 at 12:27 pm

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