RALEIGH, N.C. — As the final moments of the first half ticked away, an already ugly battle between Syracuse and North Carolina State threatened to devolve into something even more unwatchable.

Terrel Hunt heaved two interceptions in the final minutes of the second quarter. Pete Thomas tossed one, too. On a rainy Saturday afternoon in Raleigh, N.C., neither team proved capable of doing damage through the air.

Prince-Tyson Gulley’s coaches weren’t shy about telling him that. As the first 30 minutes came to a close, the call came down from his coaches in the booth. This one was on the running backs.

“We went into halftime and they just told us straight up that this game was going to come out of the backfield,” Gulley said.

Both the Orange and Wolfpack offenses were sloppy and disjointed for most of the day. Hunt struggled to throw the ball. Thomas struggled to do much of anything. But the Orange had a trump card — the three-headed, ground-based monster of Hunt, Gulley and Jerome Smith.

Hunt handed the ball to his two backs — “horses,” head coach Scott Shafer called them — 28 times and tucked the ball to run 11 more for 362 total yards. As Hunt floundered with his arm, SU turned to the staple of the offense, the running game, to carry Syracuse (3-3, 1-1 Atlantic Coast) to a 24-10 win against N.C. State (3-3, 0-3) in front of 56,639 on Saturday at Carter-Finley Stadium.

As afternoon turned to evening, the Orange’s running game seemed to be drawing closer to exploding. In a wet, turnover-filled game, the times that momentum actually surfaced were rare. Each boneheaded mistake by one team was met with an equally head-scratching gaffe by the other.

Through it all, though, SU had a recipe that was working. Syracuse rushed for more than 200 yards in the first three quarters against a top-20 rush defense, but had just 10 points to show for it.

“I think any recipe we can think of in our game plan will be the best recipe,” Shafer said, “but I like those two horses.”

Nearly every time the Orange picked up a chunk of yardage on the ground — including a 30-yard run by Smith in the first quarter and a 55-yard run by Gulley in the third — SU failed to punch it into the end zone. Syracuse went three-and-out after Smith’s big gain and settled for a field goal after Gulley’s.

The plays were happening — just not in succession.

“We thought we could rush the ball on a good rush defense,” Shafer said.

In the first half, though, the Orange let Hunt try to make plays. He threw the ball 13 times in the first half, culminating with his two interceptions. So SU turned back to what it does best — running the ball. And in the fourth quarter, the big ones finally strung together.

With the game tied at 10 and the Carter-Finley crowd almost entirely devoid of energy, Smith cracked a 57-yard run up the middle. On the next play, Gulley scampered in from 18 yards out to give Syracuse a 16-10 lead.

On the next possession, the ground game iced it. This time, Gulley broke off the long run, a 48-yarder to the North Carolina State 5. Two plays later, Hunt took his 11th carry in from 8 yards out to move past 90 rushing yards on the day.

“They have two really good backs,” N.C. State head coach Dave Doeren said. “They did well, but mostly it was those two (long) runs. Those runs they cracked up the middle.”

Gulley compared Saturday to last year’s Pinstripe Bowl — a snowy December afternoon when the Orange’s running game turned in a historic performance. On that day, even Ryan Nassib was felled by the conditions — unable to carry the offense as he did through much of the season — and the burden fell on the running backs.

Making just his third start, Hunt was far from his best. His 39-yard hook up with H-back Ashton Broyld was one of the best throws he’s made for SU, but otherwise, he was inept through the air. Even after that play, Syracuse went right to the ground and ran the ball seven straight times before Smith opened the game’s scoring with a touchdown.

But this was SU’s identity. With two talented backs as the centerpieces of the offense, the Orange is supposed to grind out these rainy — or snowy — games.

And with an athletic quarterback who’s getting better at deciding when to run in the fold, too, it’s an identity that SU can lean on and let its backs run wild.

“It’s basically what they told us in the Pinstripe Bowl last year,” Gulley said, “and that’s how we did it and they just told us that and that’s how we do it.”

Published on October 12, 2013 at 6:49 pm

Contact David: dbwilson@syr.edu | @DBWilson2