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Syracuse, NY – The past year has been a time of transition on the Syracuse University sports scene.
A player trade on the transfer portal, the quarterback position on the shuffle for SU’s football team, a championship-caliber program to keep its place back on the big stage, and another bringing in a new coach to finally try to get it over with and win a trophy.
As much as things have changed, they’ve stayed the same more with two key figures who decided to bring it back to Syracuse men’s basketball.
Below are five of the most interesting stories I’ve written about and discussed on “Syracuse Sports” podcast in 2025.
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SU football plays QB shuffle
The difference between Syracuse football’s 10-win surge in 2024 and its three-win fall from grace was simple: instability at quarterback.
The year began with the fleeting hope that Kyle McCord would earn another year of eligibility from the NCAA after setting SU and ACC quarterback records in 2024.
Unfortunately, McCord waived his waiver claim early in the year, entered the NFL Draft and was eventually taken in the sixth round by his hometown Philadelphia Eagles.
LSU transfer Rickie Collins quickly gained QB1 status in spring practice, but ended practice with a thumb injury.
Enter Notre Dame transfer Steve Angeli, who beat Collins in training camp and was the nation’s best player when he tore his Achilles at Clemson in the fourth game of the season.
SU then played a QB shuffle with Collins along with freshman Luke Carney and Joe Filardi for the rest of the season that derailed the train.
It was a scary story that reinforced the most obvious but still relevant adage in football: You can have over 100 guys on the roster, but if you don’t have a quarterback, you don’t have a team.
Game for money
Several leaders of the Syracuse football team and head coach Fran Brown stood in a circle at midfield at the Ensley Athletic Center in a heated discussion after one of the final practices of the spring.
It’s common practice to wait a bit longer for players to leave the field for media meetings, but this was different.
Once the cluster broke, it wasn’t hard to see that something was missing.
Two days later, SU wide receiver Trebor Pena, Syracuse’s leading wide receiver in college football’s best offense in 2024 (84 catches, 941 yards and nine touchdowns), put his name on the transfer portal.
Brown was candid about Pena’s departure, saying during a radio interview that he was unwilling to live up to his price.
Pena ended up at Penn State, where he was again his team’s leading rusher (albeit with just 452 yards and a touchdown) and more money in his pocket.
While scheme, philosophy (DART), health (see QB story above), schedule, and a million other things affect how good or bad a football team will be, the most fascinating topic remains team payroll.
Syracuse is no different as Brown is out there trying to scrape up every dollar he can to fund his roster.
As television executive Don Ohlmeyer once said, “The answer to all your questions is money,” as the lines between professional and college athletes are almost completely blurred.
JJ and Donnie return
While SU basketball coach Adrian Autry and GM Alex Kline were aggressive in loading the roster through the transfer portal (as is standard operating practice these days), the return of JJ Starling and Donnie Freeman gave the Orange a reassuring feel.
Starling is a hometown hero from Baldwinsville, while Freeman was SU’s highest-rated recruit since Carmelo Anthony.
In the 2024-25 season, the pair barely got to play due to the timing of each suffering injuries that sidelined them for long periods of time.
It was déjà vu in that department as both Starling and Freeman missed time again due to injury during the non-conference portion of this season.
With Freeman set to return for ACC play, it will be fascinating to see if SU fans felt the good vibes last March when the two announced their return as a full circle, bringing the familiar feeling of an Orange basketball team playing meaningful games in March.
SU lacrosse back to where it belongs
All seemed well again when Syracuse men’s lacrosse played this Memorial Day weekend.
It used to be something you could set your watch for when SU made 22 consecutive trips to the Final Four from 1983-2004.
When Gary Gait’s team took the field at Gillette Stadium against Maryland, it was SU’s first Final Four appearance since 2013.
That game didn’t go very well, s Terps are suffocating the Orange 14-8.
That said, what a thrilling ride SU returned to its rightful place in winning the ACC tournament title over Duke by a goal, rallying from six down to beat Harvard in overtime and escape Princeton in the NCAA quarterfinals in an instant classic 19-18.
SU just didn’t make it back to the Final Four this year.
The program fully returns to the “fastest two-track game”, the run-and-gun style that marked its history and was damn fun to watch in 2025.
Regy returns
The Syracuse women’s lacrosse program has flirted with a championship for more than a decade.
The Orange reached three national title games under Gait in 2012, 2014 and 2021, losing all three times.
Orange legend Kayla Treanor led SU back to the Final Four twice in 2023 and 2024, but was unable to return the program back to the title game.
Treanor left Syracuse in the spring to take the head coaching gig at Penn State.
Enter Regy Thorpe.
The former Orange standout defenseman, assistant coach and Elbridge, New York native returned home to fulfill the prophecy.
Syracuse AD John Wildhack didn’t mince words when introducing Thorpe as SU’s new head coach in June.
“We have very specific and lofty goals for this program, and that is to compete and win ACC championships and national championships,” Wildhack said.
Thorpe is leaning toward filling a championship gap on the resume of a program that has been to the Final Four 10 times but didn’t come home with a title.
“If you’re here, you expect to win a national championship,” Thorpe said when he was introduced as head coach. “It’s Syracuse lacrosse. You don’t make plans for the summer until after Memorial Day weekend because you expect to be in the Final Four competing for a national championship. We’re going to embrace it. We’re going to fight and compete for a national championship.”
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