Terrel Hunt knows he needs to trust his receivers.

During the bye week he talked with Ashton Broyld the NFL’s premier receiver. Megatron.

The trust between Calvin Johnson and Matthew Stafford is what makes them so good.

“Some of his passes,” Hunt said, “he’s just throwing it knowing that Megatron’s going to get it.”

None of Syracuse’s wide receivers is Megatron. Not even close. But Hunt is still gaining trust in them. The bye week came at a perfect time for the quarterback to regroup from a disastrous three-game stretch as the Orange (3-4, 1-2 Atlantic Coast) heads into the final month of the season.

“They gave me the keys to drive the car and I crashed,” Hunt said. “It’s just really how you bounce back.”

After the game, Hunt’s confidence was sapped. His confidence in his weapons, but also his confidence in himself. The bye week gave him a chance to step back.

After torching Wagner and Tulane, Hunt was rendered inept against Clemson, North Carolina State and Georgia Tech. He’s still adjusting to the speed of college football, and the ACC especially, so an extra week off gives him a time to study film.

There’s no replacement for live reps, but Hunt now has two weeks to study Wake Forest, and two weeks to look back at what went wrong.

“Everything happens faster,” offensive coordinator George McDonald said, “so I think that’s the one thing with any young quarterback, whether you’re in high school, college or a rookie in the NFL, the speed of the game changes.”

Quarterbacks coach Tim Lester said Hunt has been good in practice since the 56-0 loss to Georgia Tech. His footwork is improving each week.

Backup quarterback Drew Allen is once again getting some first-team reps, but Hunt has performed at his best when under pressure. He got complacent during training camp and it wasn’t until the season that he made a push for the starting job. As he’s solidified the job, he’s slipped. The bye week was a chance to go back to the drawing board.

“He’s been up here a ton studying all the offensive plays, especially with Coach Lester,” head coach Scott Shafer said during his weekly teleconference on Tuesday. “I think it does come at a good time. A chance to kind of settle it down, look at it and show him just how close he is to making a handful of throws that could be good plays for us.

“It’s a good time to sit back and reassess where he is.”

SU tries not to dwell on the loss to the Yellow Jackets, but inevitably comes back to gnaw at the players. Backup quarterback Drew Allen said it came up as recently as Tuesday.

“You go through a game like that, you get back to the drawing board real quick,” McDonald said. “That’s coaches, players, janitors—everybody.”

Hunt said he’s left it behind him, but he’s watched the film from the game twice.

He’s yet to find a true No. 1 receiving threat, but he can’t keep trying to make plays himself.

There are several ways to look at a devastating loss and one that’s followed by a bye week. Lester hates the extra week for the loss to fester. Most like having the time to regroup.

For all, the blowout is devastating, but for some it can be motivation.

“It got us closer,” Hunt said. “We finally got to hit on the moments that we didn’t hit on before.”

Published on October 30, 2013 at 12:05 am

Contact David: dbwilson@syr.edu | @DBWilson2