Three takeaways from Syracuse football at 2025 ACC Kickoff

After flying into Charlotte Tuesday night, head coach Fran Brown and players Berry Buxton III, Rickie Collins, Jack Stonehouse, and Dan Villari met the media rounds for several hours Wednesday on two floors of the Uptown Hilton hotel. After extensive interviews with the league's network TV partners, a spin down radio row and on the ACCN , and even more interviews with the general media on hand, it was a wrap on a whirlwind day with a flight back to Syracuse.

A day to extoll the philosophy of the program's core

Much of Syracuse's time in the "Kickoff" spotlight with the assembled media focused on Brown talking about more than just the timely matters that will need to be addressed as preseason camp opens next week.

For all the questions about personnel changes offensively at quarterback and the O-line, the tough non-conference schedule beginning right away with Tennessee, and what the players he brought with him to Charlotte mean to the program, Brown stressed basics - the consistency needed to achieve success for a program ready to make a jump.

It's been over a decade (2013) since the 'Cuse won consecutive bowl games, a standard that after only one Brown season with his mighty ambitions, is now considered a bare minimum of success. .

"For us, it's a day-to-day grind. Mental toughness is to be where your feet are," Brown said from his pulpit. "So I feel like, if daily, I just focus on the mission at task, right? And that will eventually get us to what our ending goal is, which we want to be able to compete and play for a National Championship."

Rickie Collins is cool and composed eyeing the starting quarterback job

After a hand injury kept him out of the spring game and caused a nervous Brown to go into the transfer portal and happily lure Steve Angeli from Notre Dame, Collins said Wednesday he has had a productive off season since the injury healed. With so many questions thrown his way about the starting job, Collins has remained as calm in his responses as he says he plans to be when he's actually on the field taking the snaps.

"He will bring the best out of me, and I know I will do the same for him," Collins replied when asked about what he expects over the next several weeks of camp competing with Angeli. "Like Coach Fran says there's competition at every position , no one is exempt. So just go in and put in the (work) at the end of the day and your best foot forward."

Collins reiterated his approach has always been to prepare the same way whether he's the starter or backup, as he was at LSU. Named QB1 April 7 at the end of spring practice, Collins knows Angeli's presence will bring the best out of him, which in turn helps Brown cover his bases.

Tight end Dan Villari is ready to go out with a bang

As has been well documented heading into the season, the one-time Michigan quarterback transfer under Dino Babers is the only returning P4 player to have passed, received, and rushed for a touchdown in his career, while also being credited with a tackle.

Add leadership to that checklist. Villari made it easy to see why Brown has been praising his play at tight end, and why he selected him in his re-boot of players to take to the ACC event to talk up the program. He's a natural.

"I think we improve by getting closer as a team," knowing each other outside of football," said one of the players tasked with gauging the pulse of the locker room for the coaching staff.

"When you're out there and you really care about a guy, like I'm going to care about our running backs and I'm going to make sure I make that block for him. He's going to make sure he runs the sh*t out of that ball. It's a different dynamic when you really care who you're playing with."

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