Robinson, Orange bear fruit

Andrew Robinson saw no point in reading the school newspaper, surfing the sports Web sites or listening to the radio talk shows.

The Syracuse University sophomore quarterback didn’t need anybody to remind him that the Orange had been outscored 118-32 while losing to three teams with a combined record of 13-24 last season.

What good would it have done to know that Sports Illustrated had listed the Orange in its “Bottom Ten” poll of college football teams?

Or that Louisville was favored to beat SU by more than five touchdowns?

“That stuff’s only going to make you mad,” Robinson said before practice Tuesday. “And that’s not the kind of motivation I like or need.”

So he stayed the course, and by doing so, he may have changed the course of Syracuse’s season.

Last Saturday, in one of the biggest upsets in school and college football history, the Orange men knocked off 18th-ranked Louisville – a 37-point favorite – 38-35 in a game that may have been Robinson’s coming-out party.

The 6-foot-3, 215-pound quarterback from Baltimore completed 17 of 26 passes for 423 yards and four touchdowns to earn USA Today National Player of the Week honors in college football.

This was exactly the type of performance SU coach Greg Robinson (no relation) envisioned when he promised the kid known as A-Rob that he wouldn’t recruit another quarterback from his class if the teenager gave the Orange an early commitment.