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Syracuse Football Preview 2025: Can Fran Brown Sustain the Orange Success?
Syracuse fans have been teased a bit over the last few years, especially the ones who remember a time when the program was a Big East powerhouse. And yes, there was a time in the late 1980s when Syracuse was in the national championship discussion - Don McPherson is still one of my favorite college quarterbacks ever. But that was a long, long time now the Orange fans got to have a whole lot of fun last year under head coach Fran Brown. So, can Syracuse win on a regular basis, or was that just a one-off?
X CFN, Fiu | CFN Facebook | Bluesky Fiu, CFN2025 Syracuse PreviewSyracuse Offense BreakdownSyracuse Defense BreakdownSeason Prediction, Win Total, Keys to Season
It's been a while since the football program - and the basketball team, for that matter - was a major player. Take out newbies Stanford and Cal, and Syracuse joins NC State as the only ACC schools to not play in the conference championship since it started in doesn't mean the Orange haven't been good at times, but to put head coach Fran Brown's first season into perspective, it was just the second campaign since 2012 that finished with more than seven wins. Worse yet, even with the 10-3 season, Syracuse is just 76-85 since joining the ACC in 2013.
Syracuse had to battle through two years of rebuilding under Dino Babers to get the everything-went-right 10-3 season of 2018. And then he had three straight losing seasons, rallied in 2022, and it was over in 2023. He always seemed to have the Orange just this close to turning it into something big, and he couldn't do stepped in and set the bar high from the start. Not only did he provide an instant jolt to the win column, but he made Syracuse one of the most fun teams in college football.
There was a wild Holiday Bowl win, the passing game was the best in the country, and the team had the honor of screwing up Miami's season in one of the most important games of the College Football Playoff high-powered offense isn't going anywhere, the transfers are coming in late, and ...Syracuse will need a few breaks this time around.
Nine of the 13 games last season were decided by one score, and that was with as light an ACC slate as reasonably possible. This year, swap out Ohio with Tennessee to open the season. Take out a trip to UNLV and add a date at Notre no trip to Cal, but there's a date at Clemson. There's no game against Stanford, but there's a road trip to SMU. And this time around, the Miami game is in Hard be prepared. Syracuse probably won't have as good a season, but it won't necessarily mean it'll be a step Brown appears to be a keeper who'll make winning a regular thing. But he has to keep it all going on … Syracuse Offense BreakdownSyracuse Defense BreakdownSeason Prediction, Win Total, Keys to Season
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