College football: Del Rio-Wilson comes in relief of Shrader, delivers some key passes
Oct. 30—SYRACUSE — Carlos Del Rio-Wilson surprisingly received his first test as the Syracuse University football quarterback Saturday and was graded by head coach Dino Babers with a "C" afterward.
Del Rio-Wilson entered at halftime for No. 16 Syracuse in a 41-24 loss to FBS independent Notre Dame in the JMA Wireless Dome due to undisclosed injury concerns with starter Garrett Shrader.
The redshirt freshman in his first season since transferring from Florida completed 11 of 22 passes for 190 yards to go with a touchdown and an interception. He engineered consecutive scoring drives to close the third quarter in a comeback bid during the first extended action of his career.
"I feel like I did pretty good, but I could have done a lot better, I wanted to win," Del Rio-Wilson said afterward.
Babers did not provide a status update on Shrader moving forward but confirmed the quarterback did not suffer a head injury and was pulled due to concerns regarding a pre-existing condition.
Del Rio-Wilson did not shed light on his knowledge of Shrader's injury coming into the game but said he was told to be ready by an offensive assistant coach when he got to the locker room at halftime.
"I prepared physically and mentally the whole week, so when he told me I need to be ready to go, I just went out there and handled business," Del Rio-Wilson said.
"Every week I feel like in practice I need to put in enough effort, whether he's hurt or not, so the whole week in practice I was focused like I usually am," he added.
Del Rio-Wilson entered for his first drive backed up at the SU five-yard line and oversaw a three-and-out series before settling in for the Orange (6-2 overall, 3-1 ACC).
He connected with Oronde Gadsden II for a 30-yard pass on the next possession for the longest play of the game for the SU offense to that point. Syracuse trailed 21-7 at the break with just 78 yards of offense.
The 6-foot-2, 232-pound dual threat showed his plus arm strength on several throws and connected with D'Marcus Adams for a 13-yard touchdown pass to cut the Notre Dame advantage to 38-24 with five minutes and 44 seconds left.
Del Rio-Wilson's lone interception was on a tipped pass. He established new career highs for completions, attempts, yards, and threw his first collegiate TD pass in the relief outing.
"If I had to grade him without seeing the tape — I don't like doing stuff like that — but my grade would be a 'C,' " Babers said. "I'll go back and check the tape and see, but it felt like we had a chance to win."
Del Rio-Wilson is a former four-star prospect from Atlanta, who was rated as the No. 16 QB in his recruiting cycle. He was a redshirt for the Florida Gators last season before transferring to join the Orange in May. He had completed 3 of 5 passes for 32 yards in limited action entering Saturday.
Shrader's health status for SU's next game — at 3:30 p.m. Saturday at Pittsburgh (4-3, 1-2) — is yet to be determined.
"I always say I don't take losses, I take lessons, so tomorrow I know we'll watch film and see what I could have done better," Del Rio-Wilson said. "This whole week I'll work on it and make sure when we go out there for Pitt that I'm ready."
