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After a 10-win regular season capped by a Holiday Bowl win over Washington State, Syracuse’s first day of spring practice for the 2025 season was on Friday. Following Pro Day on Monday, familiar faces like Kyle McCord, Oronde Gadsden II, Jackson Meeks, Marlowe Wax and Alijah Clark were all spotted in the building. However, those core pieces won’t play a factor in head coach Fran Brown’s second season at the helm after setting a new standard and proving the program is back in 2024.

Here are some takeaways from Brown’s first spring press conference:

Colorado joint practice

Syracuse made headlines this week after Brown expressed interest in traveling to Boulder, Colorado, for three days to face Colorado in a joint spring practice and game. It came on the heels of CU head coach Deion Sanders saying he wanted to face another team for its spring game.

.@DeionSanders we will come to Boulder for 3 days 🎯🍊🙏🏾 https://t.co/RFkyveLPv1

— Fran Brown (@FranBrownCuse) March 17, 2025

“It’s in the hands of the NCAA right now,” Brown said in his first public comments since. “We all locked in. Me and Coach Prime are excited.”

Brown added that the idea stemmed from conversations with Sanders, whom he said he’d grown to have a close relationship with, stemming from trying to recruit his son, Shilo, to Baylor a few years ago. The Buffaloes are coming off a 9-4 2024 campaign — their best record since winning 10 games in 2016 – and their program has been revitalized since hiring Sanders, an NFL Hall of Fame inductee, ahead of the 2023 season.

“Going out there, I think a lot of his morals and values line up with some of mine,” Brown said of Sanders. “We’re not completely the same, but we got a lot of the same subculture, so it’d be cool for us to get there to help our team see that we’re all pushing the right direction.”

A joint spring game or practice has never happened at the collegiate level, but it would similarly resemble what NFL teams do in the preseason by holding joint practices before facing off in an exhibition game. While every program has been accustomed to holding spring games, schools including Ohio State, Texas and Nebraska have canceled theirs this season.

Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule, who Brown played under at Western Carolina before coaching under him at Temple and Baylor, recently cited concerns about players being poached by other programs through the transfer portal.

Despite his close connection with Rhule, Brown has a different perspective. The second-year head coach expressed excitement about possibly having the chance for his players to go against Sanders and the program he’s developed. In addition to football, Brown added the joint practice would also include a financial literacy element.

“This would be good for us to be the first to do it right at two historical schools; that would mean a lot, and two African American men, too, that have an opportunity of doing that, that means a lot, especially him being an icon and me just being Fran,” Brown said. “So that’d be pretty cool.”

Zeed Haynes’ retirement, WR room

Zeed Haynes, who followed Brown from Georgia to SU in the transfer portal last year, opened 2024 as one of the Orange’s starting wide receivers. In the preseason, players and coaches around the program spoke highly of the connection he had formed with McCord. However, he only appeared in Syracuse’s first two games, totaling eight receptions and 97 yards.

Brown cited Haynes’ absence as being due to a personal family manner. While Haynes rejoined the team midseason, Brown requested media members to stop inquiring about Haynes’ status toward the end of the season.

Friday afternoon, Haynes wasn’t listed on SU’s 2025 spring roster. Brown revealed the wide receiver has retired from football but is still enrolled as a Syracuse student and is pursuing a degree.

“He’s in school,” Brown said. “He’s getting a degree. He ain’t playing right now. He ain’t playing no more. He going to chill. He put the cleats up. But he’s going to dominate the work world. He’s a hell of a guy. Great kid. We’re excited for him.”

Quickly after revealing Haynes’ retirement, Brown expressed excitement about South Carolina transfer Tyshawn Russell and redshirt freshman Jaylan Hornsby. Last year, Russell didn’t appear in any games after playing in 10 as a freshman in 2023.

“You want to talk about the guy, not there, but you didn’t want to talk about Tyshawn Russell and how good he’s doing, and Jaylan Hornsby, and, you know who we still got? Boy Peña,” Brown said.

After a career year tallying 84 receptions, 941 receiving yards and 10 total touchdowns, Trebor Peña and Darrell Gill Jr. — who broke out with big games against UConn and Washington State in the Holiday Bowl at the end of last season — are expected to be the Orange’s top pass catchers with Meeks and Gadsden headed to the NFL.

Gill was absent from Friday’s practice, but it was because Brown said he was competing in a track meet today. Brown added that Gill and running back Malachi James and Malachi Coleman make up 3-of-4 legs on SU’s 4×100 team.

QB talk

Following high praise from teammates at Pro Day, Brown added praise for McCord, stating he should be a first-round pick in April. Following supersizes like Hall of Famer, the best quarterback in the draft and the next Tom Brady by his former players talking about McCord, Brown added some flavor, too.

“Around here, he’s like Baby Jesus,” Brown said.

While McCord awaits his draft selection, the Orange are waiting for a starting quarterback to emerge. Though Brown said SU was in a competition — presumably between likely starter LSU transfer Rickie Collins Jr., Michael Johnson Jr. and Jakhari Williams — he doesn’t want to drag it out.

“We’re gonna pick a quarterback,” Brown said. “We’re gonna run with it. We gonna compete for two and three. He gonna be the guy until we say he’s not.”

Despite lofty expectations following the precedent McCord set last year, Brown doesn’t want his new quarterback to get caught up too much in chasing him.

“Kyle gone now,” Brown said. “Kyle about to go get drafted extremely high and go dominant somewhere else. I want to see you come in here and do it your way and lead the way. So, like, that’s what I’m looking for: leadership, completions, getting rid of the ball fast. Things like that is what I worry about.”

Published on March 21, 2025 at 10:23 pm
Contact Justin: justingirshon@gmail.com | @JustinGirshon