SYRACUSE - Syracuse finally has shown signs of awakening from a long slumber that has taken the Orange to the depths of college football's top division. And it has to be reassuring to the team's fans that quarterback Andrew Robinson is leading the way.

After three so-so games to start the season, Robinson, a 6-foot-3, 222-pound sophomore, broke out on Saturday. He passed for 423 yards and four touchdowns in a 38-35 victory over Louisville that sent the Cardinals from No. 18 in the country to the ranks of the unranked.

“A good thing for a football team is to gain some momentum, take the win from the past week and apply it to the next week,” said Robinson, who credits last year's starter, Perry Patterson, for much of his development. “Hopefully, that creates a pattern.”

One pattern that has developed is that Robinson protects the ball. Despite being sacked an average of five times a game so far, he has thrown just one interception in 104 pass attempts and has five touchdown throws.

His performance against Louisville was 2 yards shy of the school record for a game, behind only Marvin Graves' total 15 years ago against Rutgers.

“It was a great boost for our team,” head coach Greg Robinson said. “We're tied for first place (in the Big East). That itself is motivation to every day have it on your brain to go out, work hard, and get better. That's really what it's all about. The more that you trust yourself and what you're doing, that's developing the confidence. That's what happened the other day. A lot of people did things well.”

The offensive line gave up only two sacks to the Cardinals after allowing 18 in the first three games, several coming because Andrew Robinson failed to throw the ball away when he had the chance.

The quarterback was pleased, and not only because he was named the Big East's offensive player of the week and online readers of USA Today voted him national player of the week.

“I'm definitely 10 times less sore than I have been the past four weeks, so that's always a good thing,” Andrew Robinson said with a laugh. “They take it personal when I get hit back there. I think it was definitely gratifying to them to see me off the ground and look back there and see me run downfield with the receivers. They did a spectacular job.”

This is Greg Robinson's third year at the helm. His teams have gone 6-21 to date, and he was widely criticized because there were no signs of improvement prior to the Louisville game. In its first three games of 2007, Syracuse was beaten 42-12 by Washington, 35-0 by Iowa, and 41-20 by Illinois, which had lost at home to Syracuse in 2006 and hadn't defeated a team at college football's top level in a year.

There are some bright spots. Andrew Robinson is on pace to break the single-season school record for yardage (2,547) set in 1993 by Graves. Wideout Taj Smith has four catches for 173 yards and two touchdowns against Louisville.

So far, Greg Robinson has inserted 35 players, including 11 redshirt freshmen and nine freshmen, from his recruiting classes into the lineup.

Now, the Orange head to Miami of Ohio on Saturday to see if the Louisville game was the real deal or just a fluke.

“We played more as a team,” said wideout Mike Williams. “Everybody was together. I think that was the main point. We was a total team.”

“Let's see if we can build on it,” Greg Robinson said. “And if we build on it, we're going to continue to grow and be more confident and trusting of ourselves and trusting of those next to us.”