PITTSBURGH — Tino Sunseri rolled right, looking toward the end zone as he tried to extend Pittsburgh’s lead over Syracuse before halftime.

Like a good quarterback, the Panthers senior didn’t force a pass and risk a turnover. But, like a clueless quarterback, he turned toward the sideline and calmly jogged out of bounds for a loss of 4 yards instead of simply throwing it away.

Mind-boggling plays like that were prevalent on both sides of the ball in Syracuse’s season-ending 33-20 loss to Pittsburgh at Heinz Field on Saturday. The game was essentially a playoff game. Either the Orange (5-7, 1-6 Big East) or the Panthers (6-6, 4-3 Big East) would earn bowl eligibility with a win. To be honest, it’s embarrassing either team would be rewarded for playing so mediocre.

As bad as Syracuse played — and six turnovers is ghastly — the Orange still had a chance to win against a Panthers team that made many mistakes as well.

‘I thought our guys played disciplined football,’ Pittsburgh head coach Todd Graham said. ‘It wasn’t completely clean. There were lots of points we left out there, but I was really proud of how hard our guys played.’

The quarterbacks likely made their offensive coordinators cringe. It wasn’t just Sunseri who had an unmindful performance. With SU down 23-17 in the third quarter, Orange quarterback Ryan Nassib rolled right and then sprinted toward the first-down marker on third-and-8.

He may have gotten the first, and he was close when the chaos hit. But he ran so carelessly, dangling the ball inside his left forearm as he pumped his arms and ran straight up. Pittsburgh linebacker Brandon Lindsey didn’t even lay a huge hit on the quarterback.

He just poked the ball out, and Nassib watched the ball fall to the ground, soon to be covered much more securely by Panthers cornerback Buddy Jackson.

Neither Nassib nor Sunseri were made available for postgame interviews. How often is it the starting quarterbacks for both teams aren’t at a podium after the game?

Neither Nassib nor Sunseri should be quarterbacking a bowl team, either.

‘I’m sure something good came out of this season, but right now it’s difficult for me to express that,’ SU head coach Doug Marrone said. ‘At the end of the day when you look at the numbers, if you’re not winning, to me it sounds like you’re making excuses.’

There are 35 bowl games. That’s 70 teams that get rewarded for their regular seasons with a postseason game. Pittsburgh is now one of them. Even if 6-6 is considered to be deserving of a postseason appearance, it really isn’t.

Mediocre teams shouldn’t receive awards.

For Graham, in his first year as head coach, this is a victory. If he didn’t get Pittsburgh to a bowl game in his first year, he probably would have lost some support from the fan base.

‘The bowl game is going to help us tremendously,’ Graham said. ‘We’ll get a chance go to a nice place, get our seventh in and go win a championship.’

It’s a little much to simply call a lower-tier bowl game against a nonpower conference opponent a championship. And with the track records of Pittsburgh and Syracuse entering Saturday, why should either of these teams be playing for a championship?

The Panthers allowed 10 sacks in a loss to West Virginia last week. Syracuse lost four games by double digits even before the fifth defeat Saturday. For Pittsburgh, Sunseri has been benched in multiple games, only to now be the starting quarterback on a bowl team.

And for Syracuse, constant turnovers and penalties, which plagued the team all season, manifested themselves again as SU proved it was the least deserving of two teams undeserving of making a bowl.

‘It was tough,’ SU linebackers coach Dan Conley said. ‘It was hard to watch the way we finished the game. Heartbroken.’

It started on the opening kickoff, a short pooch that bounced around the SU 20-yard line. Dorian Graham dove on it for Syracuse, but instead of securing it, he rolled right over the ball. Pittsburgh managed to recover its awfully poor kickoff.

The Orange turned the ball over on four of its final five drives to complete the game and its season. Somehow, after turning the ball over on two consecutive possessions, SU was still only down six.

That’s an indictment of how Pittsburgh played as well. The fanfare of the bowl game will be celebrated, but it won’t make the Panthers any better.

And it wouldn’t have made Syracuse better, either.

Mark Cooper is an asst. sports editor at The Daily Orange, where his column appears occasionally. He can be reached at mcooperj@syr.edu or on Twitter at @M_Coops_Cuse. 

Published on December 4, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Contact Mark: mcooperj@syr.edu | @mark_cooperjr