After a long thirteen days off, Syracuse football (2-0, 1-0 Atlantic Coast Conference) is back in action on Friday night, where it will host a foe for the first time ever in Stanford (1-1, 0-0 ACC.)
It will be the inaugural showdown between the programs thanks to the new conference realignment put in place this past summer. The move saw three new programs join Syracuse’s ACC: The California Golden Bears, the SMU Mustangs, and the Stanford Cardinal. That decision also implies that SU will take at least one trip to the west coast every season. For a program with an elite recruiter under the helm like head coach Fran Brown, doors open for possible pipelines.
“It gives you an opportunity to go and recruit some guys and for them to be comfortable knowing that they’ll get the opportunity to travel back home twice a year,” Brown said of playing on the West Coast.
Brown, who was ranked as the top recruiter in the nation by 247Sports, has revamped the football program through the transfer portal, most notably with quarterback Kyle McCord. The senior has dominated in his first two games in orange, notching 735 yards and eight touchdowns. A strong majority of teams say they would not want a bye week right as they find their form, but McCord thinks otherwise.
Offense has been a strong part of a 2-0 start for @CuseFootball, and a lot of that is thanks to QB Kyle McCord.@RyanBridgesTV believes a key aspect to the senior's success has been his timing when throwing the ball.
— WAER Sports Talk (@WAERSportsTalk) September 14, 2024
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“Having one now is nice,” McCord said about the bye earlier this week. “Getting two wins, starting off hot, and getting the chance to regroup with another one in the middle of the season works out perfectly. It breaks the season up nicely and we can keep things rolling.”
Despite the positive outlook from McCord, the Orange of years past have struggled coming off bye weeks. Under former head coach Dino Babers, Syracuse football was 4-9 coming off more than a week of rest. In the past five years, that mark is 1-4. For Brown though, keeping his group together was key this past week.
“I wanted (the team) to take a breath of fresh air,” Brown said about how his roster approached the bye week. “Football’s still in the back of our minds, but it’s good to go out and do other things like community service and seeing my son play football.”
The Orange reset by hosting a Cardinal team that is also coming off a bye. Stanford sits at 1-1 currently, with a loss to TCU and a dominant victory over Cal Poly. The strongest aspect of Stanford’s team has been their offense, with a dual-threat quarterback in junior Ashton Daniels and a star receiver in Elic Ayomanor. Brown praised both of those guys, calling them “legit.”
“We’re just going to try and go out there and play the defense that (defensive coordinator Elijah) Robinson calls, and just try to hope that we get the right fits, the right time for the right things, to be able to just knock them off track a little bit,” Brown said of coaching against Stanford’s offense.
Syracuse has the opportunity to take the inaugural matchup between the programs on Friday night. Kickoff is set for 7:30 p.m., and WAER’s coverage starts at seven with Countdown to Faceoff on 88.3 FM and waer.org.