Syracuse football: Takeaways from Syracuse’s 66-3 win over New Hampshire

It’s good to have football season back in Central New York

The Syracuse Orange took care of business against the New Hampshire Wildcats to open the 2026 season. The Orange used a dominant first half to cruise the rest of the way to an easy 66-3 victory. Fran Brown may have kept the starters on the field for longer than some fans may have liked, but the performance that we saw from the starters should provide a good confidence boost for the rest of the season.

Here are our takeaways from the opening win of the season:

Understandably, there may have been a few who were concerned about the status and health of Steve Angeli. An Achilles injury is not something that is easy to recover from. It’s harder to recover to get back to the level of athletic ability that is expected from you.

This game should quash those conerns.

Angeli continued to flash his strengths in game reading, game management and passing accuracy. Not much seemed to faze Angeli. Even a scare when he went down with a small injury in the 2nd quarter didn’t bother the quarterback as he sprinted off the field after he got up. He finished the game with 263 yards on 20-29 passing with three touchdowns and no interceptions.

Syracuse’s QB1 is good to go for the rest of the season. Everyone can breathe a sigh of relief.

We’ve seen Syracuse backups feature as sharp downgrades from the starters in the past. You don’t need to look further than the quarterback position last year for that evidence. Syracuse found itself in that position again this week as the presumed top two running backs on the roster in Ahmad Miller and Ju’Juan Johnson were not on the depth chart to begin the season.

Shavane Anderson and Tylik Hill proved that there is plenty of depth in the running back room. Yes, New Hampshire is not the same level of competition as the ACC. However, we’ve seen other depth running backs struggle when their number has been called. Anderson in particular impressed with explosive plays. He finished with 102 rushing yards and three touchdowns.

Hill didn’t have the stats to pop off the page but showed incredible consistency to set up Syracuse in favorable down-to-go positions on the field. If Miller and Johnson are still not available at any point, the Orange coaching staff can feel good about the backfield options on the roster.

One of the bigger storylines from last season was Syracuse’s lack of success when it came to rushing the passer. The Orange started the path to answer those questions with a great performance against the Wildcats. The star of the show was Keyshawn Johnson, the UT Martin transfer. Johnson was an FCS All-American last year and he showed why he earned that accolade with an impressive day in his first start for Syracuse. He had 2.5 sacks and a forced fumble.

It remains to be seen if Syracuse can repeat that performance against the rest of the schedule. But the first impressions from the defensive edge are pretty good. Given Syracuse’s woes from the defensive line last season, any sprinkling of confidence and performance is very welcome. And Johnson looks like he’s ready to make a big impact in the ACC

The ACC Network broadcast team of Roxy Bernstein and former Wake Forest head coach Dave Clawson kept on bringing up a common talking point they received from Fran Brown earlier in the week. Brown wanted his Syracuse team to face adversity and respond. Now, in an ideal world, the adversity would not be self inflicted, as Brown said. However, self inflicted adversity is what Syracuse faced with 12 penalties for 130 yards.

At least in the first half, Syracuse did an excellent job of not letting the penalties stop the momentum. It was very common to see Orange drives stall out when Syracuse committed penalties. However, the penalties that Syracuse committed in the first half did not deter the Orange offense, as only the first drive in the first half ended without a touchdown.

That’s an excellent sign to see. It’s nearly impossible to eliminate all the penalties from a football game. How you respond to those penalties is important. And the Orange responded pretty well.