No matter which Dungey brother played for Syracuse on Saturday, he looked good

Surely you remember the Cooney brothers of Syracuse Orange men’s basketball. Born from some lazy broadcasting, Trevor Cooney was given numerous identical brothers who’d eventually end up on the court instead of him.

Some of the most notable brothers included Terry, Gerry and Tyler, but others were mentioned here and there even if we rarely saw proof of their existence.

In keeping with this grand Syracuse tradition then, it should come as no surprise that the Orange football team would employ the same strategy in order to keep quarterback Eric Dungey healthy this year.

You already know the story with Dungey — after stepping in for an injured Terrel Hunt freshman year, he’s been SU’s starting quarterback, but has also dealt with a fair number of injuries. (Knock on wood) He hasn’t gotten injured yet in 2018, but we think we figured out the reason why...

Syracuse has been using his identical brothers as subs to help lighten the load for the senior (and also used Tommy DeVito, who’s not a Dungey brother).

You want proof?

Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

During the Pittsburgh game with Dungey struggling, the announcing team let is slip that Dave Dungey was in the game for the Orange. Dave is not nearly as mobile as Eric, and has some trouble completing screens. But he’s serviceable enough to get us to overtime against the Panthers — but he also takes unnecessary risks like lobbing a jump ball into the end zone on the first play of said extra period.

On Saturday’s ESPN2 broadcast, Beth Mowins revealed the identity of a second Dungey brother, Ryan Dungey, though it’s unclear if he played for all or just part of the win over NC State. If we tossed him in to deal with the second quarter rough patch, that’s all well and good. But because Mowins mentioned it late and then also corrected herself, we don’t exactly know when Eric and Ryan were respectively in the game for Syracuse.

In any case, either Eric or Ryan played some excellent football on Saturday to the tune of 443 (so close!) total yards and four touchdowns. The effort also pushed Dungey’s total yards past 10,000 in his career, making him (and Dave and Ryan) the first Syracuse player to ever accomplish the feat.

We’d ask Dino Babers about what spurred this year’s idea to finally use Dave and Ryan to take some of the load off for Eric, but he’d certainly deny it. In any case, whichever Dungey played on Saturday, we’d cordially invite you to stay on for the rest of the season and hopefully start Syracuse’s bowl game, too.