Syracuse Football Shines in 2024
The Holiday Bowl against Washington State will be done by the time you read this. Win or lose, it won’t be the most important thing about the 2024 Syracuse football season.
The most important thing? There really isn’t one. Where do we begin, after all? It all started with hiring Fran Brown (insert default most important thing) and the recruiting/NIL/transfer portal hype and expectation trains began. And the players came, oh the players. From high schools and the SEC and from Ohio State a quarterback who changed it all with 4,000-plus yards, a special leadership quality and records galore. These players were on both sides of the ball. They tweeted and went on Instagram before the season and never stopped during it, telling the nation how amazing SU football is and would continue to be.
Syracuse was on the map. Syracuse beat three Top 25 teams for the first time since 1998. The Orange came from 21 down against The U and had actual tailgates before games. Syracuse had crowds of NFL scouts at most games. National media people and former players and alums were totally engaged. They were perhaps two wins away from the College Football Playoff. Huh? Yes. Syracuse football. This all happened in 2024.
And with this success came actual expectations from fans. It wasn’t basketball season in November for a change. Football was the talk. Football mattered first. Football was fun again. Football apparel worn all over town. Fans starving for more, saying it wasn’t even remotely possible for Kyle McCord to have a bad game at Pittsburgh and get blown out. There is no way their team could lose to Boston College or Stanford. Florida State and Clemson and Notre Dame weren’t on the schedule and it was easier, many said. Well, FSU ended up in the basement, Clemson was down but still made the CFP thanks to the Orange and Notre Dame, despite being in the playoff bracket, wasn’t ultra special and lost to…Northern Illinois in South Bend. Oh, and Syracuse fans felt, as the season went on, that their team was better anyway, that those teams were lucky not to be on the 2024 schedule. Before, all of the bad thoughts and losing were expected. Everyone moved on. People stopped caring. Now? The Greg Robinson Era was when dinosaurs lived.
The offense was incredible. So many weapons. So many NFL possibilities in the future. McCord and LeQuint Allen and Trebor Pena and Oronde Gadsden and all the rest. Everybody eats in Buffalo, they say. Well, everybody ate in Syracuse, as well. 202 to 911 the statistics say for season yardage with Jackson Meeks leading the way.
Syracuse became physical at the line of scrimmage. Yes, Syracuse. It wasn’t perfect, but it got the job done.
The defense made plays. Fadil Diggs with 7.5 sacks. Marlowe Wax battling through injury and leading the group and always around the ball with all those tackles and 4.5 sacks. Even when this group was giving up chunk yards and scoring, they dug deep to get stops to allow comebacks or hold the fort down most of the year. Every layer.
Special teams? Let’s just move to DART.
Yes, DART. Frank Brown’s word. Detail. Accountability. Relentlessness. Toughness. You could find those words everywhere on the field and off the field. In the community and in the second quarter against Miami. Everywhere. Just think about Brown playing pickup football with students and cleaning up trash inside the Dome. His players followed. That stuff is real. That stuff gets you respect. That stuff makes you a better person, and ultimately a better teammate and player.
What Brown and the players and staff did in year one was remarkable. I predicted 8-4 and they won one extra game. Now what? The schedule next season is brutal, a ton of guys leave and the NIL and transfer portal present the typical challenges. Brown’s instant success wasn’t easy by any means, but it was easier than sustaining it for 5-7 years. That is the challenge now. Will he be around for it, or will there be a $10 million job somewhere that is just too good to pass up?
All that is to be determined. For now, Syracuse football is back. Syracuse football is fun. Syracuse football means something again.
And that’s all you can ask for.
