CHAMPAIGN, Ill.-OK, Syracuse won a football game. One can’t stress that enough. The streak is over.

But does Syracuse really know how to win?

Not really. That’s Greg Robinson’s next task.

Syracuse’s head coach by no means basked in the glow of his team’s 31-21 win over Illinois on Saturday. Sure, the relief and excitement showed on his face. But the Illini’s two long fourth-quarter touchdowns and late interception of a Perry Patterson pass in the endzone perturbed Robinson.

His team, understandably, doesn’t know how to finish a beaten opponent.

‘We let them off the hook in two situations and gave up two huge plays that didn’t need to be,’ Robinson said. ‘One needed to be a sack and the other one needed to be just a short little completion.’

On the first, running back Rashard Mendenhall slipped behind linebacker Luke Cain on a scramble drill.

Illinois backup quarterback Isiah ‘Juice’ Williams-who replaced starter Tim Brasic after he coughed up a ball Jerry Mackey recovered for a touchdown-was chased out of the pocket right and found Mendenhall after the running back broke off his short route and raced upfield

The play traveled 76 yards and cut Syracuse’s lead to 31-14 less than a minute into the fourth quarter-momentarily bringing the fans out of their seats.

Then with 1:36 to play, receiver Kyle Hudson slipped behind a secondary protecting against the deep pass on a third-and-10. Williams avoided initial pressure and found Hudson in stride for the 69-yard strike that finished the scoring.

The Syracuse defense relaxed on both accounts, figuring the play-and thus, the game-was over.

‘My point to our team was when you have a team down, you’ve got to do the right things,’ Robinson said. ‘We had good calls on. But we have to execute the defense. And we didn’t.’

Right before Illinois’ final touchdown, Patterson woefully underthrew his new favorite target, Taj Smith, in the endzone.

The Illini defense keyed on Smith late in the game and defensive back Justin Harrison stepped in front to prevent Smith from scoring his third touchdown.

The pick was Patterson’s first of the season against four touchdowns. This, after entering the year with 13 touchdowns and 21 interceptions in his career.

‘You see the progress from game to game,’ Patterson said. ‘As long as we keep getting better, like I said, holding ourselves accountable to the things we need to get better at.

‘(We have to) really be critical about this game because there were a lot of things, especially toward the end of the game, where we shot ourselves in the foot. So we’ve got to find a way to stay mature throughout the whole game to finish things off.’

Offensive coordinator Brian White also highlighted a failed third-and-2 conversion midway through the fourth quarter that would’ve kept the ball away from Illinois.

Good teams run out the clock with a lead in the fourth quarter.

‘I thought we improved and did a lot of good things, but there’s still so much we can correct,’ White said in a much calmer setting than the week before when he fielded question after question about his offense failing seven times from inside the Iowa 2 in double-overtime. ‘Like how to finish a game, how to finish with the football in the four-minute drill.’

That said, Syracuse must first play well enough to reach that point. Putting an opponent out of its misery comes with experience.

‘There’s ton of things that we need corrected and to build on and improve on,’ White said.

Published on September 16, 2006 at 12:00 pm