Perry Patterson is free to say now what most people clearly saw last season.

‘For a four-game stretch, I didn’t know what to do,’ he said, referring particularly to a 31-9 loss to Rutgers and a 27-0 defeat to South Florida, both at the Carrier Dome.

But Orange head coach Greg Robinson noticed an improvement in the season’s final games, and the Syracuse football team opened spring practice on Monday with Patterson already named the starting quarterback for the 2006 opener at Wake Forest.

Robinson stressed no decision was final, but the announcement was significant given Syracuse did not name a starting quarterback between Patterson and junior Joe Fields until days before the last two seasons started. In this case, highly touted freshman Andrew Robinson – who some believed would start right away – will have to impress to earn playing time.

‘With him naming me first, it does better for the team,’ Patterson said after the two-hour-plus practice on Monday. ‘They’re not looking around wondering things – a couple guys came up to me already saying they’re glad they know who the guy is.’

Two factors have Patterson believing he will perform at a higher level in 2006 after a disastrous 1-10 season that saw the passing offense ranked near the bottom of the country in many categories.

First, there’s less to learn. Patterson said the new team of offensive coordinator Brian White and quarterbacks coach Phil Earley stresses fundamentals and perfecting fewer plays. Though he said in August the switch to the West Coast Offense under former offensive coordinator Brian Pariani was also simple, his attitude changed as the games began.

Patterson said some of the plays that were installed last spring were only called five or six times during the season. But he said the playbook expanded – especially the protection schemes – every single week, and it was hard to keep up. Then when one team started zone blitzing, Patterson said he was not prepared about where to go on his reads. He said it would take several years to learn under former quarterbacks coach Major Applewhite.

‘With Coach Earley, he’s more basic,’ said Patterson, who threw six touchdowns against 10 interceptions in 2005. ‘I feel already I made strides. With reads I’m seeing things more clearly and I’m a lot smoother in my footwork as well.’

The second factor is conditioning. Patterson’s weight was a topic often discussed as the season wore on last season, and the senior committed himself to change in the offseason. He said he did 50 minutes of cardiovascular workouts, such as basketball, every day and even hired a nutritionist to help him become slimmer.

After reporters pressed him, the senior finally divulged he weighed 257 pounds for the final game of the season against Louisville. But Robinson gave him goals of reaching 245 by spring practice and the 230s during the summer. On Monday, Patterson said he was at 240.

His head coach was ready with his trademark humor when asked about calling Patterson many times during winter break.

‘I never asked him anything,’ Robinson said in jest. ‘I just told him what I was doing. Ask him that. I told him that I happened to get a workout in today.’

Earlier, Robinson joked that not only were his pants a different size, but his chin strap was tighter. But comedy aside, both the coach and the quarterback said the difference was already evident in the first practice. Patterson said his weight threw him off balance at times last year and led to passes completely off target, including overthrows that elicited Dome-wide murmurs from the crowd.

‘I was just lighter on my feet and back to feeling like when I first came in when I was running the option,’ Patterson said. ‘It’s going to make me a better athlete, smoother in my drops and more fundamentally sound.’

Patterson said his nutritionist taught him about when his metabolism was the highest and when it was the lowest. He said he’s ditched processed meat and fried foods for more fruits and vegetables. And he never eats after 7 p.m. now.

His commitment to losing weight and the progress already made in the simpler offense – he said as opposed to last winter, he worked with wide receivers at the Carrier Dome – was enough to convince Robinson that Patterson was his man, at least at this point, for 2006.

‘If I’m a guy that’s behind Perry right now,’ Robinson said, ‘I’ve got to focus on how am I going to get better each practice. I can’t worry about those decisions.

‘When I say No. 1, he’s up there with the first group right now. I don’t have a problem with that because when the season ended he was ahead.’

Published on March 20, 2006 at 12:00 pm