The Syracuse Orange (3-1, 1-0) pulled off a huge win for the program by going wire-to-wire on the road over the Clemson Tigers. Many outside of Syracuse pointed to the Clemson failures, but that really diminishes what the Orange did in taking control from the start and keeping the Tigers chasing their tails.
Unfortunately, the win was dampened by the injury to Orange starting quarterback Steve Angeli. While Fran Brown wouldn’t give specifics, many are assuming that Syracuse will be without QB1 the rest
of the way.
This is an all too familiar occurrence for Syracuse in recent years. After last year’s 10-win season and the numerous departures, we expected a return to 10 wins would be difficult. After the first two weeks, it looked impossible, but after the first half yesterday suddenly you could see Orange fans thinking ACC Championship Game or CFP or …..
The Angeli injury takes a lot of the optimism away from the fans, but we caution you to keep a bit more balanced perspective. As a lot of ACC schools have their struggles, Syracuse is going to have to dig deep to stay on their upward trajectory. We know Fran Brown isn’t going to make excuses. He’s talked about his belief in Rickie Collins and he’s going to call on his team to rally together for as long as Angeli’s out.
I don’t think it’s fair to Collins or the Cuse to rush to judgement on what we have seen from the LSU transfer the last two weeks. He’s going to get this week to run with the starters. Jeff Nixon’s going to have a week to gameplan to Collins and we’ll see what happens when Duke comes to town next Saturday.
Fran Brown has talked from the beginning about bringing Syracuse back to national relevance. He’s talked about not being satisfied with bowl games, or 10 win seasons. He wants to play for titles. To get there from where Syracuse has been the last twenty years is going to be a climb that will require some patience. The Orange aren’t going to be able to charge up the hill unimpeded, they will have to dig down and dig deep to find the resolve necessary to push through the challenge.
No matter what happens this week, and the weeks to follow, what we saw yesterday was a program-defining win. Fran Brown’s Orange went to Clemson, they faced a talented and desperate team, and they met that challenge and pushed right past. Syracuse showed that this isn’t a program riding one player to success. This feels like a turning point and when Fran Brown can build the talent and depth to where it needs to be, Syracuse will reach the summit again.
