Not to name names, but there’s no way around the fact that Syracuse football has been an irredeemably rock-bottom enterprise since Greg Robinson took over in 2005. Its games against traditional Big East peer West Virginia have been a good barometer for 'Cuse's slide. In 2006, the Mountaineers ran up 562 yards, averaged more than eight yards per snap and outscored the Orange 24-3 in the second half of a 41-17 win. In '07, WVU had 486 yards, led 31-7 at the half and cruised to a 55-14 rout in the Carrier Dome.

Saturday, against a Syracuse defense still ranking at the bottom of the Big East and in the bottom 20 nationally in every major defensive category, WVU gained just 268 total yards in a tight, 17-6 nailbiter in Morgantown, the lowest single game total anyone has netted against the Orange since it held Buffalo to 123 yards in September 2005, in Robinson’s second game as head coach. Even Syracuse beat reporters were slightly stunned.

Mountaineer coach Bill Stewart assessed the dramatic decline in his team's offensive performance from the last two seasons and came to one obvious conclusion: Syracuse must be really improving!

"Looking at the football game, I want to compliment the Syracuse Orange," said Stewart. "I thought their coaching staff did a tremendous job, and I thought their players played hard, and they gave a great effort. That was an excellent football game, and we are very fortunate and happy to come out of that with a win."

He may be right about the "fortunate" part: WVU was operating with Jarrett Brown in place of the injured White, while 'Cuse sprung running back Curtis Brinkley for 144 yards and outgained West Virginia by about 80 yards for the game. Trailing 10-6 with five minutes to play, the Orange had a chance to go ahead on a 4th-and-4 from the WVU five-yard line. At the point Cameron Dantley's subsequent fourth down pass hit the turf, WVU had gained a meager 176 yards for the game and, backed up against its own end zone, still risked giving the ball back to the Orange with a chance to win in the closing seconds. Cue one very grainy Noel Devine, 92 yards to the rescue:

That run alone salvaged an absolutely dreadful day for a Mountaineer offense that could have used the kind of full-throttle rout at home it's used to laying on the conference bottom-dweller. Without White, actually, it looked like there wasn't much distinction to be made, and even with him -- given the three-point effort at East Carolina, and the fact that WVU's best win halfway through the season is probably over Villanova -- there's maybe less difference even with White than seemed possible two months ago.