Syracuse’s season started at 7:04 p.m. on Friday night, and the Carrier Dome fell into a hush 22 minutes later.

After scrambling to his left and stumbling awkwardly in front of the Orange sideline, senior starting quarterback Terrel Hunt rolled onto his back in pain. SU’s training staff jogged out to him while head coach Scott Shafer walked closely behind. When Hunt was eventually helped off the field, his right foot hung inches above the turf and his future hung in the balance.

The year hadn’t even been dented by 7:27 of game time and Hunt’s torn right Achilles — which will sideline him for all of 2015 — put Syracuse’s prospects through a blender and poured it into a half-empty glass. True freshman Eric Dungey stepped in and quarterbacked the Orange (1-0) to a 47-0 win over Rhode Island (0-1), a season-opening victory that came with a season-opening loss.

With Hunt, Syracuse was a back-of-the-pack team with a fifth-year quarterback who could potentially lift it a rung or two higher. Without him, the keys go to a first-year signal caller and expectations should be heavily tempered.

“He did a good job,” offensive coordinator Tim Lester said after SU beat Rhode Island. “He made a couple mistakes, didn’t look at the clock a couple times, just normal freshman stuff.”

Here’s what we firmly know about Dungey: Lester reached to Lake Oswego, Oregon, to recruit him. He beat out sophomore Austin Wilson for the backup quarterback spot during training camp. He is highly capable of beating a Division I-AA team that went 1-11 last season.

And, discounting any overblown analysis from Syracuse’s trampling of Rhode Island, that’s about it.

His snaps against the Rams were presumably going to come after Hunt built a sizable lead. Instead Dungey went 10-for-17 for 114 yards and two touchdowns, and he handed the ball off to Wilson when the contest was well in hand. When the Rhode Island defense did get into the backfield, Dungey showed an ability to escape the pocket and think on the move. But most of those instances included him and a lone pass rusher, making his first college game both a small and unreliable sample size.

“I think he did well but we’ll continue to see,” SU wide receiver Steve Ishmael said. “He’s a young guy and we’re going to need to help him along for sure. But I’m excited about what he can do for this team.”

In the coming weeks, what he can do for Syracuse could be overshadowed by what he can’t.

Lester designed a new offensive scheme with Hunt as its centerpiece, and Shafer said after the Rhode Island win that the Orange scaled back the offense when Hunt went down. That’s to be expected with Dungey still very new to college football, but predictability was a theme of SU’s offensive shortcomings a season ago, when Lester was promoted after five games and had to roll out either Wilson or freshman AJ Long against No. 1 Florida State.

If Dungey limits the offense’s options, he’ll also limit its productivity. SU was in the same position when Hunt broke his fibula last October and the results weren’t pretty. Whether Dungey can write a different script will become apparent against Wake Forest, the Orange’s Atlantic Coast Conference opener and a must-win game if Syracuse wants to sniff bowl contention.

After finishing 3-9 in 2014, Syracuse finds itself in an all-too-familiar place. Its offense is in the hands of a freshman and its season will, in large part, be dictated by his development.

“It was all the other guys, they were really picking me up and keeping me calm,” Dungey said after the Rhode Island game. “I really wasn’t expecting to go in that early.”

What comes next is an accelerated learning process that includes the start of conference play, a home game against No. 14 Louisiana State in Week 4 and then a nosedive into the ACC schedule. Dungey was supposed to be watching it all from the sideline. Now he’s the key difference between relative success and sustained defeat.

Measure your expectations accordingly.

Jesse Dougherty is the web editor at The Daily Orange, where his column appears occasionally. He can be reached at jcdoug01@syr.edu or on Twitter at @dougherty_jesse.

Published on September 7, 2015 at 9:06 pm