1997 Syracuse football rewind: Orange narrowly avoid another loss

The Syracuse Orange came back to the Carrier Dome reeling after three straight losses. With the Tulane Green Wave coming into town, Paul Pasqualoni was hoping to get things back on track with a comfortable win, but after the opener nothing has been easy for the Orange.

Donovan McNabb threw four first-half interceptions and the Carrier Dome crowd was stunned by what was happening. The Syracuse defense did their part by holding the Green Wave to just three points at halftime.

Two Kyle McIntosh touchdown runs in the third quarter helped give Syracuse a 24-6 lead but Tulane quarterback Shaun King rallied the Green Wave in the 4th. King scored on a run then found Toney Converse to close the gap to 24-19.

Syracuse was unable to move the ball and punted it back to Tulane and King found JaJuan Dawson to put the ball inside the Orange 10. It looked like the Syracuse season was going to keep going further in the dumps but Tebucky Jones stepped in front of a pass on third and goal and took it back 98 yards as time expired.

King ended the day 21 of 46 for 339 yards, 204 of those went to Dawson. McNabb overcame the early troubles to finish 15 of 23 for 246 yards while adding 66 yards rushing. Syracuse moves to 2-3 on the season and prepares to host another Conference USA opponent, East Carolina, next week.