Syracuse looks up at a mountain of odds in Miami on Saturday. SU is a 21-point underdog, and the Hurricanes have outscored the Orangemen, 71-13, in the last two meetings.

And, the Orangemen’s defensive savior, Dwight Freeney, faces a daunting peak of his own. Bryant McKinnie, a 6-foot-9, 335-pound mass of flesh and muscle squeezed into a green jersey soaked with confidence, matches up against Freeney on the left side of the Hurricanes’ massive offensive line.

‘I look forward to it even more because I’ve heard a lot of trash talking said by him, like he wants to make his first million off of me,’ McKinnie said at a press conference this week. ‘You have to play the game first before you make any money.

‘He’s a good player but so am I. I’m not garbage.’

The McKinnie-Freeney showdown pits perhaps the best offensive lineman and defensive lineman in the country against each other.

‘He’s so big,’ the 6-foot-1, 250-pound Freeney said. ‘People don’t understand he has a 94-inch wingspan. That’s (about) eight feet. Hearing that doesn’t make any sense to me.’

The Miami offensive line’s numbers are near irrational as well. The average Hurricane offensive lineman’s height is just over 6-foot-5. The line’s combined weight is 1,540 pounds – a 308-pound average.

Possibly most impressively, the mammoth line has surrendered just one sack all season on quarterback Ken Dorsey.

‘I think it’s a credit to all them that he doesn’t get sacked,’ Syracuse head coach Paul Pasqualoni said.

Though Dorsey threw four interceptions against Boston College last Saturday, he’s still in the running for the Heisman Trophy mostly because of the pocket passing time his offensive line affords him.

‘We definitely had something to do with it,’ right guard Martin Bibla said. ‘So if he gets (the Heisman) it’s an honor for us.’

Freeney, with 16.5 sacks this season, is a Heisman candidate as well. While Miami head coach Larry Coker said he plans to ‘know where he is and neutralize him the best we can,’ he didn’t specify on whether the ‘Canes will double-team Freeney.

If they choose to, they’ll have to do it without starting left guard Sherko Haji-Rasouli, who could be done for the season with a knee injury suffered in practice last week.

Junior Ed Wilkins, just two inches shorter and seven pounds lighter than the 6-foot-6, 315-pound Haji-Rasouli, assumes the starting spot.

‘If three times a game (Freeney’s) going one-one-one,’ SU defensive tackle Mark Holtzman said, ‘he’s going to get to the quarterback two of those three times. All year long they’ve had to double team Dwight, and the rest of the defensive line, our front seven, has been as productive as anybody in the country.’

Either way, Dorsey’s not worried about getting nailed from behind.

‘I’m not going to be taking a five-step drop and looking at Dwight Freeney the entire time,’ Dorsey said. ‘Really, he’s Bryant’s responsibility and I have a lot of faith in Bryant.’

McKinnie indicated that Miami might attempt to run the ball at Freeney because ‘you can just push him right out of way.’

Right tackle Joaquin Gonzalez counts technique and using varying snap cadences as Freeney-slowing tools.

‘It’s not as much as we have to do trick plays or have to do yeoman’s work to stop him,’ Gonzalez said.

As for Bibla, he seems nonchalant about the whole issue.

‘We definitely don’t concentrate on him,’ said Bibla, one of four All-America candidates on an offensive line that features a multi-cultural twist. Gonzalez is from Cuba, Haji-Rasouli is Iranian, Bibla’s parents are from Russia and Poland, McKinnie is African-American and from New Jersey and center Brett Romberg is Canadian.

They’ll form a gargantuan international wall tomorrow afternoon, just as they have so many times. They’ll battle an SU defensive line almost 40 pounds lighter on average. And they’ll bring that trademark Miami swagger – all 300-plus pounds of it.

‘We’ve got to go here and not even make it a contest,’ McKinnie said. ‘Have the starters out of the game by the third quarter and then sit back and have a good time.’

Published on November 15, 2001 at 12:00 pm