Carried Away In Syracuse

By Tom Callahan

As if playing for the basketball title were an elixir, the football teams of Indiana and Syracuse have kept the ball going into the fall. For the first time ever, the Hoosiers have trimmed both Ohio State and Michigan on the same calendar, and this time the Orangemen have gone them one better. On top of beating both Penn State and Pitt, 17 years in the trying, Syracuse is undefeated. It is 1959 again.

Ben Schwartzwalder has been gone from the sidelines for 14 seasons, and the team has been gone from the headlines for 20. But everything came back together again at the Penn State game, when the Orangemen ran off to a 41-0 lead and Dick MacPherson quickly summoned the old coach from the press box. "The greatness of Syracuse football, the tradition of it, is Ben Schwartzwalder," says his second successor, now seven years on the job. "The kids just love him. He tells them stories and gets them out of wind sprints." They carried Ben off the field after Penn State was finished, 48-21. Really, they were carrying something else back on.

Although Schwartzwalder does tend to mention unbalanced lines, eight-man blocking fronts and halfback option passes, most of his stories are about ball carriers, a sequence of unbelievable runners, all of them wearing No. 44. "Jim Brown, Ernie Davis, Floyd Little," he says with a snap in his voice, though his own number now is 78. "They never knew what they did. They just did it. Perfect instincts. Larry Csonka's instinct was to drop his shoulder and run over you. That worked too." Because Csonka started as a lineman, he never wore 44. Joe Morris was offered the number around 1980 but declined. A large part of Syracuse was declining.

Starting with 5-6, 4-6-1 and 2-9 years, the '80s has offered the Orangemen just one bowl game, the infamous Cherry Bowl of 1985, which neglected to pay off. "They were 2-9 the year I got out of high school," says Billy Owens, a kid who grew up near the campus. "There was an occasional player I liked, like Art Monk, but I was into little-league football on Saturdays and wasn't very much aware of Syracuse." From an unsafe safety position with Pitt, Owens was made aware at homecoming this year in Pittsburgh, to a half-time tune of 24-3, eventually played out to 24-10. As homecoming opponents, the Orangemen have lost their charm.

The main reason is Donnie McPherson, a resourceful senior quarterback from West Hempstead, N.Y. Being a black quarterback, he is often referred to as a running quarterback, though in fact he is a quarterback-quarte rback. "Only Syracuse promised me that I would be the quarterback and that I'd be allowed to do quarterback things," he says. "Other schools talked about trying me there but said to keep receiving in mind, and maybe defensive back." This sham goes back as far as leather helmets, but the schools leaving it behind are increasing. No fewer than 15 black quarterbacks have been leading major college teams this year, including Nebraska's Steve Taylor and, until he was injured last Saturday, Oklahoma's Jamelle Holieway.

"I've felt myself gaining something all season," says McPherson, the thrower growing into the pitcher. "Instead of firing the ball, I've found touch. We all found something in the Virginia Tech game." Behind 21-7 at the half, the team spent most of the intermission looking at the word character chalked on a blackboard. As if it really were 1959, the innocent year they won the national championship, the Orangemen roared back to win, 35-21.

Long retired from a fine pro career with Denver, Floyd Little returned to Syracuse this year for the Penn State game, and the sight of Sophomore Runner Michael Owens, No. 44, delighted him. "The shirt's out of the pants, the feet don't stay on the ground very long -- it all looks right to me," he says. "Sometimes I get to thinking about the day, right around Christmastime, when Ernie Davis came to New Haven to recruit me. Jim Brown had come for him the same way. After so many years, you wonder where the thread broke." It pleases Little to think he had a small part in the restringing. MacPherson was an assistant coach for the Broncos in Little's time, and Floyd recommended him heartily.

MacPherson, 57, "Mac" to all, is a former center from Maine with a bent nose and a bright outlook. "When you're first coming on, that's the best time in coaching," he says. "Nobody takes anything for granted yet. When you're 5-6 ((as Syracuse was last year)), you have to be Harold Hill with all 76 trombones. But when you're good for the first time in a long time, everything's beautiful. And wonderful. And, 'I understand why I'm not playing, coach. It's because he's better.' " Mac makes it sound like being in love. "We're good, and we're doing good," he adds cautiously, "but I don't know if we're a bunch of No. 1 draft picks." For one thing, they have no punting game, though this has made them unpredictable near their goal line, and in the spirit of the renaissance, they have resurrected quick kicks.

If they can beat Boston College this week and West Virginia next, both at home in the basketball-scented Carrier Dome, they will be 11-0, and at least have a bowl day's chance at No. 1. Should Syracuse wind up at the New Orleans Sugar Bowl, the symmetry will be served. The Orange basketball team lost the title there. As the Penn State game ended four weeks ago, Floyd Little made a broken-field run to a phone to call his old friend, the Syracuse basketball great Dave Bing. "Hey Dave," he said, "guess what."