Syracuse falls to Minnesota 28-20 in Pinstripe Bowl to conclude once-hopeful season

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NEW YORK — It wasn’t supposed to end like this. Not with heads bowed, hands on hips and blank stares. Not with Garrett Shrader standing alone on the sideline, out of chances. Not with Sean Tucker, Matthew Bergeron and Mikel Jones, all presumed healthy, standing on the sidelines in 40-degree weather. 

The ending was supposed to be bigger and better, and little about Thursday’s Pinstripe Bowl fulfilled that. A 6-0 start to the season, a national ranking as high as No. 14, sold-out stadiums, stars lining the field for the Orange, ended with a 7-6 record and a 28-20 loss to Minnesota in front of a half-empty Yankee Stadium. It ended with Syracuse’s top players focused on the NFL draft and not this bowl game. It ended one possession short of a comeback win. 

Syracuse’s once-promising season ended with a fitting bowl loss, despite Minnesota’s best player Mohamed Ibrahim sitting out the second half, and the Orange winning nearly every important statistical battle. Shrader (32-for-51, 330 passing yards) and LeQuint Allen (157 total yards in place of Tucker) did their best, as did reserve defensive players, but Ibrahim’s 71 first-half rushing yards, Daniel Jackson’s two touchdowns, a pick-six and a 72-yard kick return handed SU its sixth loss in its final seven games. 

It was going to be an uphill battle for the Orange from the start — the last few weeks had been incredibly turbulent, all the way up to Wednesday, when Syracuse found out Jones declared for the NFL draft. Both SU’s offensive and defensive coordinators departed, and a flurry of players left for the transfer portal and the draft. The defense was thin, and the offense was missing two of its best players in Tucker and Bergeron. 

Still, though, the Orange had chances to win the game. They outplayed the Golden Gophers across the board, but the loss came down to two third-quarter plays. First, when Syracuse had momentum, driving inside Minnesota’s 40-yard line, but Shrader telegraphed a quick out route toss to Oronde Gadsden II, leading to a 70-yard pick-six. Shrader and Gadsden had already connected on the same throw three times, but this time, Coleman Bryson knew it was coming. 

“To be able to get that and learn from it, learn from my mistakes is the biggest thing,” Bryson said. “It was cool to be able to put that into effect.”

Seven minutes later, another big play ceased Syracuse’s momentum. Andre Szmyt had just connected on a 38-yard field goal, and Brady Denaburg’s ensuing kickoff fell into Quentin Redding’s hands at the 3. Redding’s fake pitch to Le’Meke Brockington set up a big play — 72 yards by the time Denaburg tripped him up — and another Golden Gophers touchdown, this time Jackson finding the end zone off a screen pass. Minnesota had practiced the fake for four weeks, looking for the perfect time to use it, Golden Gophers’ head coach P.J. Fleck said.

“You talk about the one pick-six for a touchdown and the kickoff return, which is basically another touchdown, the defense only gave up 14 points truly,” SU head coach Dino Babers said postgame. “And that’s how you don’t win football games when you dominate in all the statistics.”

LeQuint Allen finished with 94 rushing yards on 15 carries in place of Sean Tucker, who declared for the NFL draft and opted out the Pinstripe Bowl. Jacob Halsema | Staff Photographer

Ibrahim, who ranks No. 4 nationally in rushing yards, took 16 carries for 71 yards in the first half, sitting out the second after becoming the program’s all-time rushing yards leader.  Without three injured linebackers, interim defensive coordinator Nick Monroe even flipped Syracuse’s defense from its usual 3-3-5 scheme to a 4-2-5 to start the game in hopes of containing Ibrahim. 

The running back helped the Golden Gophers control time of possession in the first half, with a four-minute, 30-second drive ending early in the second quarter with Ibrahim lunging into the arms of Alijah Clark and across the white line of the end zone, for a 6-0 Minnesota lead. 

“He will never be denied,” Fleck said of Ibrahim. “I’m just grateful he plays on our team. I would never want to play against him. He will eat you alive eventually.”

On the flip side, the Orange solidified any concerns about life post-Tucker, with Allen becoming the offense’s focal point Thursday. Tucker, one usually brief with words, approached Allen pregame with a simple, “you ready?” It fired Allen up, and the freshman’s 94 rushing yards, including a 29-yard run in the third quarter where he broke three tackles, helped Syracuse’s offense pick up in the second half after only posting even points in the first. 

“The way LeQuint played today, we saw him playing like that in August. We saw him play like that when he was New Jersey Gatorade Player of the Year,” Babers said. “He has always been that way.”

Down 15 late in the fourth quarter, Shrader’s eight-yard rushing score provided Syracuse with a sliver of hope. But after an unsuccessful onside kick, and with no timeouts left, there was no miracle in store. The loss was finally solidified when Clark picked up an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty after SU stopped Minnesota on 3rd-and-short. Perhaps fittingly, one of the nation’s most-penalized units ended with a 15-yard one. 

Tanner Morgan’s kneel after Clark’s penalty was the final play of Syracuse’s rollercoaster season. Morgan and backup Athan Kaliakimanis only recorded 138 passing yards, but it didn’t matter. The sixth-year senior’s biggest throw of the game came midway through the second quarter when he connected with Jackson on a beautiful 20-yard pass, the ball laid perfectly into the receiver’s outstretched hands. Jackson responded with a few head taps and a griddy dance in the end zone. 

The dancing continued after Morgan’s kneel down hours later, with a yellow Gatorade bath, and a trophy — plus the accompanying celebratory photo — headed to Minnesota’s practice facility, and not to Syracuse’s. If it was possible to add yet another what could’ve been into Syracuse’s 2022 season, there it was. 

Back in October, when Syracuse had topped then-No. 15 NC State and fans stormed the JMA Wireless Dome field to celebrate a 6-0 start — and the bowl eligibility that came with it — it would’ve been hard to envision a finish like this one. 

For the Orange, though, the blank stares and slow, stale walks toward the Yankee Stadium locker room confirmed the reality: 6-0 had ended in 7-6.