Syracuse keeps getting where it wants to go. The problem is what happens next.
Fran Brown’s team is moving the ball into scoring position, but the kicking game has become a wrecking ball for the Orange’s season. Through five games, SU has made just 6 of 13 field goals, the most misses in the Football Bowl Subdivision and a 41.67% rate that ranks seventh-worst nationally. That’s a brutal number for a team that has already lost close ones to Cal and Virginia, with missed kicks helping tilt both games the wrong way.
Brown didn’t dance around it after Saturday’s three-point loss at Virginia, a game that included two missed field goals and a botched punt.
“It’s tough, man. It’s just really tough,” Brown said.
Syracuse thought it had found a reset button when it turned from veteran Tripp Woody to freshman Shay Barker three games into the year. Barker came in as the No. 7 kicker in the 2026 class, per 247Sports, and the change briefly looked like it might settle things down.
It hasn’t. The Orange’s kicking problems have just shifted form.
The turnover started after Woody, who was 12-for-14 on field goals in 2025, began the new season shakier than expected. Syracuse had converted 85.7% of its field goals last year, with Woody providing steady work once the offense got into range.
This season has been a different story. The Orange have already attempted 13 field goals, one fewer than they did all of last season, and they keep finding themselves in range without cashing in.
The first big swing came against Cal on Sept. 12.
Woody hit the left upright from 31 yards in the fourth quarter, then later missed a 46-yarder wide right and short with 1:39 left, a kick that would have tied the game. Syracuse also had Steve Angeli throw three interceptions in that loss, but the kicking failures were a huge piece of the story.
A week later against Pitt, Woody’s rough stretch continued when he hooked a 30-yarder badly left. Brown then turned to Barker, who delivered a 42-yarder before halftime and added a 30-yarder late. After that game, Brown sounded encouraged.
“I felt like we might have fixed that right away because you see Shay come in and he made his kick, so that helps us a little bit,” Brown said after the Pitt game.
That optimism didn’t last long. Brown confirmed Barker as the starter coming out of the bye week, and the freshman promptly missed from 46 and 44 yards at UConn. The final miss would have won the game in regulation, but Syracuse survived in overtime.
“We just missed the last field goal,” Brown said postgame. “That was it.
I mean, should have got it. It wasn’t the snap.
It wasn’t the hold. It just went right.
I think they moved the goalpost over a little bit after they kicked it. I was like, ‘No, it was just a miss right.’”
Brown made it clear then that he still believed in the freshman.
“Shay’s a tough kid,” Brown said. “He’s going to bounce back. He may go kick a game-winner this week.”
Instead, Barker went 0-for-2 on Saturday at Virginia, missing from 47 and 41 yards in another one-possession loss. Over the last two games, he’s just 1-for-5. Brown also said after that game that he could not go back to Woody because the veteran’s hamstring is “messed up really bad,” an injury Brown said happened against UConn.
Woody’s injury leaves Syracuse with Barker as the clear option for now, and Brown said Monday he doesn’t plan to make another change. He wants the freshman to settle in.
“It’s a little deeper when it comes to field goal kicking at times,” Brown said Monday. “At the end of the day, we just have to make them when we get the opportunity.
And I’ll talk to those guys who are upset about it. It’s a room that we have to get better in.
It’s an important room.
“We just have to make them when we get the opportunity. And I’ll talk to those guys who are upset about it.
It’s a room that we have to get better in. It’s an important room.”
Brown said he’ll keep supporting the kickers, pushing them and giving them more chances in practice. He also acknowledged that the issue isn’t all on the specialists.
Syracuse has reached the red zone 4.3 times per game, tied for 28th in the country and third in the ACC, but its red-zone conversion rate sits at 76.47%, 31st-lowest nationally. Brown said the offense has to finish drives better so it doesn’t keep placing a freshman kicker in pressure spots.
“I know we didn’t put up the points we wanted to put up,” Brown said. “We have to score more, and we have to score in the red zone so we don’t put our freshman kicker in a situation where he has to miss a field goal.”
Still, Brown isn’t backing away from his belief that the kicking room will turn.
“Without them, we can’t win,” Brown said of the kickers Monday. “That room has to be as good as it can possibly be, and those guys have to be on their game.”
“They understand what’s happened, and I understand what’s happened,” Brown continued. “But it’s just as much my fault as anyone else’s.
There’s no point in trying to point the blame. Everything that goes down in that room is on me.
I know those kids continue to work hard, and we’ll get a lot better in that room.”
The Orange return to the JMA Wireless Dome on Saturday to face Louisville, their first game inside since Sept. 12. Brown is hoping the setting helps after a stretch filled with wind, rain and other outdoor variables.
“The wind, the rain, playing on grass or turf, and all those things; this week, we don’t have to worry about grass or the outside elements,” Brown said Monday. “Hopefully, playing in the Dome this week will make things a little better for us, and we won’t have to worry about those factors. He’ll send it right through the middle of the uprights.”
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