CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. — Steve Ishmael battled against a Boston College cornerback as the latter shoved Ishmael toward the sideline of the end zone. As he broke toward the white turf, he leapt, stretched both arms out and reeled the ball in. One foot scraped the turf as Ishmael fell to the ground.

The score put Syracuse up 21-10 late in the third quarter. For the first time this season, a referee raised his hands to signal an Ishmael touchdown. The Syracuse wide receiver had his best game of the season, adding 108 yards to his game-winning touchdown.

“The beginning of the season wasn’t going accordingly,” Ishmael said. “… Everybody just told me to be patient, just continue trusting the process … It was definitely great to get this special day.”

Ishmael has 483 yards yards this season, getting 22 percent of those yards in Syracuse’s (4-4, 2-2 Atlantic Coast) 28-20 win over Boston College (3-4, 0-4) on Saturday. He’s now 87 yards away from his career-high for one season. Ishmael now also has four straight games of more than 50 yards receiving after he had 40 yards or less in three of Syracuse’s first four games.

Even when Ishmael played his best game of the season, however, he had the second-best stat line and admitted he had the second-best catch of the game. Again, the attention found Amba Etta-Tawo, who recovered from a below-average past two games to reel in 144 yards and a one-handed touchdown.

“Any time you can see that Amba is drawing more coverages, which is singling up more guys on the other side, that’s just how football goes,” SU head coach Dino Babers said. “I think that a little bit of it has to do with Amba, and a little bit has to do with Ish making plays.”

In Syracuse’s second drive of the game, Eric Dungey was flushed out of the pocket and rolled right toward the sideline. Like Etta-Tawo had so many times earlier in the season, Ishmael wiggled free 39 yards down the field. Ishmael stretched out in similar fashion to his third-quarter score and reeled the third-and-10 pass.

Ishmael converted a third down for SU twice on the Orange’s second drive. He grabbed three of his eight catches and 63 of his 108 yards on the drive. The SU wide out looked like the player expected to lead SU’s receiving corps this season.

But at the 9:18 mark of the fourth quarter, Etta-Tawo burned his corner and Dungey launched a pass down the sideline. Etta-Tawo slowed up, reached one hand out and fought off the cornerback, who fell to the ground. He chugged the last 35 yards of his 68-yard catch for a touchdown, which sealed the game for the Orange.

“They were both good,” Babers said of Etta-Tawo’s and Ishmael’s touchdowns, “but Amba’s was like, wow. That was a wow. They were both really good, though.”

As Dungey and Etta-Tawo sat at the table to be interviewed together, they turned and looked at each other. Dungey put his arm around Etta-Tawo. Then Etta-Tawo hugged Dungey and put his head on his shoulder while a grin spread across his face.

Etta-Tawo has been Syracuse’s best receiver this season. He topped 1,000 yards for the season against Boston College and has the second-best season for an SU receiver in terms of receiving yards. When Dungey has been pressured, Etta-Tawo has become the quarterback’s first option.

As Dungey ran through his appreciation for how Etta-Tawo has performed this season, he lost himself in compliments and asked for the reporter to repeat the question.

“Oh, the catch?” Dungey said. “I missed him the first time. So I owed him. But he made a great catch. Guy holding his arm like all season, he’s always getting held, but he did a great job, and then he just used that speed.”

“Thank you, Eric,” Etta-Tawo said.

“You’re welcome,” Dungey replied.

Published on October 22, 2016 at 6:19 pm

Contact Chris: cjlibona@syr.edu | @ChrisLibonati