Syracuse Orange Football Offseason Preview

The Syracuse Orange seemed to be heading in the right direction under head coach Dino Babers after the 2018 season, when the Cuse won 10 games, including a decisive bowl victory over West Virginia. The Orange finished in the top 15 of the national rankings and appeared to have a bright future. That future has never materialized. The Orange have won a combined total of 11 games in the three seasons since 2018. They have not made a bowl game in any of the past three years. They haven’t won more than two conference games in the ACC in each of the past three seasons. Their overall conference record is 5-21 over the past three years. This program badly needs a jump-start, and everyone knows where that jump-start needs to come from. Babers was hired as a coach who used an up-tempo, aggressive offense at his previous coaching stops, and in 2018, when Syracuse was successful, that offensive thrived. It hasn’t thrived since. This program needs to recapture what made it productive.

Key Personnel Lost

There were no key personnel losses for Syracuse, which didn’t have a single player taken in the 2022 NFL draft this spring. This marked the first time since 2017 that Syracuse got shut out of the NFL draft. Significant, high-end talent has not made its way into the program. The Orange clearly failed to develop and build momentum after their big 2018 season. Babers has been shown a lot of patience by the school’s administration, but one wonders how many more unproductive seasons he can have before his athletic director and president feel that a change of leadership is necessary for the football program.

Important Incoming Freshmen

LeQuint Allen is a three-star running back, and Donovan Brown is a three-star recruit at wide receiver. Syracuse has some solid pieces on the defensive side of the ball, but the skill players need to be much better for the Orange in 2022, and these are two fresh faces who could potentially provide a timely boost to a slumbering offense which averaged only 24.9 points per game last season, which rated 92^nd out of 130 teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision.

Key Position Battles

Quarterback is where it all starts for Syracuse. The Orange didn’t get much out of their offense last season, and they wasted a year in which the defense gave up fewer than 27 points per game, which should be enough to win most games in modern college football. Babers has to identify and then develop a quarterback who is capable of making this offense function at a reasonably high level. In the 1980s, teams could win without an especially strong quarterback because the running back was so central to a team’s success, and the quarterback just had to complete enough passes (often with play-action) to get the offense where it needed to go. Today, teams can’t hide a bad quarterback. They get exposed too much and simply can’t keep pace on the scoreboard. Syracuse has to get an answer here after going nowhere on offense the previous few seasons.

Biggest Offseason Goal(s)

Offense, offense, offense. The defense is fine. It did its job last year. The offense has to wake up, and if it doesn’t, Babers might finally be fired after drifting through the past few years without any notable results.