As Trill Williams ripped the ball out of the arms of a Wake Forest receiver and began to sprint 94 yards for the game-clinching touchdown, all Kendall Coleman could think of was a conversation the two had months ago. 

The season was about to start, and the senior defensive lineman wanted to make sure his playmakers in the defensive backfield were doing everything right to get prepared for the year. Coleman pulled Williams aside, confirming with the sophomore that he was prepared to take the next step forward in his development. 

Williams told Coleman, “Don’t worry. We won’t let you go out the wrong way.”

So as Williams plucked the ball from Kendall Hinton, moved it to his right arm, and outran everyone on the field to unleash a one final football celebration inside the Carrier Dome this season, Coleman smiled. Syracuse’s (5-7, 2-6 Atlantic Coast) season didn’t go the way Coleman and the Orange wanted it to. But as his teammate and mentee took off down the left sideline in front of him, Coleman realized that what Williams told him months ago was true. And on senior day, that’s all that mattered. 

Williams’ forced fumble and touchdown finally put an end to an up-and-down game that somehow perfectly symbolized the highs and lows Syracuse endured this season. The Orange’s 39-30 overtime win over Wake Forest (8-4, 4-4 ACC) means nothing going forward, especially for an SU team that had bowl aspirations heading into this season. But for the Syracuse players and the 22 seniors on the team, Saturday’s win meant everything. 

“To have a situation where we could send those young men out as winners,” SU head coach Dino Babers said, “the rest of the team rallied to play for something when a lot of people thought they had nothing to play for.”

Saturday’s win confirmed that the Orange didn’t stop fighting. They had proved that all season and continued to do so during their season finale. A first half in which Syracuse jumped ahead 17-6 and looked firmly in control gave fans hope, just as the first win of the season did, a shutout victory over Liberty. 

But negatives soon followed. Wake Forest scored touchdowns on each of its first two drives in the second half. Syracuse, meanwhile, dropped its second and third games of the season in embarrassing fashion. It was certainly a setback, but not a significant enough one to stop the Orange completely. 

They fought back, jumping ahead of Wake Forest, 27-20, on the back of Moe Neal, a senior playing his final collegiate game. They bounced back against Western Michigan and Holy Cross early in the season, pushing their record above .500. Prospects looked promising, just as they had at the start. But again, they soured. The Demon Deacons drove down the field and tied the game up at 27, then again at 30 in the final seconds, to send the game into overtime. After its pair of wins, Syracuse lost five out of its next six games, all to ACC opponents, many projected to finish much lower when the season began.

The season culminated in Saturday’s overtime period. It began with an SU three-and-out and an Andre Szmyt field goal that pushed it ahead 33-30. It took the Demon Deacons just three plays to advance the ball to the Syracuse 10-yard line. Then Sam Hartman threw the ball to Kendall Hinton, and Hinton was met by Williams. 

“I couldn’t even believe what was happening,” SU wide receiver Trishton Jackson said. “Trill is my roommate, we talked about this a lot of times. He has a knack for the ball.”

Williams sized up Hinton, briefly allowing the wide receiver to get by him before latching onto Hinton’s left arm and the ball. In one fluid motion, Williams ripped the ball out and turned upfield, toward the Wake Forest endzone that was nearly an entire field length away. 

Williams didn’t need to score. If he had just dropped to the ground, Syracuse would’ve still won. But he didn’t hesitate. As Williams got to full speed and everyone in the stadium realized what was happening, the shell-shocked crowd rose to its feet. His teammates on the sideline began bouncing up and down, shuffling in the same direction as the blue-and-orange blur in front of them. 

“I take you back to high school, same exact play, I just didn’t score,” Williams said. “But this time I did. I always try to be around the ball, try to make a play, I didn’t have to score, but I scored for the seniors going out, had to give them something.”

After the season Syracuse had been through, after the four-hour-long game that had just occurred, three points weren’t enough. This game, this season, this team had to go out on that moment.

Once Williams turned around in the middle of the endzone, he’d been joined by the rest of his team and coaches. None of them cared much that the win was just their fifth of the season, half as many as last year. They didn’t care that there was no bowl game in their future. And they sure didn’t care that their season had fallen well short of even the most modest expectations. 

“You don’t play this game for no reason,” Coleman said. “There’s no game that has no reason. Everybody on this team is a competitor, so every time we step on this field it means something.”

After a lost season, most people probably can’t quite identify what that “something” was for Syracuse on Saturday versus Wake Forest. Some never will. That doesn’t matter to the Orange. 

“It’s hard, but we fought every game,” SU quarterback Clayton Welch said. “I don’t think we gave up in any game. If you fight, you right.”

Published on November 30, 2019 at 7:29 pm

Contact Eric: [email protected] | @esblack34