BLACKSBURG, VA. – Sitting in the bowels of Lane Stadium, the former nation’s leading rusher looked despondent. Moments after a game in which he had his worst rushing output of the season, Syracuse football running back Walter Reyes dropped his head and fixed his eyes to the floor.

What went wrong?

‘Pheeww,’ Reyes said, fluttering his lips. ‘I don’t know.

‘As far as shutting me down, that’s part of the game. You have good games and bad games.’

Saturday, Reyes’s performance fell under the latter. The junior had 40 yards and a touchdown on 16 carries in Syracuse’s 51-7 loss at Virginia Tech on Saturday. Reyes came into the game averaging 170.3 yards per game, good for No. 1 in the nation. That average dropped more than 30 yards after the game.

‘We’ve played a lot of good defense over the years,’ Tech head coach Frank Beamer said. ‘But to be able to play for a whole game against a good offensive football team where you have to be tough and smart is good. It’s been awhile. That was good stuff there today.’

Meanwhile, Hokie running back Kevin Jones gained 135 yards and racked up two touchdowns in Tech’s plastering of the Orangemen (3-2, 0-1 Big East). Jones’s performance proved the murmurs concerning his Heisman candidacy are valid. Saturday’s game was billed as a matchup of two of the premier backs in the country. But things didn’t go to plan for one of the two.

The Tech defensive line smothered Reyes by taking away his strength. An extremely patient runner, Reyes couldn’t afford to wait for a hole to open Saturday against Tech’s fleet, eight-man front. When he hesitated, he was gobbled up behind the line of scrimmage. On many of Reyes’s 16 rushes, the defensive line had penetrated nearly two yards into the backfield before he received the handoff.

Tech (6-0, 2-0) was prepared for Reyes. It boasts two star-caliber runners in Jones and Tech quarterback Bryan Randall, whom the defense faces every day in practice.

‘That’s the same thing we do to every running back,’ said Hokie DeAngelo Hall, who played cornerback, wide receiver and returned punts Saturday. ‘We’re used to playing against prime-time running backs.’

The destruction of the Syracuse offense began from the opening snap, when Reyes was dropped for a 1-yard loss. On SU’s second drive, he was dropped again for a loss.

‘They came out smoking the first and second quarter,’ Reyes said. ‘The defense was flying around. We were trying to run the ball and they were stuffing us.’

Jones, meanwhile, sliced through the SU defense. He used his lighting-quick feet to blow by hapless defensive linemen and his chiseled frame to break tackles. His touchdown runs of 33 and 25 yards looked as if he was coasting on a conveyor belt. Many of his runs were punctuated by stiff-arms to the mouth of Syracuse defenders.

Reyes couldn’t match Jones. His longest run of the day was for 19 yards. His next longest was for 5.

‘All (the defense) did is talk about how we were going to shut down the run,’ Randall said. ‘And they took no prisoners.’

Published on October 13, 2003 at 12:00 pm