Syracuse’s first three games have been defined as much by flags as by football.
At 1-2, the Orange have already taken a lopsided win over New Hampshire, a frustrating 21-18 home loss to Cal, and a 27-13 defeat at Pitt. But the bigger problem has been the self-inflicted damage. Syracuse has piled up penalties at a rate that has put it at the top of the national list, and those mistakes have repeatedly cost the team yards and momentum.
The breakdown through three games is ugly: 12 penalties for 125 yards against New Hampshire, 14 penalties for 110 yards against California, and 10 penalties for 94 yards against Pittsburgh. Add it all up, and Syracuse has been penalized 36 times for 329 yards.
That total leads the nation in penalties taken through the first three weeks of the season. No team has more. On the yardage side, only UTSA has been worse, with 345 penalty yards compared to Syracuse’s 329.
For an ACC team, the 36 penalties are also a striking benchmark. It’s the most committed by any league team through three games since 2023.
Some around the game view that kind of number as a coaching issue, a sign of a team that lacks discipline. Others point to the reality of live action, where split-second decisions and bang-bang plays can turn into flags.
The belief here is that the burden falls more on the players than the coaches. It’s hard to imagine a staff teaching the wrong technique and expecting it to show up on game day. What Syracuse can do now is clean up the details and make sure the same mistakes aren’t repeated.
Fran Brown and his staff now have time to work on it. Syracuse is off for the weekend of Sept. 27 and won’t play again until Oct. 3, when it faces UConn.
In Other News...
Syracuse Is Reaching A Real Decision Point At Quarterback
Through the first three games, Syracuse has learned enough about its quarterback situation to know this is no longer just a slow start. Steve Angeli has been pressed into tough situations behind an offensive line that has not given him much help, and the results have been rough. He is tied for the most interceptions nationally, has put several other throws in harms way and has looked limited enough as a runner that mobility has become part of the conversation, whether from injury recovery or just the strain of the opening stretch.
The bigger issue for the Orange is that Angelis problems are not happening in isolation. Tackles Kam Pringle and center Joe Cruz have both been part of an underperforming front, and the cumulative effect has made the offense hard to trust in key moments. At some point, Syracuse has to decide whether this is simply a bad early run that can be corrected, or a quarterback setup that needs a different answer before the season gets away from it. [Read more 🡒]
Syracuse Has Real Momentum With A 5-Star Recruit And Fans Know It
Syracuse has kept itself in the thick of the race for five-star 2027 prospect Moussa Kamissoko, and the Oranges persistence has become part of the story. Gerry McNamara and assistant coach Jamal Brunt have both made repeated trips to his high school, a sign that Syracuse is treating this one like a priority recruit rather than just another name on the board.
Kamissoko has already taken official visits to several schools, but the next few steps in his process could matter even more if he trims some of the remaining stops. Syracuse is being viewed as a leading candidate to land him, which is exactly the kind of momentum the Orange want to build early in a cycle that can shape the program for years, even if no decision has come down yet. [Read more 🡒]
Syracuse Has A Discipline Problem That Could Define This Season
Syracuses start to the season has come with a familiar frustration for Fran Brown: the Orange are piling up flags at a rate that no program in the FBS can match. Through the early part of the year, Syracuse leads the country in penalties per game and sits second in penalty yards per game, a sharp jump from what Browns teams had been able to avoid in past seasons. For a program trying to build consistency, the issue has become impossible to separate from the bigger picture.
Brown has already acknowledged the need for better discipline, and that matters because this kind of problem can wear on a team in more ways than the box score shows. History also offers some perspective, though, since teams with heavy penalty totals have still found ways to finish with winning records and make bowl games. The question for Syracuse is whether it can clean up the mistakes soon enough for those examples to matter. [Read more 🡒]