The Miami University RedHawks will welcome the Syracuse Orange to Yager Stadium for the first time when the two teams meet Saturday afternoon.

The teams have met three times prior to Saturday's game, all of which were in Syracuse's Carrier Dome, and all of which resulted in Miami losses. The Orange are coming off a stunning road upset at Louisville, who at the time was ranked No. 18 in an Associated Press Poll.

On the other side of the field, Miami is coming off a 42-0 loss at the hands of the Colorado Buffaloes. It was the first time Miami had been shut out since Nov. 6, 1993, when the RedHawks fell 21-0 at Ball State.

"We came out and we didn't perform," said sophomore quarterback Dan Raudabaugh. "We had an opportunity to execute plays, and we just didn't. We didn't move the chains, we didn't get any momentum on offense and we didn't get our defense off the field. We didn't hold up our end of the bargain."

The RedHawks were held to under 140 total yards, while the defense once again showed weakness, allowing Colorado's offense to charge down the field racking up 634 yards.

"It's not just me, it's not just the defense, it's the entire team as a group," junior linebacker Joey Hudson said. "We had a chance on third and long to get off the field, we didn't get off the field. We had about three interceptions dropped, along with third downs. We had a lot of penalties on third downs. We've just got to clean things. We'll get off the field; give the offense good field position. And that'll open it up a little bit more."

Syracuse seemed to be running on all cylinders last Saturday on the way to the upset. Sophomore quarterback Andrew Robinson completed 17 of his 26 pass attempts throwing for 423 yards with four touchdowns.

However, the rushing game for Syracuse is one of the few teams in Division-I football that average less rushing yards per game than Miami. The RedHawks average 109.3 yards on the ground, while Syracuse averages just 34.3 yards per game, which ranks 119th in Division-I football. The Miami defense, however, isn't thinking too much into that statistic.

"I think they'll be just as good as Cincinnati and Colorado on the ground," Hudson said. "They've just played some good defenses, so I don't think that stat is very indicative of what they're going to do. Most of their games, except for last week, they got behind quick, and they had to throw the ball, so that's not a very accurate stat."

Miami's slow start to games has really been putting the team in a hole early on.

"We're just not executing," Head Coach Shane Montgomery said. "We've got to find ways to move the football. The last two games we have not moved the ball at all in the first half. We've got to get off to a faster start. We've been very inconsistent on offense in the first half. We're putting ourselves in a hole, especially these last two games, by getting behind too much at halftime. And when we get behind that much, it makes us one dimensional."

Saturday the 'Hawks hope to come out with a little more intensity and jump out to an early lead.

"We just need to come out with more fire," Raudabaugh said. "We can't wait until we're down to start getting stuff going. We've got home field. Coach is stressing that other people need to know that this is our field and that we play with fire on our field. We need to score a touchdown on the first drive, and I think that would solve a lot of problems."

If a slumping offense wasn't bad enough, the RedHawks got more bad news about running back Brandon Murphy, who was injured in Minnesota, and will most likely not return this season. There had been talk of him returning late in the season if the injury improved, however it seems that Murphy, a senior, is done as a RedHawk.

"There's a good chance he's out for the year," Montgomery said. "We were waiting to see how his injury was doing. It's the type of injury that would put him out for the year. We wanted to see if he was feeling better at all, that he might want to give it a chance."

Miami and Syracuse will kickoff at 3:15 p.m. Saturday afternoon and will be televised on ONN.