New Head Coach Fran Brown will look to improve Syracuse’s fortunes with an improved roster.
The Syracuse Orange entered the ACC from the Big East in 2013 and has had mixed results compiling a 56-79 (28-62 ACC) record in that time. The highlight of their ACC membership came in 2018 with a 10-3 record and finishing 2nd in the Atlantic. It appeared former Heach Coach Dino Babers finally had his offense cooking, but the magic faded with three losing seasons and two more with midseason collapses.
Syracuse got off to a nice 4-0 start again last year but sustained a lot of injuries on offense as they got into ACC play and dropped the next 5 before gaining a win against a struggling Pitt team. They’d face Georgia Tech as both teams looked for bowl eligibility, but the beleaguered offense couldn’t quite keep up and Dino Babers was fired before the final regular season game. QB Garrett Schrader would return for the finale with Wake Forest and led his team to a victory for a bowl berth against USF in the Boca Raton Bowl. It still ended bitterly with a 45-0 trouncing at the hands of the South Florida Bulls.
Now the Orange bring in new Head Coach Fran Brown from Georgia. Coach Brown has coached DBs at all his stops and held the Co-DC tag for Temple in 2019. Syracuse went with Brown for his reputation as one of the better recruiters in the nation. It’s paid dividends early in the transfer portal as they’ve added 19 transfers. Recruiting from high schools has seen a small uptick but should improve more when Coach Brown can show results on the field.
Let’s see what this year’s iteration of Syracuse will look like and how they will compare to Georgia Tech when they meet this season.
Offense
Quarterback play was the major issue with last year’s offense. It wasn’t entirely on the QBs though as multiple injuries depleted to the depth late in the season. They even relied on converted TE Dan Villari to make it through some games. Garrett Schrader was the main starter and performed well when he was healthy but he has departed. Ohio State transfer Kyle McCord will be the big name to watch and the presumed starter. Kyle did lead Ohio State to an 11-2 record but came under scrutiny as the weak link in an offense laden with NFL talent. While the talent gap between Ohio State and Syracuse is large he is still a big upgrade and has the potential to be one of the better QBs in the conference.
One area that won’t need an upgrade will be at running back. LeQuint Allen was the highlight of the offense last year as a 1000-yard rusher and scored 9 times on the ground. His biggest game came against the Jackets with 140 yards and two scores. He should share some of the workload with Will Nixon who comes in from Washington. Nixon’s dad, Jeff Nixon, was hired as the new OC and coached RBs at his previous stop with the New York Giants.
Much like the quarterback position, receivers and offensive line were hit early and often by injuries. The hardest blow was when TE Oronde Gadsden went down after two games and missed the season. He will be back and healthy and should be Kyle McCord’s primary target in the passing game. Coach Brown did bring three receivers with him from UGA and Justus Ross-Simmons from Colorado State who earned Mountain West honors so there will be help. As long as Syracuse’s injury luck stays positive this year the offense should see an overall boost from better personnel.
Defense
On paper, the defense appeared to be a decent overall unit allowing only 25 points a game. The issue is that their best performances were Colgate (0 points), Western Michigan (7), and Bosten College (10). When they faced teams in the upper half of offensive ratings they allowed over 30 points to each with FSU, Clemson, and USF all scoring over 40.
The good news is Syracuse is bringing back three starting linebackers with 2nd Team All ACC Marlowe Max leading the unit with 110 tackles last year which was good for 3rd in the ACC. The secondary did lose CB Isiah Johson and S Jason Simmons, but Coach Brown grabbed Devin Grant from Buffalo and Clarence Lewis from Notre Dame to fill in the holes.
The defensive front took the biggest hit in attrition with all of last year’s starters departing but five transfers were brought in to help with the depth. Keep an eye on Fadil Diggs who will be featured at rush end and started all 12 games for Texas A&M last year with 4 sacks and 7 tackles for loss.
The defense may take longer in the season to gel around a solid unit in the middle as they will go from running a 3-4 to a 4-3 defense. Coach Brown will have some say over the DBs as that is his specialty but his staff is made up entirely of former position coaches with few ever holding major coordinator or play-calling duties. They may take some lumps against an offensive-heavy league in their first season.
Matchup
Georgia Tech got the better Syracuse at home last year, but it was never a comfortable game against such a short-handed team. One thing Syracuse will have working in their favor is Georgia Tech will have just played FSU in Dublin before turning around and playing Georgia State at home the next week. So the Jackets will have racked up their travel with a trip to Syracuse in the formal Week 2.
This will be Syracuse’s second game of the season after facing the Ohio Bobcats so Georgia Tech may be more fine-tuned than Syracuse, and I think that is where the margin for victory will lie. Coach Brown should have a solid team that could cause problems down the stretch, but this is a transfer-heavy roster with a very young and inexperienced coaching staff going into their first game against a Power opponent.
Georgia Tech is returning a proven and talented offense that has a chance to be one of the best in the ACC. Syracuse’s new defensive front will need to account for QB Haynes King’s ability to run along with Jamal Haynes as a 1,000-yard rusher. If the Jackets even make marginal progress on the defensive side I think Georgia Tech should pull this one out in the end.