I ran into Cameron Lynch on Marshall Street on Saturday night.

“How was Senior Day?” I casually asked.

Earlier in the day, the Syracuse linebacker played in the Carrier Dome for the last time. No. 38 stood with his parents during a pregame ceremony for him and his 28 classmates — fittingly at the 38-yard line. It was the beginning of the end of the team captain’s college career.

But his unselfish standards kept him from reflecting on it on a personal level.

“It was all right. We lost,” was all Lynch said.

It’s that team-first, no-excuses attitude he and the seniors exhibited after the Orange’s (3-7, 1-5 Atlantic Coast) 27-10 loss to No. 22 Duke (8-1, 4-1) on Saturday that makes the group appropriate leaders for this year’s team.

The seniors’ past accomplishments, rooted in selflessness, are why this outgoing class should be remembered as a group that elevated the program. The seniors shouldn’t be defined by their final go-round, in which they ultimately couldn’t carry Syracuse to another bowl game through this injury-ravaged season.

This season’s been an anomaly compared to Syracuse’s past few seasons. The injury bug bit much too forcefully to judge where the program is in the ACC.

But don’t tell that to head coach Scott Shafer or his seniors.

“We were dealt a pretty tough hand throughout this year,” said Sean Hickey, SU’s senior left tackle and a team captain. “You can’t use it as a crutch or an excuse but the good teams can overcome it.

“… it was just too much for us to overcome.”

The seniors have already overcome enough to be remembered fondly.

When the fifth-year seniors came in for the 2010 season, the Orange was coming off a 4-8 finish in Doug Marrone’s first shot as the program’s head coach — dead last in the Big East and six years removed from Syracuse’s last bowl game.

But soon enough, Marrone’s administrative changes to remove individuality from the team took their effect. None of Marrone’s players were supposed to stand out. No hats or earrings in Manley Field House. No facial hair. No armbands.

The Greg Robinson days, before Marrone took over in 2009, of players eating Wendy’s before a game or boxes of pizza the night before were way back in the rearview mirror.

“He really wanted to emphasize that it’ll take the whole team to turn this around, it’s not going to take one individual,” fifth-year senior cornerback Joe Nassib said in September, referring to Marrone.

Out of the Orange’s eight current fifth-year seniors, only running back Prince-Tyson Gulley and wide receiver Adrian Flemming contributed on the field for that 2010 team. But the foundation was being built.

That squad hoisted the first-ever Pinstripe Bowl championship trophy, giving birth to a run of three bowl wins in four years — the 2010 and 2012 New Era Pinstripe Bowls and the 2013 Texas Bowl. The senior class, most notably Lynch, Hickey, Gulley and outside linebacker Dyshawn Davis played a major role in the success.

But after Saturday’s breakdown against Duke, those veterans won’t have the “nice cherry on top” of his career that Hickey desired. Now, just two meaningless road games against Pittsburgh and Boston College await.

“It’s devastating,” said Gulley, a team captain. “That’s pretty much all I know, just making it to a bowl game. For us not to make one kind of hurts, but you just have to take it on the chin.”

Yet through the few ups and countless downs of this season, the seniors were the staples on and off the field. They refused to make excuses for the team’s losing. And they were at the heart of raising the standard for Syracuse football as an ACC competitor.

Relative to the rest of the conference, the Orange is in a precarious spot — its recruiting and coaching futures in doubt, inconsistent quarterback play all season and a basketball-centric fan base.

But it’s a hell of a lot better than the cellar of the Big East.

“You don’t want people to remember, when they think back of you as a player, to just remember this season,” Hickey said. “This senior class has been extremely successful since we’ve been here.”

And that’s what the senior class’ legacy should be. They can all be selfish now.

Phil D’Abbraccio is an assistant sports editor at The Daily Orange where his column appears occasionally. He can be reached at pmdabbra@syr.edu or on Twitter at @PhilDAbb.

Published on November 10, 2014 at 12:30 am