Following Saturday’s annual Spring Game, Greg Robinson was simply relieved his players accomplished the most important goal on his list of things to do.

‘The No. 1 thing today really is that we came out of it unscathed,’ Robinson said, almost with a certain sigh of relief.

The task seems so elementary, but nothing can be elementary only a week after Syracuse lost its top two running backs, Delone Carter and Curtis Brinkley, to injury. Carter will miss the entire 2007 season after dislocating his hip and Brinkley is expected to be ready for August training camp following arthroscopic knee surgery last Tuesday.

That left the running back depth chart in shambles for Saturday’s game. Rising senior Paul Chiara started. Derrell Smith and Daniel Bailey, both moved to running back last week, backed him up. Of the three, only Chiara has game experience at tailback – 33 career carries, including 17 for 59 yards last season.

The three backs combined for an unimpressive 60 yards on 20 carries during the defense’s 25-24 victory Saturday. Chiara scored the lone rushing touchdown.

Even though Brinkley will likely go into 2007 as the favorite to receive the majority of carries at tailback, Chiara could play an important role as the No. 2 back.

On the first drive of the game, Chiara paid instant dividends. After runs of two, six and eight yards, Chiara took a pitch to the right from Andrew Robinson and scurried around the defense into the endzone for a three-yard touchdown run – the game’s first score, with 7:51 left in the first quarter.

‘We were able to push it down and score, but that’s a lot of credit to the offensive line,’ Chiara said. ‘They do the dirty work and I just make the reads.’

Following the first drive, Chiara carried the ball two more times for eight yards. That was based on Greg Robinson’s decision to see more of the two backups of whom he knew very little.

‘We wanted to just give them some reps so it’s on film,’ Robinson said. ‘Derrell got a few reps last Wednesday, but it was two days (after he switched back to running back) and he was out there. He got to work a little bit without pads yesterday. That was really the logic we have there.’

Smith, Gatorade Player of the Year in Delaware in 2005, redshirted in 2006 and moved to linebacker before spring practice began this season. Smith was recruited as a running back out of high school. He gained only nine yards on seven carries on Saturday.

Bailey, former wide receiver, turned some heads with his lightning quick speed. Standing at 5-foot-7 and 167 pounds, speed is Bailey’s best asset and one that did not surprise most of his teammates.

‘He’s a pretty fast kid, he runs like a 4.2 40 (yard dash),’ offensive guard Carroll Madison said. ‘There’s not too many people in the country who can do that. He’s a pretty fast kid.’

Bailey ripped off the longest run of the game, an 18-yard scamper up the field, in the third quarter. But he finished with just 24 total yards on seven attempts.

The numbers weren’t appealing, but that doesn’t matter, Robinson said. There’s only so much the SU offense – especially the ground game – could execute in a spring exhibition, so he wasn’t looking for much. In fact, Robinson said if it were a regular season game, Brinkley would have been on the field starting.

‘Curtis could have played today,’ Robinson said. ‘They’re going to go in there on Tuesday and do a scope. But he could have – if it was a regular season game – Curtis played with a cartilage issue for two years. You look at Terrence Roberts and what he played with through basketball. It wasn’t the time to do that with the other knee. They’ll take care of that. I feel very confident he’ll be ready to go in six to seven weeks.’

And on Saturday, no one else was hurt – even though the defense wasn’t afraid to dish out big hits, especially early on.

‘When I play football I don’t think about injuries,’ linebacker Vincenzo Giruzzi said. ‘Hopefully the man across from me is not thinking about it. We’re just playing.’

Published on April 22, 2007 at 12:00 pm