Syracuse football: spring game takeaways

Good vibes in the Dome on Saturday afternoon

On Saturday afternoon, the Syracuse Orange football team put on a show for fans in the annual spring game.

After a highly promising season in Head Coach Fran Brown’s debut year, the Orange finished 10-3, good enough for 20th in the National Poll at the end of the season.

This upcoming season, the Orange will seek to push on from their 2024 record and make a bid for the ACC Championship and NCAA College Football Playoffs.

This effort won’t be easy after the Orange lost a slew of key players to the NFL Draft, including QB Kyle McCord, RB LeQuint Allen, TE Oronde Gadsden II, Edge Fadil Diggs, LB/Safety Justin Barron, and Safety Alijah Clark.

Despite these losses, new and returning faces such as WR Trebor Pena, QB Rickie Collins, DB Devin Grant, LB Derek McDonald, and DE Dennis Jaquez Jr. will be looking to lead the 2025 Orange.

As the game kicked off around 3pm, vibes were high in the JMA Wireless Dome, with a large slew of fans showing up for the ‘Blue vs. Orange’ event. Syracuse was missing a significant group of players from the scrimmage:

• Quarterback: Rickie Collins
• Defensive backs Devin Grant, Berry Buxton III
• Running backs Will Nixon, Malachi James, Malachi Coleman
• Defensive linemen Chase Simmons, Eric Thomas, Rashard Perry, Kevin Jobity
• Tight end Dan Villari
• Wide Receiver Darrell Gill

Gill, James and Coleman were with the Syracuse track team. Grant and Nixon are still recovering from injuries suffered last season.

Here are some key takeaways from the afternoon.

QB Showings and Pace of Play

With projected starting quarterback Rickie Collins inactive due to a hand injury, Cuse fans got the chance to see Senior Michael Johnson Jr. and Freshman Jakhari Williams get some reps in.

The freshman was particularly impressive, demonstrating his deep-ball abilities throughout the day, including an absolute bomb completed to Justus Ross-Simmons on the opening drive for a massive gain. He also had a few other impressive throws with the 1st string offense.

Johnson Jr. had less luck on the day with a few errant passes and botched reads but also showed off his big arm and tremendous speed.

In the latter stages, other QBs like Rich Belin, Joseph Filardi, and Luke Carney also got in the game.

If this game is anything to go by, then it appears that the SU offense will be moving in a slightly different manner than last year. While Kyle McCord’s offense mostly looked to find snappy connections in the 10-15-yard range, SU’s offense on Saturday took many more deep attempts and also ran the ball more often than we saw last year.

The Orange can fill the hole left by LeQuint Allen

Yasin Willis had a great outing for the Orange on the day and was a total beast in the run game (as expected). A few botched receptions may demonstrate that he is not a three-down back, but the other members of the running-back room also showed promise.

Jordan Montanez started opposite of Willis and also found some good gaps and caught the ball well out of the backfield to find a few breakaway possessions.

Although Willis appears to be the leading rusher, contributions from Montanez and Jaden Hart demonstrated that it might not be as much of a one-man show as it has been over the last few seasons.

Despite limited run attempts, all of the running backs put together strong performances.

“Oh we can run the ball, we can run the ball for sure,” said Head Coach Fran Brown after the game. “That’s something we will have for sure this year […] Yasin wasn’t even on the field that much […] you will see soon, we have a lot of weapons.”

Defensive formation shift

Across the majority of last season, the Orange lined up in a 3-3-5 formation on defense. However, in the spring game, both sides opted for a 4-2-5 through most of the game.

With a strong and diverse corps of defensive linemen, SU consistently showed four at the line with a pair of linebackers, likely Derek McDonald and another TBD backer featuring behind them. As with last season, Cuse lined up with five defensive backs on essentially every possession.

While this shift appeared to give SU a better chance at the line, they did look a bit soft right over the middle but were rarely tested in that area, as most plays were either deep passes or runs.

This will be a spot to look out for going into next season to see if the Orange can cope with fewer bodies in the secondary.

The D-line is intimidating, the rest of the defense, less so

With Coach Brown’s first full offseason of recruiting underway, the Orange defensive lines on both sides of the spring game looked larger, stronger, and faster than last season.

The quality on display for both teams and the fact that the team is now opting for a front four lends credence to the fact that the DL corps have more depth and are in better shape than in 2024.

New Mexico State Transfer Dion Wilson Jr. was arguably the standout player of the game and physically imposed his will on the game with a few key tackles and blockages inside.

KingJoseph Edwards, Xavier Miles, and Elijah Fuentes-Cundiff all also put in good shifts in the trenches.

Despite these strong showings inside, the fact that so many wideouts got open on deep routes throughout the game might be a source of worry for Cuse fans. There were multiple instances where Cuse WRs from both teams found themselves wide open deep down the field.

This issue will need some cleanup going forward.

Standouts of the day

Players that caught the eye with strong performances despite limited minutes were:

DB/WR, Demetres Samuel Jr. (Fr)

QB, Jakhari Williams (Fr)

RB, Yasin Willis (So)

DL, Dion Wilson Jr (Sr)

LB, Anwar Sparrow (Sr)

RB, Jordan Montanez (Fr)

DL/TE?, KingJoseph Edwards (Fr)

DL, Xavier Miles (Fr)

WR, Darius Johnson (Fr)

DL, Elijah Fuentes-Cundiff (Sr)

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With the program’s spring practices now over with, the Orange will next be allowed to suit up in June following what Fran Brown described as “a really great spring camp.”

“I love the intensity these last few weeks. Our guys are getting better, for sure” he said.