RETURN TO GLORY : Unbeaten Football Team Causes Quite a Stir at Syracuse

The star quarterback enters the sports publicity office. People magazine wants him for a day, CBS’s morning program needs him for a discussion on the future of black quarterbacks and CNN just has to have five minutes.

The coach, whose tenure had produced more defeats than victories until this year, is 20 minutes late for an interview because he was huddling with the athletic director to discuss bowl plans. He spends 15 minutes doing an interview, leaves his office and finds more than a dozen pink sheets signifying phone messages.

“I guess this means we’re popular again,” the coach says.

A winner breeds popularity and Syracuse University football is a winner again.

On Saturday, Nov. 21, just after 6 p.m. EST and before the Orangemen close their regular season with a game at home against West Virginia, the Sugar Bowl will officially extend an invitation to Syracuse, marking the school’s first major bowl bid since 1964.

It will accentuate a season in which Coach Dick MacPherson proved he could construct a winner and Don McPherson ended questions whether he could quarterback on a major college level. For in this Central New York city, the cool winds of late fall have arrived and the hottest topic of discussion--for a change--is not Syracuse’s No. 1-ranked basketball team.

“Everybody is extremely excited about the football team,” said Joe Szombathy, executive director of the Orange Pack Organization, a fund-raiser to the Syracuse athletic department. “People love a winner. They want to jump on the bandwagon. Go out on the street, nine out of 10 people are talking about the football team.”

And that’s a bit of a miracle considering the football team lost its first four games and five of its first six in 1986, jeopardizing MacPherson’s job. Meanwhile, the basketball team came within one point of the national title last spring, further cementing itself as the city’s top sporting attraction.

But a fall of success has reminded a city--and a nation--that the Orangemen’s football past is quite strong, and maybe its future quite bright.

With a 45-17 victory Nov. 14 over Boston College, the Orangemen improved to 10-0, tying the school record for victories established by the 1959 national title team and sewing up a trip to the Sugar Bowl. It will be just the fourth bowl in 21 years for Syracuse.

The Orangemen entered their last game ranked No. 6 and grasping to an outside shot at the national title. Syracuse was one of four Division I-A teams with an undefeated record, but that was sure to change Nov. 21 when a pair of unbeaten, untied teams, No. 1 Nebraska and No. 2 Oklahoma, were to play.

Syracuse had a realistic chance of ending the season as major college football’s lone undefeated team, yet not gaining the No. 1 ranking. The Orangemen’s strength is questioned because of a schedule dotted by just one ranked team--No. 17 Pittsburgh.

“The thing we have to do is be 12-0,” MacPherson said. “I believe if we are 12-0 and deserve the championship we’ll get it. The key is to be 11-0 first, then 12-0. What can be disappointing if we’re 12-0? We would have accomplished all we could.”

An undefeated record was hardly a consideration in the off-season, but a successful campaign seemed like a must for MacPherson to safeguard his job. He entered the year with a 30-36-1 record in six seasons, a losing effort in his only bowl (the 1985 Cherry) and was reigning over a program that had dwindling attendance in three straight years at the Carrier Dome.

Victories in four of the last five games last year and the first five this season eased the burden somewhat on MacPherson. Then, in Week 6 this year, Syracuse produced the kind of victory--dominant, over a high-ranked opponent, on national television--that invigorates programs for years.

On Oct. 17, then 11th-ranked Syracuse jumped to a 41-0 lead en route to a surprisingly easy 48-21 rout of then 10th-ranked and defending national champion Penn State. The Orangemen had not previously beaten the Nittany Lions since 1970.

McPherson threw an 80-yard touchdown pass to Rob Moore on the game’s first play from scrimmage. In all, the fifth-year senior completed 15 of 20 passes for 336 yards with three touchdowns and ran for two more TDs.

“I would like to tell you that Penn State game was something bigger than it was,” said McPherson, the nation’s second-ranked passer entering the final game. “Maybe as time goes by it will be bigger. But for me, I visualized what would happen all week. I knew we were going to be that successful.”

McPherson came to Syracuse because all the other schools that sought him when he was a Top-100 recruit coming out of West Hempstead (N.Y.) High School wanted to switch him to receiver or defensive back, but “for me there is nothing but quarterback.”

Coach MacPherson wanted quarterback McPherson so badly he didn’t care. Their success together might have an effect on the way MacPherson recruits in the future.

“Winning like this helps you get to the point where you are a selector, not a recruiter,” MacPherson said. “Only Penn State is like that now in the East. Right now is the honeymoon period. Kids want to make one of their visits to Syracuse. But if the winning this year helps us with recruiting instantly won’t be known until February.”

McPherson is the most visable part of an impressive team.

Tommy Kane is one of the nation’s most electrifying receivers, having caught 14 touchdown passes from McPherson. Ted Gregory, whose broken leg last year was a major factor in Syracuse’s poor play, is among the nation’s standout nose tackles. However, he recently had surgery to repair strained ligaments and cartilage damage in his knee and his status for the Sugar Bowl is shaky.

Tim Vesling has made all 68 of his extra points in his Syracuse career, extending the school’s NCAA record for successful conversions to 220.

“There is a load of talent on this team,” said Robert Drummond, Syracuse’s top runner. “But, obivously and deservedly, a lot goes to Don McPherson and Ted Gregory.”

The success of this year’s team has revived memories of when Syracuse was among the nation’s elite programs, when a slew of great running backs--Jim Brown, Ernie Davis, Floyd Little, Larry Csonka and Jim Nance--played for the Orangemen.

The link to the past is Ben Schwartzwalder, who coached the team from 1949-73. Now 78, Schwartzwalder lives in Syracuse during the football season and still addresses the team every Tuesday.

“I don’t know if they listen to me,” Schwartzwalder said. “They’re good kids, though, and they know I’m sincere and really want them to win.”

And winning has brought attention to the city, the program, the players and the coach.

“It’s part of the job and I don’t mind it,” MacPherson said scooping up his telephone messages. “People keep telling me all the attention is because I’m being considered for national coach of the year. Heck, this is the easy time. Whe we are 0-4 last year, that’s when I really had to coach.”