SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Zach Collaros makes a practice of practicing his quarterback scrambles in practice. You know what they say about practice.

Collaros threw four touchdown passes, three off broken plays, the Cincinnati defense forced two critical turnovers and the No. 5 Bearcats remained perfect with a 28-7 victory against Syracuse yesterday.

"We do a scrambling drill every day," Collaros said after just his second start in place of injured quarterback Tony Pike. "We have good chemistry with the receivers.

"All I know is I like to improvise a little bit."

To the dismay of the Orange (3-5, 0-3 Big East), who registered eight tackles for loss but only one sack.

"It's hard to run around and get someone open to make a big play," first-year Syracuse coach Doug Marrone said. "You have to have great vision. You have to keep the play going. We didn't finish."

Collaros was 22 of 28 for 295 yards and no turnovers. Always a threat to run, he managed just 22 yards on nine carries, preferring to use his strong right arm to inflict the damage.

Collaros is a remarkable 47 of 63 (75 percent) for 749 yards, nine touchdowns and one interception this season and has rushed for 213 yards and two more scores.

"He's definitely a kid that understands what's going on out there," Cincinnati coach Brian Kelly said.

Collaros hit Armon Binns on scoring passes of 81 and 13 yards off scrambles, Kazeem Alli for 16 yards off a botched field goal, and Adrien Robinson for 4 yards as Cincinnati (8-0, 4-0 Big East) won its 14th consecutive regular-season game to remain in contention for the BCS national championship.

"He's not a drop-your-eyes scrambler," Kelly said. "He's going to keep his eyes downfield. Syracuse is pretty good up front. There were too many times where he was flushed out of the pocket. We would have liked to have managed the game a little bit better from the pocket, but Zach is really good outside on the perimeter.

"We got our job done, and we want to get the heck out of here."

Cincinnati is one win off the best start in school history -- the 1951 team won nine in a row to begin the season. Its mistake-free offense -- the Bearcats did not have a turnover and remain the only team in the nation not to lose a fumble this season -- and opportunistic defense made the difference.

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