Even if his pace slows down, the grad transfer receiver is on pace to break some very big records for the Orange.
He's only going to be here for one season, but there's a very good chance Amba Etta-Tawo's name sticks with Syracuse Orange football for a long time to come.
Two games into the 2016 season, the grad transfer from Maryland has twenty receptions for 313 yards and three touchdowns. Extrapolated, that means he's currently on pace to have 120 receptions, 1,878 yards and 18 touchdowns.
Now of course one of those games came against the not-very-vaunted Colgate defense. But the flip side is that the other game came a pretty solid Louisville defense. So it kinda evens out.
Sure, Ervin Phillips is eating up receptions and we're all still waiting for Steve Ishmael's big breakout, but there's something about the connection between Eric Dungey and Etta-Tawo that seems predestined to be a shooting star. Dazzling, if only for a brief moment.
This isn't by chance. As Etta-Tawo said this week, the duo became fast friends this summer.
"That's my guy," Etta-Tawo said of Dungey. "We kind of clicked early in the summertime, throwing routes on air, running in conditioning."
"I go through my progressions," Dungey said. "Amba's doing a great job of working and getting open. Steve's done a great job as well. Right now, things are just kind of going Amba's way, but things will go Steve's way."
No doubt, but even if AET's production drops off somewhat, he's still on pace for the record books.
The Syracuse single-season reception record? 72, set by Sir Alec Lemon in 2012. All AET has to do is catch five or six balls per game from here on out to break that. Hell, we might have two receivers break that record this year.
The Syracuse single-season receiving yards record? 1,131 yards. Like I said, even if Etta-Tawo's production drops off, he still only has to average 81.8 yards per game from here on out to break that record. Given what we know this offense is capable of, it's doable.
The Syracuse single-season touchdown record? 14 by Tommy Kane. No other Syracuse receiver has more than 11. That's friggin' nuts. And that's going to change in a hurry with this offense. AET has to get into the endzone 11 more times to tie the record and 12 more times to tie it, which is still a lot, but doable.
Long way to go this season but Etta-Tawo might just end up being the guy whose single-season records are the benchmark that every incoming SU receiver shoots for in the years to come.
