The Daily Orange

Media Credit: Court Hathaway

Every college football team deals with injuries. Greg Paulus realizes as much. Nobody will feel sorry for Syracuse, even as the athletic trainer's room begins to become the most popular destination at Manley Field House.

But even Paulus, a veteran who built a four-year career handling adversity at Duke, could not prepare for this. The Orange lost four key starters to injury during Saturday's loss to Pittsburgh, leaving the team reeling and searching for answers. Nose tackle Art Jones, one of SU's top defensive playmakers, highlighted a group of important players who will miss the final three games.

The players who remain responded Tuesday for the first time since learning of the latest batch of injuries. One by one, they came to the podium to face an identical question: What now?

"You think about that for a second and then you try to figure out ways in order for the team to be successful without a guy or two, or what we might need to do with personnel or switching it up," Paulus said. "We're going to miss them .We feel bad that those types of things have to happen. It's a part of the game and it's time to get ready for the next one."

Jones, offensive tackle Jonathan Meldrum, safety Max Suter and tight end Cody Catalina all suffered season-ending injuries Saturday. This comes less than a week after wide receiver Mike Williams, Syracuse's best offensive weapon, quit the program.

Losing Jones hurts the most. As a senior captain and a projected top-15 pick in the upcoming NFL draft, Jones served as the face and voice of a defense that continues to improve with each passing week.

Safety Shamarko Thomas, who head coach Doug Marrone said will replace Suter in the starting lineup, didn't deny Jones' significance to the defense. Since learning of the injury, the unit has tried to grow closer and use Jones' loss as an added incentive moving forward.

"It's a big loss because he was the captain of the defense," Thomas said. "He ran us, he kept us motivated in the games. He's a NFL player. He was one of the best. It's not going to bring us down. It's going to motivate us to push harder to make this season better."

Jones' injury represents why the last week has proven so difficult for Syracuse. True, every team has injuries. Every player who spoke Tuesday acknowledged that much. But few teams lose their best offensive and defensive player in the span of one week.

Continued...

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