Oh, what a season it was.
From preseason expectations sky-high through the roof, and an upset at Clemson that felt too good to be true.
To an injured quarterback, and week after week after week of disappointment as the offense (and defense) that could not stack up with the rest of the country (from the very top to the very bottom).
The 2025 Syracuse football season wrapped up this afternoon in the same fashion that SU has displayed itself for the last two months: disastrous football. In a battle of Syracuse and Boston College, the two worst teams in the ACC, the Eagles stormed to a 34-12 victory.
And as the minutes ticked along in the Dome (with more and more fans leaving by the second), this game really continued to show each and every problem this team has this season.
It starts with the quarterback play. Ever since Steve Angeli went down, there was no identity for Syraucse. The Rickie Collins experiment failed. The team didn’t want to waste Luke Carney’s redshirt. So today, it was once again Joe Fillardi. And while he had some nice moments running the football, once again, Syracuse had a nonexistent offense. When you don’t have a quarterback who can control a game, you can’t win in the ACC. And SU learned that this year.
Not to mention, the fact that the confusion of who would play at quarterback ran into the final drive of the season illustrates another issue that haunted the Orange this season. True freshman Rich Belin was said, by Coach Fran Brown, to probably be playing in this week’s game. Instead, the New York native didn’t sniff the turf in a 22-point loss. The confusion started with Angeli’s injury and never really ended.
You can’t only blame the quarterback, though. After a 2024 season that saw so many skill players break out for SU, the opposite was true in 2025. The Orange didn’t have a single player rush for 100 yards in a game this season. Not a single receiver broke out for SU. That’s a receiver, running back, and o-line issue. Put that all together, and you have a disaster.
And perhaps more importantly, there was no defense. The fate of defensive coordinator Elijah Robinson remains greatly in the air. The Orange gave up 34 points today and at least 30 points in seven of the final eight games. That included last week’s 70-7 disaster-class loss to Notre Dame. For a coaching staff that prides itself on defense, there wasn’t a lot of it this season.
So what can we take away from all of this? Hopefully not much. In an ideal world, recruits see this season as a bluff, Steve Angeli comes back in his top shape, and Fran Brown’s transfer portal magic returns to its form of two years ago.
Until then, we just have to wait and see. But one thing is for certain. As much as we will want to forget it, the no-good, very-bad, awful Syracuse Football season of 2025 won’t be forgotten for a very long time.
