Angeli returns as Syracuse opens vs. New Hampshire
Steve Angeli makes his first start since last year's Achilles tear as Syracuse opens at home against New Hampshire, with the backup job behind him still unresolved.
Angeli starts today, but Brown still won't name his backup
On September 5, Steve Angeli takes his first snap since the Achilles tear that ended his 2025 season nine months ago, starting Syracuse's home opener against New Hampshire at the JMA Wireless Dome. Before the injury he was in the middle of one of the best stretches by a Syracuse quarterback in years — 63 percent passing for 1,317 yards, 10 touchdowns and just 2 interceptions in 4 games, good enough to lead the nation in passing and to deliver the program's first-ever win at Clemson's Death Valley last September. Fran Brown made it official on August 24, per cuse.com, and has spent the two weeks since making clear he isn't naming a No. 2 just to have one.
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The backup race is still live on kickoff morning. "We got Amari and Malachi Nelson, we're competing all week. Everybody will compete all week, and then we'll find that out on Saturday," Brown told reporters this week, according to SI.com. It's a strange echo of last year's QB1 fight — the quarterback Angeli beat out, Rickie Collins, made his own season debut on September 3, starting for Kennesaw State against West Georgia after transferring out of the Syracuse room for good.
The program leaned into the comeback story on the way in. CuseFootball posted Thursday night that the documentary was "streaming now," captioned "Built in the dark," a companion to Wednesday's tease that "the resilience was built long before the injury." It's the kind of marketing the Orange rarely get to run — a quarterback back healthy, a backup race still open, and the opener finally here.
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Last season closed on a 5-game skid that bottomed out at Notre Dame
Last season didn't get any gentler as it went along. Syracuse lost at Georgia Tech 41-16, at home to North Carolina 27-10, at Miami 38-10, at Notre Dame 70-7, and closed out the year at home against Boston College, 34-12, on November 29 — 5 straight losses to finish 3-9 overall.
That stretch overlapped almost exactly with the stretch Angeli spent hurt, which is a big part of why this year's quarterback competition mattered as much as it did. Brown didn't just want a starter out of fall camp — he wanted a room deep enough that one injury doesn't sink 5 games again. Nine months on from that Boston College finale, the Orange open a new season with the guy who was leading the nation in passing before he got hurt back under center.
The receiver whose season a Dallas judge controls, hearing set for September 11
Justus Ross-Simmons' path back to Syracuse has run through federal court more than fall camp. A July 31 ruling out of Colorado — U.S. District Judge Charlotte Sweeney granting a temporary injunction against the NCAA's eligibility restrictions for the 2022 recruiting class — opened the door for the wideout, who has 100 career catches for 1,662 yards and 13 touchdowns, to explore a 5th season, On3's Pete Nakos first reported. He was back practicing with the Orange by August 18.
It hasn't stayed settled since. The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver granted the NCAA's request to pause that injunction, which briefly knocked Ross-Simmons back out of camp, before a new temporary restraining order out of a Dallas court — issued by Judge Martin Hoffman — put him back on the practice field days later. That order is a stopgap, not a resolution: the NCAA is due back in front of Hoffman on September 11 to argue the injunction shouldn't continue, meaning Syracuse's best returning target could be litigating his own eligibility again in the middle of the season's second week. Brown has kept his answers guarded rather than promising anything, saying only that "our team's pretty full," citing scholarship math and "Title IX numbers and things of that nature" — a line that lands differently for a receiver already back in the building.
New Hampshire has never played Syracuse — and arrives off a loss to Albany
New Hampshire arrives at the Dome never having played Syracuse before — this is the first meeting in either program's history, per SI.com. The Wildcats reached the FCS playoffs in each of the past two seasons and finished 8-5 last year, but they open 2026 at 0-1, having lost 14-28 at UAlbany. That's about the shakiest possible entrance for a program that was supposed to be a credible litmus test in Brown's home opener.
The number reflects it. The line opened with Syracuse favored by 32.5, with the total set at 55.5 — a gap that says less about New Hampshire's ceiling and more about how far behind the Wildcats already look after the Albany loss. Wide receiver T. Russell is questionable with an ankle injury, per Covers, and it's unclear whether he plays; that's a lineup wrinkle worth watching, not a reason to expect anything but an Orange win. Kickoff is this morning vs. New Hampshire, the send-off to Fran Brown's third season and Angeli's return in one shot.