WINSTON SALEM, N.C. – Consider it a test run. Maybe we can look at Syracuse’s opening week as its unofficial exhibition game. They’ll work out the kinks for next week. Right?

How about ‘no.’ Syracuse should be lucky it lost only 20-10 to Wake Forest. It won’t fare much better when it faces No. 16 Iowa on Saturday.

SU has some work to do. Lots of work. Syracuse’s wide receivers should learn how to catch passes placed in front of their hands. SU’s defenders should learn how to tackle properly so teams don’t consistently convert what should be two-yard runs into first downs.

The offensive line should block properly so SU can fully utilize its running game. The defensive line should function so opposing teams can’t do just that.

Unfortunately for the Orange, that’s not something you fix in a week. The aforementioned problems are fundamental and take a whole off-season to perfect. So speaking of which, what was done this whole past year to fix last season’s problems?

Quarterback Perry Patterson did his homework, hit the weight room, improved his foot work, lost weight and improved his understanding of an offense that hasn’t really been offensive.

But none of that matters. Not when Patterson doesn’t have an offensive line to block for him and tailbacks Curtis Brinkley, Paul Chiara and Delone Carter. Not when the passing game goes 5-of-18 for a grand total of 45 yards.

Not when Patterson’s wide receivers know how to run their routes, but can’t do something as basic as catch a football thrown directly at them.

It’s admirable Patterson isn’t publicly criticizing the inexperienced receiving corps he has to lead. But I hope he’s in the locker room, during practice and at upcoming games berating the likes of Tim Lane, Taj Smith, Rice Moss, Lavar Lobdell and Jeremy Horne so that they will catch the football.

Despite Patterson’s improvement, a bad receiving corps and offensive line will make the 2005 and 2006 season-opening stats similar. Last year, SU totaled 103 yards, finished 0-of-15 on third downs and possessed the ball for 26 minutes and 50 seconds. This year, the Orange had 136 yards, went 1-of-11 on third downs and held the ball for 24 minutes and 51 seconds.

Case in point, the ‘promising’ changes SU head coach Greg Robinson sees in the West Coast offense have brought the same disastrous results from last year.

What’s more devastating for this year’s Orange is it also has a struggling defense. Linebacker Kelvin Smith made 14.5 tackles and cornerback Tanard Jackson gave Syracuse opportunities to score with his interception at the Wake Forest 30-yard line. He also forced a fumble, which resulted in the injury of Wake Forest quarterback Ben Mauk. But that was it.

Instead, the defense missed tackles, making Wake Forest’s running game seem pretty effortless. On numerous plays, the SU defense barely managed to align themselves by the time Wake Forest snapped the ball.

‘It’s the first game,’ said senior linebacker Luke Cain, who missed a key tackle on a third-and-12 in a first quarter drive that finished with a touchdown for Wake Forest. ‘I don’t want to say it’s expected, but it’s the first game. I’m just going to leave it at that.’

‘We have a long season ahead of us,’ Jackson said. ‘We have a lot of work to do. It’s one game. We’ll have to just start out strong against Iowa next week.’

The problem with that logic, which was shared by many players on Saturday, is it assumes the problems can be fixed in seven days. There’s likely another loss next week and the players will probably say the same thing afterwards.

In 2005, the Orange defense granted the SU offense many favors with forced turnovers, interceptions and key stops. In return, the offense made turnovers and had three-and-out drives. This caused grumblings and frustrations among the Orange defense.

This time around, there could be grumblings internally within both the offense and defense if line protection, tackling and catching don’t improve. But Robinson sees otherwise.

‘No way. There will not be that on our football team,’ Robinson said. ‘Nobody has any fingers to point.’

As emphatic as Robinson was claiming there won’t be any divisions on his team, I’m doubtful on whether the head coach can be as insistent that his team can turn it around. Not when the problems it has are rooted more in fundamental flaws than early-season jitters.