Syracuse is looking for ways to overcome inexperience at QB

Syracuse's offensive struggles continued into a third straight game, with the offense only being able to muster two scores in a 30-13 loss to the Pittsburgh Panthers at the JMA Wireless Dome on Saturday.

After averaging 43 points in the first four games of the season with quarterback Steve Angeli leading the way, the Orange have struggled since he went down with a season-ending injury.

His backup, Rickie Collins, has struggled mightily in his absence. He's thrown more interceptions (7) than touchdowns (3), and completed just 15 of 31 passes for 126 yards in the loss to the Panthers.

Collins struggled so much in the first half that the Orange turned to true freshman and third-string quarterback Luke Carney to start the second half. But in the second game of his collegiate career, little could be gleaned from his stint.

Carney plays in the second half

Carney's first drive featured three runs and a punt. On his second drive, he threw two completions to the right sideline for five yards. On a third down he threw a bad ball to the right sideline without an open receiver. He started the third drive and didn’t throw the ball, then was subbed off on third down and never returned to the field.

The final stat line for Carney was meager: 2 of 3 passes for 10 yards and three rushes for nine yards.

As a result, little was learned Carney as he didn't have an opportunity to air the ball out. Syracuse head coach Fran Brown said the reason for bringing in Carney was because we wanted to jumpstart the offense. The mid-drive substitution was because Brown knew that was a playcall Carney was less comfortable with.

As for how much of the offense he thinks Carney can run, Brown said “not much.” Either way, we didn’t find out.

Syracuse's two QBs are still very green

Brown was quick to remind reporters that both Collins and Carney are in the early development stages or their careers. His program had fans slightly spoiled with Kyle McCord and Steve Angeli who both came to Syracuse ready from day one.

“We're very young at quarterback, and we have to develop,” Brown said. “The process, as fast as you guys saw with the Kyle (McCord), with the Steve Angeli, is a little bit different,”

It was only Collins’ third collegiate start and there were some positives. On several plays, he something positive happen on a broken play. He showed solid accuracy on a couple of the deep shots he attempted and looked more comfortable throwing outside the numbers excluding the first interception.

Brown stands by Collins

Unfortunately, that was the list of the positives.

It’ll take time for Collins to develop considering how little experience he has as a college starter or even a proper backup. Brown believes it’s far from the end of the line for Collins and that his development aligns with his vision of how this program will evolve.

“I think that Rickie [Collins] will keep getting better," Brown said. "We're going to keep doing what we need to do to put him in a position to be successful."

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