What three Syracuse quarterbacks said about the open competition

Before facing No. 18 Miami, Syracuse has opened the quarterback competition as it rides a five-game losing streak.

After practice Tuesday, the three Syracuse quarterbacks presumably competing for the starting role, Rickie Collins, Joe Filardi and Luke Carney, along with linebacker James Heard spoke with the media.

Here are three takeaways from the media session.

QBs give updates on competition

Collins is the most experienced of the three quarterbacks that will likely compete this week to start on Saturday against the Hurricanes. He has been through a camp battle with Steve Angeli, learned from now-NFL quarterbacks at LSU and owns an 0-4 record as a starter.

Still, he enters the competition with more snaps under his belt than Filardi and Carney, who are each freshman. As Collins looks ahead to this week, he said he’s had a fair chance to compete with the others for playing time and reflected on his experience.

“The game experience that I’ve gained has helped me tremendously with me settling down and being comfortable,” Collins said. “This week has been pretty good.”

Collins said SU coaches are distributing the practice reps to whatever they see fit. Sometimes he gets more first-team reps, while Carney or Filardi get fewer, or vis versa.

Carney, who said his initial plan this season was to redshirt, is in the thick of the competition.

“I think there’s opportunities [to help this team],” Carney said. “My legs are something they’ve been wanting to use for sure. As time goes on, I need to prove a little bit more but also they need to have a little more confidence in me.”

Filardi expresses support from Gait, teammates, chemistry

Filardi is on both the football and lacrosse rosters at Syracuse. On SU’s Gary Gait-lead lacrosse team Filardi is listed as a defenseman. Although now FIlardi said he is focused on the moment, staying locked in on football.

Still, with Filardi waiting to focus on lacrosse once football is over, Gait reached out.

“He was definitely excited for me, he wants the best for me, and I appreciate that he does,” Filardi said. “I’m just trying to make a name for myself here, leave a legacy here.”

Angeli, who suffered a season-ending injury in SU’s fourth game against Clemson, has also supported Filardi.

“He’s very supportive and I’ll just go to him for certain things to see what he thinks,” Filardi said.

One thing that was clear on Friday was Filardi struggled to connect with his wide receivers. However, there’s one top SU pass catcher that Filardi said he has experience playing with outside of team practice: tight end Dan Villari.

“Dan’s from Long Island with me and so I’ve definitely gotten a lot of reps with Dan in the offseason,” Filardi said. [I’m] trying to get the chemistry better with the 1s that I haven’t repped with as much this season.”

James Heard updates his increased role in middle of defense

Heard is in his second season with the Orange after transferring from West Virginia. He made seven tackles in 2024 and has 13 this season with three games left to play.

As his role has expanded, he had to get in the groove of playing again, he said.

“It was a bit just understanding the timing of how fast the game goes [at first],” Heard said. “But every week, you get better, you get more adjusted. As of recently, it's been going good.”

Heard said he loves being a part of this year’s linebacker group, which has changed with the additions of transfer Gary Bryant and freshman Antoine Deslauriers.

“We're all like brothers,” Heard said. “We spend so much time together. Get up in the morning, early film session, leave out together. So, we're all kind of one, and our energy just kind of goes off each other.”

Looking ahead to Miami, Heard said the team is treating it like every other week.

“Everybody just locked in on what they got to do to do their job,” Head said. “So, [we’re] just intertwining with each other and getting ready on the game plan.”

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