Some of the few instances when Scott Shafer smiled during his Thursday morning press conference came as he discussed Syracuse being the biggest underdog it’ll be all season.

No. 1 Florida State brings its 21-game winning streak to the Carrier Dome on Saturday at noon, posing another challenge for an Orange team that’s faced distractions all week long. But Shafer rejected questions about his new-look coaching staff and instead looked to embrace the underdog mentality.

“The good thing about football is that … (it) doesn’t always bounce the same way every weekend,” Shafer said. “If we can control the things we can, why not us?”

Thirty years ago, Syracuse knocked off No. 1 Nebraska at home for the program’s only upset of a top-ranked opponent. But Shafer hasn’t really used that game as motivation, he said.

Instead, he showed his players the college football teams that, over the last three weeks, won games in which they were underdogs by more than 12-point spreads.

Shafer pointed to some of the games Syracuse wasn’t supposed to win, but did, since he arrived in 2009 — defeats of West Virginia both on the road and at home and a 2012 upset of Louisville. Shafer added that he was once a 41-point underdog and a winner on the same day.

“The one common element in all those victories is that teams have been upset, any given team on Saturday, the same thing happened,” Shafer said. “They tackle better. They block better. They stay in tune with each play. When you try to play above yourself, that’s when you get in trouble.

“When you try to just play better than you did the last play, each play of the game, that’s when I’ve seen those types of games go your way.”

Then he added, with a grin, “And you look for maybe a ball to ricochet off someone’s helmet or something and fall into your hands. Those things have happened in some of the upsets I’ve been a part of.”

Published on October 9, 2014 at 12:04 pm

Contact Phil: pmdabbra@syr.edu | @PhilDAbb