Doug Marrone is a student of Syracuse football history. So he easily reels off the stat that the Orange are 1-11-1 when playing road games on the West Coast or in Texas since 1964.

Marrone is also determined to change that. He's having the team fly out to Seattle this week on Thursday, two days before the game against Washington. He's also altering the practice schedule to get the players' body clocks adjusted

"It's like the chaos principle," he said. "If we do things the same way, how do we expect to have different results?"

This Syracuse team does expect different results from its own miserable past. And Week 1 proved it.

The Orange beat Akron 29-3 for their first season-opening win since 2003. They were also the only Big East team to register a victory over an FBS team in the first week. Syracuse as the Big East football savior? Now that's a difference.

"I've never won an opening game, and it's something we all really wanted," senior linebacker Doug Hogue said. "It's the first one, and it's kind of a confidence booster for us, especially going into Washington."

The degree of difficulty raises this week, and not just in the time-zone changes. The Huskies lost their opener at BYU 23-17, but many were predicting this would be a breakout year for their program.

Any discussion about Washington, of course, must begin with quarterback Jake Locker. The guy most pundits believe will be the No. 1 pick in next year's NFL draft went 20-of-37 for 266 yards and a touchdown against BYU while also running for a score.

It will be an interesting matchup between Locker and the Syracuse defense, which is built on speed with players like Hogue, a converted running back.

"It's going to be a good test for us," Hogue said. "We're going to do everything in our power to get to him, because that's how our defense is. We're an attack defense. We come downhill and run hard."

Despite the easy win in Week 1, Marrone said he saw a lot of areas that needed correcting. That included three turnovers by the offense and some technique errors elsewhere. Syracuse still has a very young roster; the Orange played nine true freshmen at Akron, the most of any Big East team. Now those youngsters must take on a Pac-10 team in front of a much more hostile crowd than the one that awaited them last week.

But if Syracuse can pull this off, it could be the start of a resurgence. The next two games are against Maine and Colgate, so a 4-0 start would be almost assured for a team that hasn't been bowl eligible since 2004.

"If we go out there and win this game [against Washington], eyes would open up about Syracuse," Hogue said. "It would be a great boost to the season, and it might make the season really spectacular for us."

That's the type of change a historian of Orange football can believe in.

"We're trying to teach this team that we're creating some history ourselves," Marrone said.