Though it happened 13 months ago, the Syracuse football team can still hear the echo.

When Collin Barber’s last-minute extra-point try clanged off the left upright in Philadelphia last season, ensuring a 17-16 SU loss to Temple, it left the Orangemen with a sense of disbelief and embarrassment they still carry.

‘I can still hear that sound in my head,’ Barber said. ‘I just remember the feeling.’

‘All I can remember is hearing that clang off the goalpost,’ linebacker Rich Scanlon said.

Syracuse can absolve the stain of its loss tomorrow in the Carrier Dome, where it plays Temple at 1:30 p.m. for the first time since Barber’s kick struck yellow. It’ll be a moment the Orangemen have waited for all year, a chance to avenge its most embarrassing loss in a sobering season.

Temple’s victory snapped SU’s 16-game win streak against Temple and dropped the Orangemen to 1-5. And the Owls didn’t just beat Syracuse, they totally controlled the game. Temple rang up 500 yards of total offense, led by 340 passing yards by Mike McGann. Several Syracuse players said it was the low point in a season full of them.

‘It was like getting punched by a girl,’ Donnelly said. ‘It’s like in sixth grade, you come home with a broken nose and your mom says, ‘What happened?’ You’re like, ‘Oh, I got hit by a girl.’ It just doesn’t happen. Syracuse doesn’t lose to Temple.’

‘Being in this program, you have to look at guys like (former SU head coach Dick MacPherson) that played here for so long,’ quarterback R.J. Anderson said. ‘You can’t look them in the face. It’s like you’re disrespecting them.’

Indeed, the Owls are perennial Big East doormats. Since 1991, Temple has won 13 Big East games. Temple has been so historically bad that it will be expelled from the conference after the 2004 season.

‘We’re not supposed to lose to Temple,’ tight end Lenny Cusumano said.

Though painful, the game served as a lesson for Syracuse. It learned to never again take any team lightly, even the lowly Owls.

This season, that may be difficult. Temple comes in at 1-7 overall and 0-3 in the Big East. In its last game, it lost to Rutgers, 30-14, the Big East equivalent of a minnow eating a guppy.

Still, not wanting to repeat last year’s sins, Syracuse has convinced itself it will play a powerhouse Saturday. Donnelly said practice leading up to tomorrow – even during SU’s bye week – was more intense than any other this season, filled with trash-talking and fights breaking out.

‘This Temple team is as dangerous as last year’s Temple team,’ SU head coach Paul Pasqualoni said. ‘There is no way you would say with their record that they are having any success. They’re like a bomb just ticking away and ready to go off.’

Despite its atrocious record, TU has only been overmatched twice this season, against Boston College and Miami, to which it lost by a combined score of 90-27.

But the Owls have hung with Penn State and Louisville and took Cincinnati to overtime.

‘Watching them on film,’ Cusumano said, ‘you wonder, ‘Why are they at their record right now?’ ‘

One reason: A year after losing fourth-round draft pick Dan Klecko – now a defensive tackle for the New England Patriots – Temple’s defense has surrendered 31.6 points a game, 92nd in the nation.

Making matters worse for the Owls, they’ll likely be without McGann on Saturday. It’s unlikely he’ll play because of an injured right – and throwing – elbow, meaning sophomore Walter Washington will start. He’s played in all eight TU games this season, throwing for 477 yards, four touchdowns and no interceptions.

Maybe most weeks, Syracuse wouldn’t be wholly focused for a 1-7 opponent starting its backup signal-caller. But one ball-meets-iron moment a year ago has provided all the incentive the Orangemen need.

‘We just want to hit those kids, beat the crap out them, get this game out of the way,’ Donnelly said. ‘Losing to them last year was more than embarrassing.’

Published on November 6, 2003 at 12:00 pm