Phil Steele’s Syracuse football forecast: Schedule toughness, strongest position groups and more

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Compared to recent schedules Syracuse football has faced, its 2025 one presents as easy.

There’s no Clemson, Florida State, or North Carolina, a trio of oft conference heavyweights who are collectively 11-0 against the Orange in the past five seasons.

But is the slate of opponents Syracuse is set to face in its first season under the leadership of Fran Brown that much less demanding, especially of a team with many new pieces, than the past few years?

SU’s 2025 schedule is No. 60 — about middle-of-the-pack — on Phil Steele’s ranking of toughest FBS schedules in his annual preview magazine. It’s six spots higher than Steele ranked the Orange’s 2023 schedule.

Steele does, though, on the same page list Syracuse’s schedule as one of 37 underrated schedules.

While the Orange misses out on that trio of recently unbeatable opponents, it faces three dark horses for this year’s conference championship: Miami, N.C. State and Virginia Tech.

The benefit for SU is it does face both the Hokies and the Hurricanes at home.

Syracuse’s non-conference games are manageable, and it gets one (Connecticut) late in the season instead of having all four out of the way in the opening month.

Georgia Tech instead slots in as an early conference opener in Week 2. The Yellow Jackets beat the Orange last season and are considered a rising power in the conference. They’re undoubtedly the hardest game in the early part of the season.

“Players buy in quicker with early season success and new head coach Fran Brown could be favored in his first five games, which would help that cause,” Steele writes on one of Syracuse’s team pages. “The season may be similar to what we saw under (ex-head coach Dino) Babers as the first five games are all winnable and they could be a dog in 6 of the final 7 games.”

Here are more notes on the Orange from Steele’s annual preview magazine.

Which of Syracuse’s position groups is strongest?

Steele does the Top 60 to 70 rankings of each positional group for all of FBS and ranks the strength of positional groups within each conference.

The Orange appeared in all the national position group rankings except one — the offensive line.

Syracuse’s quarterback and wide receiver rooms are the only two to rank in the Top 30 nationally.

The QB room, led by Ohio State transfer Kyle McCord, is No. 30. The wide receiver room, per Steele, includes Oronde Gadsden II, Trebor Pena, and Justus Ross-Simmons is No. 33.

Here’s where each position group ranked nationally and within the ACC.

QBs: Natl. 30; ACC 7

RBs: Natl. 56; ACC 8

WRs: Natl. 33; ACC 6

OL: Natl. N/A; ACC 12

DL: Natl. 53; ACC 11

LB: Natl. 55; ACC 11

DB: Natl. 50; ACC 12

ST: Natl. 54; ACC 7

Orange offense expected to be among most improved

Steele projects the Orange offense among the top 15 most improved in two major categories.

It’s not surprising considering the tumultuous 2023 season SU had offensively due to a slew of major and minor injuries that limited it, particularly in the back half of the season.

Syracuse closed the year averaging 23.54 points per game and 171 passing yards per game.

Steele has the Orange among the most improved in both categories: No. 13 most improved in offensive points and No. 3 most improved in the offensive pass game.

McCord finished with under 200 passing yards just once at Ohio State last year and averaged 264.2 passing yards per game. With offensive coordinator Jeff Nixon’s pro-style offense built around McCord, the Orange should be the most pass-heavy it has been in recent seasons.

Incoming true freshmen have higher stock

Steele devotes a small section of each team profile he does to its incoming true freshmen.

He rates top additions as “Very Highly Touted” or “Highly Touted.” However, he does not name players under each category; he lists a number.

Per Steele’s metric, Syracuse brought in the same number (3) of VHT players as it did last season.

It made a big jump in the number of HT incoming freshmen, adding 15 to last year’s five.

Brown brought in the highest-ranked recruiting class of the modern recruiting era in the two months between his hiring and National Signing Day. Ten members of the Class of 2024 already joined the program this spring; the rest have since made their way to campus for summer training.