Damien Rhodes will not play Saturday against Temple, the third straight game the sophomore running back has missed with an injured left ankle, Syracuse head football coach Paul Pasqualoni said.

‘It’s one of those things you can’t control,’ Rhodes said. ‘I’m not going to cry about it.’

A timetable for Rhodes’s return is unclear.

‘We won’t try to do much with him this week,’ Pasqualoni said. ‘We’ll re-evaluate again next Monday.’

When asked if he might return next week against Miami or the week after against West Virginia, Rhodes responded, ‘hopefully.’

Rhodes originally injured his left ankle in the preseason. After testing his ankle for two games, he sat out SU’s third game, against Central Florida. After playing against Toledo, Rhodes injured his left ankle again at Virginia Tech, but the second injury was not related to the first.

Rhodes, who is still wearing a large, brace-like boot on his left foot, has rushed for 123 yards on 25 carries in four games this season.

Walter Reyes has shouldered most of SU’s running load. The two backs were expected to split carries this year.

Third-string running back Tim Washington – who has carried 13 times this year, mostly in garbage time – could fill in more often for Rhodes.

‘Timmy Washington is very good,’ Pasqualoni said. ‘He just doesn’t have the snaps and the playing time that Damien does. But we’ll use Timmy.’

Reyes has made Rhodes’s absence easy for SU to handle so far, rushing for 124.7 yards a game. But the Orangemen still miss Rhodes.

‘You like to go into every game with all your weapons,’ SU quarterback R.J. Anderson said. ‘When you’re going in with one less weapon, it will hurt your team.’

Back at last?

Jameel Dumas practiced during SU’s bye week wearing a helmet and shoulder pads and could return this week, Pasqualoni said.

‘He practiced last week, made some progress,’ Pasqualoni said. ‘We’ll see how the rest over the weekend affected him.’

Dumas injured his left knee at the end of SU’s opener at North Carolina and hasn’t played since. He could return Saturday.

‘I’m optimistic,’ Pasqualoni said. ‘He did quite a bit last week. It’s one thing to be out there in shoulder pads and shorts on. It’s quite another thing to go full speed.’

Third and ouch

After earning just four first downs in the last three quarters of its 34-14 loss at Pittsburgh, Syracuse knew what it would focus on during its bye week of practice: converting on third down.

The Orangemen converted just three of 14 third downs against the Panthers. For the season, Syracuse has turned 39 of 102 third downs into first downs.

‘You put yourself in third-down situation in practice,’ Anderson said. ‘We do great. We do excellent. We come out in the game, and we don’t do it.’

This week would be a good time to reverse that trend. Last season, when SU lost to Temple, 17-16, third-down ineffectiveness plagued Anderson and the Orangemen. They went 3 of 13 during key-jingling time.

‘If you look at my stats, I had a pretty good game,’ said Anderson, who threw for 239 yards and two touchdowns against the Owls. ‘When you look at what we did on third down, we had so many opportunities. There’d be a missed play here, an inaccurate throw there. That’s why we lost the game.’

This and that

While players rested and healed during the bye week, coaches hit the road. Seven SU assistant coaches, the maximum allowed, recruited for two days. … Temple is also coming off a bye week for Saturday’s game. The Owls, at 1-7, are already eliminated from playing in a bowl game.

Published on November 3, 2003 at 12:00 pm