IOWA CITY, Iowa – Curtis Brinkley summed up Saturday’s game with three words: frustrating, embarrassing and disappointing.

A 35-0 loss to Iowa, earmarked by one total Syracuse yard in the first half and 290 yards allowed through the air, and SU fans could probably find a few more words to describe what happened at Kinnick Field.

For the second game in a row, the Orange was outrun, outpassed, outscored and outperformed, this time on the road against the Hawkeyes in front of 70,505 gold-clad Iowa fans on a raucous Saturday night.

Syracuse started off its second game precisely where it left off its first: in pursuit.

Instead of chasing running backs and quarterbacks as with Washington, though, the Orange found itself off the heels of wide receivers and tight ends, cut open by Iowa quarterback Jake Christensen who hit everyone in stride and with room to run.

The sourest cynic would not have seen this coming. They might not have wished it either.

‘Obviously there’s something in there that isn’t going right,’ Syracuse head coach Greg Robinson said. ‘That’s what we got to continue to evaluate.’

Whereas SU played its first half tough against the Huskies last week, the Orange collapsed quickly to Iowa. By the end of the first quarter, Iowa had a 14-0 lead and the look of a team just starting to get rolling. And they were-the Hawkeyes added two more scores less than five minutes later.

Iowa’s fourth touchdown of the game, with 9:55 left in the second quarter, saw Christensen scramble to his left, elude sack attempts by both defensive linemen Jameel McClain and Nick Santiago, set up and fire a completion to a wide open Moeaki in the right corner of the endzone. It was exercise in Syracuse futility and an example of the degree of separation between the two teams: Iowa could mess up brutally and still recover; Syracuse couldn’t stop it from happening.

‘It’s frustrating because you work so hard,’ SU safety Joe Fields said. ‘Going into these games, you don’t see the outcomes coming out like this.’

The problems for SU seemed incalculable. There was the mirage of an offense. Syracuse didn’t record a first down until with 9:33 left in the third quarter. It had one total yard of offense at halftime, two field goal attempts blocked, at least seven dropped passes, six sacks, six penalties and 24 rushing yards.

There was the ghost of a defense. Christensen, in just his third career start, cut up SU’s secondary. Two of his first seven passes went for touchdowns-one a 52-yard completion to Moeaki, the other a 36-yard screen to running back Albert Young.

Together, there was no stopping Iowa on this night.

‘There’s going to be times like this,’ Brinkley said. ‘There’s going to ups, downs, good games and bad games. Just have to keep on working.’

SU quarterback Andrew Robinson had trouble finding his receivers and staying away from pressure. He didn’t complete a pass until 6:44 in the second quarter and was zero for his first six attempts. The running game was impossibly worse, playing most of the game in negative yardage and without a run longer than 14 yards.

The game unraveled on Iowa’s second drive of the game. After a flag on Syracuse’s Jake Flaherty for a late hit out of bounds brought the ball up to Iowa’s 40, Christensen found a wide open Moeaki up the seam of the defense. Moeaki broke attempts at tackles by Orange defensive backs Dowayne Davis and A.J. Brown to scamper into the endzone for a 52-yard score.

‘It was a breakdown in communication with everybody,’ Fields said. ‘We got to do a better job at minimizing that play.’

On the ensuing Syracuse drive, Hawkeyes’ linebacker Mike Humpal picked off Robinson’s pass and capitalized on its field position: a 36-yard screen pass to running back Albert Young gave Iowa a 14-0 lead in 10 minutes.

‘I can’t tell you why they penetrated us in the running game the way they did in the first half,’ Greg Robinson said. ‘I thought going into the game we were going to block them some. And in the first half I didn’t see that.’

After last Friday night’s home meltdown to Washington saw the Orange allow 302 rushing yards and six rushing touchdowns, Saturday’s game witnessed 290 yards allowed in the air and four passing touchdowns.

This leaves Syracuse with even more questions to be answered than last weekend.

‘I told them there’s no time to feel sorry for yourself,’ Robinson said. ‘Coaches and players alike. It’s time to get right back to work and get going. What is, is. It’s time to get things fixed. Baby steps, that’s what we have to do. They know it. They’re hurting.’

Published on September 8, 2007 at 12:00 pm