Alec Lemon won’t remember this game for his career performance. Instead of his 10 catches for 179 yards and two touchdowns, the plays the junior wide receiver didn’t make will stand out in his mind.

Trailing South Florida by 13 in the fourth quarter, the Orange moved the ball into the red zone. On third-and-13 from the 17-yard line, Lemon couldn’t catch up to a pass in the corner of the end zone.

But the next play may be the one that lingers in his memory. Lemon beat his man down the seam and leaped to catch the fourth-down pass at the goal line. The ball landed right in his hands but fell to the turf by the time he hit the ground.

‘Those two opportunities I had for the touchdown to bring our team closer, that’s something that will haunt me tonight and all through the bye week,’ Lemon said. ‘That’s something I have to get over.’

Lemon wasn’t the only receiver who dropped a touchdown for the Orange on Friday, though. Dorian Graham and David Stevens also failed to hold onto the football on probable scoring plays. And while the drops were the most glaring Syracuse errors, mistakes all over the field doomed the Orange (5-5, 1-4 Big East) in a 37-17 loss to South Florida (5-4, 1-4 Big East) in front of 41,582 fans in the Carrier Dome.

The loss extends Syracuse’s losing streak to three games and drops the team to last place in the Big East.

‘We’ve been trying to get bowl eligible since the Louisville game and we’ve been unsuccessful,’ linebacker Marquis Spruill said. ‘That’s really what we’re pushing for right now. We’ve just got to do something or fix something to help us get the next win.’

After Friday, Syracuse has a lot to fix. Drops hurt the Orange throughout the game, and a couple of key mistakes early on special teams added to the team’s struggles.

Syracuse handed South Florida 86 yards on seven penalties in the game, but it was the drops by Orange receivers that halted SU’s comeback hopes the rest of the way.

After a B.J. Daniels’ touchdown run with 3:27 remaining in the second quarter, Syracuse drove down to the South Florida red zone and faced a third down from the 11-yard line.

Quarterback Ryan Nassib dropped back to pass and looked to his left before coming back to Graham on a backside slant. Graham beat his man, and Nassib put the ball on him. But it bounced off the hands of the senior wideout just before the goal line.

Nassib said he probably could have taken a little heat off the throw, but Graham took full responsibility for the drop.

‘That’s completely my fault,’ Graham said. ‘Ryan Nassib did what he needed to do. He stayed in the pocket, read his keys and threw the ball. I didn’t make the play. That’s my fault.’

Instead of a Graham score, SU settled for a field goal.

USF then tacked on three points before halftime and added another field goal to start the third quarter to take a comfortable 23-10 lead.

But Syracuse appeared ready to mount a rally early in the fourth quarter. SU moved the ball downfield and again faced a third down, this time from the USF 3-yard line. Tight end David Stevens ran a nice pattern, faking outside before beating his defender back to the middle.

Again Nassib threw a strike, this time for what appeared to be a sure touchdown, but his receiver couldn’t hold on again.

‘It should have been caught,’ Stevens said. ‘It’s not perfect, but it should have been caught.’

Those costly drops were coupled with mental mistakes early in the game as the Orange shot itself in the foot all game long.

On SU’s first possession, Jonathan Fisher shanked an 11-yard punt out of bounds to set up South Florida’s opening field goal. And after the Orange’s first touchdown later on, Shane Raupers sent the ensuing kickoff out of bounds, followed by a late hit on the play by Jeremiah Kobena to set up the Bulls’ drive in SU territory.

USF scored two plays later on a 2-yard run by Daniels to take a 17-7 lead.

‘I would like to think that I run a program that has a lot of structure and discipline that carries over to the field,’ SU head coach Doug Marrone said. ‘With those penalties, I have to do a better job. It’s not like it happens in practice. We have officials in practice all the time.’

Still, the Orange offense got one more chance to redeem itself from inside the red zone with 10 minutes left in the game. But that threat ended with Lemon’s drop at the goal line.

And that final drop by Lemon ultimately became the backbreaker, as USF scored on its ensuing possession to go up 30-10 and put the game out of reach.

‘We could have gotten back in the game at that point,’ Spruill said. ‘After that, everything just started going downhill.’

zjbrown@syr.edu

Published on November 11, 2011 at 12:00 pm