ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) – Doug Marrone signed autographs, posed for photos, thanked many of the couple hundred fans who turned out on a bone-chilling day, then assessed Syracuse’s first scrimmage of spring.
“The defense did a nice job,” the Orange’s third-year head coach said Saturday as he stood on the artificial turf field at Sahlen’s Stadium, the towering Kodak building dominating the downtown skyline behind him. “Offensively, a couple of guys made some plays, but we’ve got to sustain. For the first scrimmage, the turnover situation wasn’t bad. The unforced errors were not bad at all. So from that standpoint, it was pretty good.”
Marrone said the team ran 85 plays – unofficially, quarterback Ryan Nassib completed about half of his 25 passes for around 100 yards, backup Charley Loeb hit Jarrod West for a 42-yard touchdown, and tailback Antwon Bailey rushed for 44 yards on 10 carries – and nobody was injured.
Perhaps more importantly, the Orange practiced in a different city as the school tries to reconnect with lost roots.
That the nearly 2-hour session was conducted 90 miles from the cozy confines of the Carrier Dome and was outdoors in a stiff wind with temperatures hovering at the freezing mark and a 3-foot-high snowbank encircling the field didn’t matter one bit.
Heck, at least the sun was shining.
“It was great to come up here and get outdoors,” Marrone said. “It was a cold day, but it wasn’t a distraction. We were excited to come up here and play. I think it’s important. We have lost some people from this area. I go back to my days playing, we had a large fan base here in Rochester. We had a lot of players from the Rochester area.”
“I think it’s perfect for us to be here. It seems like the people that are here are pretty enthused about it,” athletic director Daryl Gross said. “It’s probably too chilly to get the masses out.”
University officials said it was the first time in anyone’s recollection the team had practiced on the road.
“I knew a lot of the guys that have been through this program and none of them had ever done something like this,” Nassib said. “It’s a good time to get out to the fans, come to them, have a scrimmage in their town. It’s a great experience for us and a lot of the younger guys.”
Marrone led Syracuse to an 8-5 record last fall and its first bowl victory in a decade, a 36-34 win over Kansas State in the Pinstripe Bowl at Yankee Stadium in late December. It was the team’s first winning season since 2001, and the down years in between affected home attendance in a big way.
Average attendance since the heady days of Donovan McNabb in the late 1990s has dipped well below 40,000, and the school is striving to rebuild the fan base.
“They love football up here. I think it’s important for us to reach out to the people in this community,” Marrone said. “We know there might have been a little disassociation, but we’re doing our part. We’re going to come here as much as we can to make sure you feel a part of this program.”
With tailback Averin Collier, a star tailback from the Rochester suburbs, no longer on the team because of academic problems, the Orange did not have any players from the area at the end of 2010.
That’s about to change.
Quarterback Ashton Broyld of Rush-Henrietta High School in suburban Rochester signed with the team in February and is due in preseason camp this summer. Apparently, he can’t wait because he braved the cold weather to watch his future teammates put on the pads for only the third time this spring.
“It shows a lot of love,” Broyld said. “A lot of kids here are going to start being seen. There’s a lot of talent here.”
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