Not even a single vote.
After a 10-win season under head coach Fran Brown in his first year with Syracuse, the Orange were left out of the preseason AP Top 25 poll, not even earning a single vote.
On the surface, the snub shouldn’t come as a surprise. Quarterback Kyle McCord, who broke the ACC single-season record for passing yards last year, was just one of the high-profile players Syracuse had leave for the NFL.
If that wasn’t enough, the Orange also have one of the toughest schedules in the entire country this year. Syracuse will play five of the 25 teams that were ranked in the preseason AP Top 25 poll, tied for the third-most in the nation.
For those reasons, many people are out on the Orange before their season even starts, which is likely why they were snubbed from the AP poll. Last year’s success also made it easy to forget that Syracuse football isn’t exactly a powerhouse. This is the same program that hasn’t had consecutive 10-win seasons since the early 1990s.
That being said, how many times does Fran Brown have to prove people wrong before they start to respect him and what he’s building at Syracuse?
No one expected Brown to be named the Newcomer Coach of the Year last season, but what he was able to accomplish with the Orange made him a worthy candidate. He led Syracuse to its first 10-win season and bowl game win since 2018, and also helped engineer a stunning comeback against then-No. 6 Miami in one of the biggest upsets of the year.
He then followed that up by securing Syracuse’s first five-star recruit since 2000, poaching five-star wide receiver Calvin Russell away from blue bloods like Michigan, Oregon, and Florida State. Every time people have doubted Fran Brown, he’s proved them wrong, and this preseason ranking snub feels no different.
Regardless of how Syracuse football performs this season, expect Brown to do everything in his power to continue restoring the Orange as one of college football’s powerhouse programs.
