Syracuse’s season has been defined by a maddening pattern: the Orange keeps hanging around, then finds a new way to come up short.
At 2-4 overall and 0-4 in ACC play, frustration around the program is running hot. But the strange part is how often Syracuse has looked capable of pulling these games out.
The Orange has been in position to win every week, and in a few of those losses, it probably should have walked away with the result. That’s what makes this stretch so painful - the team is not getting overwhelmed, it’s getting undone.
There are real reasons Syracuse has stayed competitive. The defense has done enough to keep the Orange within striking distance, even with its flaws.
It doesn’t have a dominant pass rusher, and the secondary depth has been stretched to cover for issues at safety. Penalties have also extended drives that should have died.
Still, the defense has repeatedly put Syracuse in a place where a little more help from the offense would have been enough. Cal likely turns into a win without Steve Angeli’s pick-six.
Virginia was held to seven points until late in the third quarter, when the offense’s struggles finally became too much. And against Louisville, a rough first half from the defense was followed by a second-half effort good enough to win - only for the offense to leave too many chances on the table.
Quarterback depth has also kept Syracuse afloat. Fran Brown didn’t get caught in the same trap twice after last year’s injury trouble with Angeli, and that matters.
This season, Syracuse has already had to start third-string quarterback Malachi Nelson in two of its six games and finish with fourth-stringer Danny Lauter. That is a brutal hand to play, but Nelson has done enough to keep the offense alive, and Lauter has preserved some hope when forced into action under near-impossible circumstances.
Without that depth, the season could already be spiraling the way last year’s did.
And then there’s Umari Hatcher, who has been the clearest bright spot on the offense by a mile. Syracuse entered the season thin at wide receiver and not exactly loaded at running back either, so stability was already hard to find.
Throw in four different quarterbacks in six games, and it should have been a mess. Instead, Hatcher has turned into a star no matter who is throwing him the ball.
He tore through UConn and Virginia for 278 yards and four touchdowns on 20 catches combined, then followed that by shredding Louisville for 13 catches and 224 yards, one of the best single-game performances by a Syracuse receiver in program history. He’s given the Orange the kind of game-changing playmaker it badly needed.
But the reason Syracuse keeps losing close games is just as obvious.
The turnover timing has been brutal. The Orange’s turnover margin is already in the wrong place, but the bigger problem is when those mistakes happen.
Angeli’s pick-six against Cal swung that game. Against Louisville, Syracuse fumbled inside the five-yard line instead of punching in a go-ahead score.
Those are the kinds of plays that flip a game on its head. Even worse, Syracuse quarterbacks have thrown nine interceptions this season, and every single one has come in the second half.
When the game tightens and the margin shrinks, the mistakes have piled up.
Brown has talked about Syracuse being a detailed, accountable team, but that standard hasn’t shown up often enough. The Orange is still among the nation’s worst teams in penalties and penalty yards, even if it has improved somewhat in that area.
And the sloppiness doesn’t stop there. Too many turnovers have come from basic execution failures - botched handoffs, poor situational awareness, bad decisions when taking the safer option would be smarter.
Those are the little things good teams handle without drama. Syracuse has not.
For a coach in his third season, that’s a problem Brown has to own.
The red zone has made things worse. Syracuse is scoring only 78% of the time once it gets inside the red zone, and it’s turning those trips into touchdowns just 58% of the time.
Those numbers don’t cut it for a team living in one-score games. Kicking issues have already been a known problem, but the offense can’t keep leaving points to chance and expecting that to work out.
Jeff Nixon and the offense need to finish drives before the field shrinks and the mistakes start to matter even more. The line is too big for Syracuse to be getting stuffed at the goal line as often as it has.
If the Orange wants to stop losing close games, it has to stop giving them away in the final yards.
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Brown also said wide receiver Elijah Moore is being moved to safety, another sign that Syracuse is searching for answers wherever it can find them. There was at least one encouraging note on the injury front, with linebacker Antoine Deslauriers expected to practice after missing the previous game, but the bigger question still hangs over the offense as the Orange get ready for a trip into ACC play without a confirmed starter under center. [Read more 🡒]