Richard Mahoney sat a few rows up on the Carrier Dome’s 50-yard line to watch his son Zack play in a game they never expected him to appear in.

So too did Zack’s mother, brother, sister, aunt, uncle and three cousins, all of whom made the trip from LaGrange, Illinois. Richard, his father, wasn’t sure what it meant when he saw Zack put the headset on following Eric Dungey’s injury. And he wasn’t sure what it meant when he took it off to start warming up with Austin Wilson.

A few days before, Zack had told his dad that he had gotten a few more reps in practice. He thought maybe Zack would get in for a play or two. He couldn’t imagine that his son would be leading the game-winning drive.

“It was past exciting,” Richard said.

Mahoney started the season as the fifth-string quarterback. When he wasn’t taking limited reps in training camp, he was with special teams holding kicks. Now a week after leading a game-winning overtime drive, he’ll be tasked with the starter’s role when Syracuse (3-0, 1-0 Atlantic Coast) hosts No. 8 Louisiana State (2-0, 2-0 Southeastern) at noon in the Carrier Dome on Saturday.

Four years ago, Mahoney was the quarterback that couldn’t win the starting job as a junior at Lyons Township (Illinois) High School. The last time he started a football game, it was against Lindenwood-Bellville JV. As recently as the spring, SU head coach Scott Shafer struggled to remember his name. Now, Mahoney’s starting under center against the eighth-best team in the country.

“Coming in as a walk-on transfer, you don’t expect to start,” Mahoney said. “But you’ve got to prepare yourself every week that you can go in whenever. I like to think I’ve prepared myself.”

In high school, Mahoney didn’t do the “little things” it took to be a starter, his coach Kurt Weinberg said. His first two years he played on the offense with the long-term intention of moving to QB. As his plans began to come to fruition, a lack of understanding defenses and film study kept him from playing.

But when he started to do the things that were asked of him, it took only one high school season to garner FCS scholarship offers — ones that he spurned to make his name at the JUCO level.

When only FCS schools offered him following his prolific 2014 season in which he threw for 1,943 yards for the College of DuPage, he once again turned away scholarship money, this time for the chance to walk on at Syracuse.

“He came in and sat down with me,” DuPage head coach Matt Foster said. “And he just basically said, “This is where I think I belong. I can compete and play and excel at a high level.’”

When Mahoney was redshirting for DuPage in 2013, the team played in the Carrier Dome Bowl in Syracuse. It was the first time he’d been to the campus. But during the team’s downtime over their two-day stay, he grew a familiarity with a school that he knew he wanted to go to when the opportunity arose more than a year later.

When Mahoney got to Syracuse, he didn’t stand out. Following a spring practice, Shafer wanted to tell Mahoney he’d done a good job, but forgot his name, paused, and just called him “Officer” — a reference to a nickname he’d been given.

In a media scrum on Sept. 8, offensive coordinator Tim Lester was listing off the Syracuse quarterbacks. He had addressed Dungey, then mentioned Austin Wilson and AJ Long.

“And uh, and…oh shoot, what’s his name,” Lester said, before a reporter chimed in to remind of Mahoney’s name.

Two weeks later, the first time Lester opened his mouth, it was to tell everyone that Mahoney was “the guy.” With two quarterbacks down, and two more less capable of running Syracuse’s offense, Mahoney rose from “scout team player of the week, every week” to starter in the midst of SU’s imperfect 3-0 start to the season.

“We’re truly living the next-man-in,” Lester said. “…He proved he could handle the situation. He didn’t freak out. The ball wasn’t going end over end. I was proud of the way he did that.”

Lester knew that when Dungey got hurt, he wanted Mahoney to be the guy. He said he put Wilson in first to help ease him in. Then when Mahoney played on the third drive, he called some plays that didn’t involve airing it out. By the time he started overtime, Lester said he treated it like a normal drive.

Mahoney gives what Wilson and Long do not. Mahoney can run the ball, which Wilson struggles to do. He has the ability to throw downfield, which Long has been inconsistent with since returning from a hand injury over the summer.

Mahoney said if someone had told him a year ago that he’d be starting against LSU, it “wouldn’t be a good thing.” But for a player that’s spent the past four years proving he can play the position, it’s a reality he’s accepting with confidence.

“There’s no time for nerves,” Mahoney said. “You’ve just got to prepare. And with all the preparation, there’s no time for nerves.”

Published on September 24, 2015 at 11:12 pm

Contact Sam: sblum@syr.edu | @SamBlum3