Syracuse Football 2025 Preview

HC Fran Brown (center) won 10 games in his first season at Syracuse. A much tougher schedule and a ton of lost production will make that more difficult in '25 (Photo: Rich Barnes / Imagn Images)

Year 1 of the Fran Brown era was a smashing success, winning their bowl game to go 10-3 for just the third time in the 21st century. The climax was upsetting Top 10 Miami in a thriller to knock them out of ACC and CFP contention. The offense was electric led by Kyle McCord setting a school and ACC record with 4,779 passing yards. But now McCord is gone, as is a 1,000-yard rusher, three 900+ yards receivers and four starting offensive linemen. The cupboard is far from bare though, as there are talented returners and Brown did an underrated job in the portal. But is Syracuse at a point yet where they can simply reload?

Offense

Following a record setting season from McCord, it looked like talented LSU transfer Rickie Collins would take over after Fran Brown named him the starter in the spring. Brown then threw a curveball by proceeding to bring in Notre Dame transfer Steve Angeli for a QB battle. The writing was on the wall though, as you don’t pay a guy like Angeli to come be your backup. That came to fruition with him officially being named the starter last week.

The RS Jr appeared in 15 games over the last two seasons with impressive numbers in limited action: 58-80 (72.5%), 772 yds, 10 TD and just 1 INT. We only saw flashes, like when he filled in for Riley Leonard to close the half against Penn State in the CFP semis and as the starter in the ’23 Sun Bowl. Will he match McCord’s numbers? Very unlikely. But he seems to have the makings of a capable starter at the P4 level. Collins backed up Garrett Nussmeier the last two seasons and has major upside making this potentially one of the more solid QB situations in the ACC, although unproven.

Steve Angeli transferred in during the summer from Notre Dame to ultimately win a tight QB battle (Photo: Scott Schild / Syracuse.com)

Syracuse has churned out solid RBs recently and I’d expect this year to be no different as they are the only team in the conference to land two guys on the preseason Doak Walker Award watchlist. They’ve had a true bellcow for five years running now but you can expect Yasin Willis and Will Nixon to get a fairly even split of the touches. Willis is a guy they really liked coming out of high school and he was the second leading rusher (130 yds) as a true freshman. Nixon was expected to have a decent role as the backup last year after transferring from Washington (201 yds, 6.1 ypc in ’23) but only played three games before missing the rest of the year.

The top three pass catchers are all gone, leaving behind 235 catches, 2,896 yds and 23 TD from a year ago. A big part of replacing that production will be the top returner Darrell Gill who had a good showing in his own right with 31 rec, 570 yds and 2 TD. At 6’3” he’s an explosive target who averaged 18.4 yds/rec but it’ll be interesting to see how he performs at the top of opposing team’s scouting reports. Speaking of big play ability, Umari Hatcher and Justus Ross-Simmons averaged 16.1 and 22.4 yds/rec, respectively. In ’23 Hatcher was a starter for the Orange and Ross-Simmons was a starter at Colorado State where he had 708 yds and 3 TD. They also both bring great height for the position at 6’3” and will need step into much larger roles.

Darrell Gill displayed big-play ability in a complimentary role, but should put up huge numbers with more volume (Photo: Syracuse Athletics)

Former top-50 recruit Johntay Cook is ultra-talented and flashed that in two seasons at Texas with 16 rec, 273 yds (17.1) and 2 TDs in a limited role. After spending the spring at Washington, being able to tap into his raw ability more consistently is a huge key for the ceiling of this offense. Fran Brown might’ve uncovered the next Travis Hunter in true freshman Demetrus Samuel, who will play both sides of the ball and is on preseason Freshman All-American teams. It sounds like early on most of his playing time will come on the defensive side of the ball, but expect to see the 4-star recruit mixed in here as well. Another true freshman Darius Johnson was on the two-deep in fall camp but broke his leg and will miss at the least the first month of the season.

Offensive line is where a ton of concerns start to pop up. LeQuint Allen had to do a lot of the heavy lifting as the RB last year behind a line that ranked just 113th in line yards. Now they lose three starters, plus a 4th in RG Mark Petry who suffered a season-ending injury in the spring. The one returning starter is LT Da’Metrius Weatherspoon but he was the lowest graded of the group after being 1st Tm All-MEAC at Howard in ’23. Senior Joe Cruz played a total of 175 snaps between RG, LG and LT but likely slots in at one of the Guard spots. The rest of the line will primarily be made up of transfers.

Austin Collins started the first seven games for Louisville at RG before being demoted. He played over 1,100 snaps over the past two seasons will start the year as the primary Center. TJ Ferguson was highly recruited to Alabama out of high school and also started seven games a year ago for Florida St but had a very poor 42.6 PFF grade, being especially bad in the run game. Another former Bama lineman, Naquil Bertrand played one game as a true freshman and could start at the other Tackle spot opposite of Weatherspoon. Former 5-star Zach Rice was a huge bust at UNC, failing to win a job in each of his three seasons, but maybe a change of scenery can unlock his potential as he seems like the leader to start at RG.

Defense

A switch from the 3-3-5 to a 4-2-5 alignment didn’t reap immediate success in ’24 as the Orange defense ranked 76th in total defense and 96th in scoring defense. Some of the advanced metrics were even worse at 113th in EPA and 118th defensive finishing drives. There are a lot of areas they have to improve and it will have to happen losing 7 of their top 10 tacklers.

The defensive line got hit in the spring portal losing a freshman All-American and another that had high upside after appearing in six games as a true freshman. That leaves DE Denis Jaquez and DT Dion Wilson as the top returners. Wilson started all five games he played in after transferring from New Mexico State but missed most of the season due to injury. He flashed in the bowl game (against a depleted Washington State team) with 4 recorded pressures from the interior. Jaquez had his best college season yet in an inconsistent role with 23 tkl, 3 TFL and 2.5 sk.

There are several other guys who started games last year such as Rashard Perry (top graded returning DL per PFF), Kevin Jobity (started the first five games before missing the rest) and Chase Simmons (started back half of the year). Two transfers should factor in at DT right away. George Rooks is a two-year starter from BC, although he’ll need to be much better. Chris Thomas started for Marshall last year and was productive (42 tkl, 4 TFL, 1 sk) and adds some much needed beef to an undersized unit. David Reese was a nice pick up from Cal with his ability to wreak havoc, totaling 58 tkl, 16 TFL and 11 sk the last two seasons. He'll likely move from OLB to DE out of necessity. I had to triple check when it said he was a freshman way back in… 2018?! The checks are cashing I guess.

Part of the reason why the defense struggled is because star LB Marlowe Wax missed serious time. He’s now gone along with Fadil Diggs and S/LB hybrid leading tackler Justin Barron. Derek McDonald has played a ton of football at Syracuse, with his best year coming in ’23 when he had 67 tkl, 4 TFL and 2.5 sk. Last year he started the first seven games with Wax out before only playing a combined 53 snaps over the last five games, still finishing 5th on the team in tkls. Anwar Sparrow too has been a three-year contributor for the Orange but was unproductive last year before missing a good chunk of the season. James Heard is a guy the staff was excited about in their first portal cycle, but he didn’t have much of role last year even as the group battled injuries. Can he carve out time this year? FCS transfer Gary Bryant is coming off a stellar season at South Dakota (103 tkl, 2 INT) and should start right away.

Duce Chestnut is a versatile defender that has started entire seasons at both safety and corner

The top two returning tackle leaders are both in the secondary, but there’s major concerns otherwise. SS Duce Chestnut enters his 4th season at Syracuse, with one at LSU mixed in, and is coming off a career high in tkls with 62 as one of their most reliable defenders in ’24. Devin Grant (56 tkl, 8 TFL, 2 sk) is back at the STAR position but will need to be better in coverage. The other safety spot will likely be a battle between Sr Berry Buxton and Soph Braheem Long, both of whom were two of the lowest graded players on defense. Very little experience at CB remains on the roster. I already mentioned two-way true freshman Demetres Samuel will be a day one starter here, with Greg Delaine and Davien Kerr expected to play larger roles. Kerr started the last four games of the year but really struggled. Former 4-star recruit Chris Peal transfers in from Georgia and will push for time as well.

Special Teams

The kicking game was a disaster for the first half of the season. Syracuse used three different kickers, with the first two each getting benched before landing on Jackson Kennedy. He returns after going 8/11 in the final six games. Jack Stonehouse returns as one of the better punters in the league with an elite 4.25 hangtime, however he still had a 39.4% return rate which implies very poor kick coverage and an inability for gunners to get down field. The kick return game was poor and Trebor Pena, who handled punts, was obviously a huge spring portal defect. Could Demetrus Samuel be a THRE- way player??

Schedule

It’s a good thing Fran Brown got his 10-win season already because this year’s schedule is absolutely brutal. There's approximately one guaranteed win on this schedule, and that’s Colgate in Week 3. I can’t even count UConn at home considering all that Syracuse lost plus the fact the Huskies were surprisingly a 9-win team last year. The road schedule is as follows: Clemson, SMU, Georgia Tech, Miami and Notre Dame. That’s potentially the top 4 teams in the conference plus last season’s national runner-up. Not to mention starting out with Tennessee on a “neutral” in Atlanta to open the season. It’s very possible they may have to sweep the rest of the schedule, basically all toss ups at home, just to make a bowl game.

Overall Outlook

While Syracuse should be commended for winning 10 games, they were definitely fortunate to do so going 7-2 in one-possession games, including two wins in OT. Now they lose an insane amount of production on offense and I don’t think the defense will be fixed. There are certainly plenty of intriguing replacements on the offensive side of the ball led by Angeli and a crop of explosive receivers, but the offensive line is potentially a huge issue with very little impactful experience. Gary Bryant could be a real player for the defense and there are some young guys, especially in the secondary, that I am a fan of. But they are undersized up front and the depth chart looks to be in a worse position from last year. Once you factor in one of the hardest schedules in the entire country, Fran Brown should be National COY should this team do anything more than just make it to a bowl.