Is This the Worst Syracuse Football Offense of the Millennium?

By: The Boston Orange @TBO44

Today is a typical Monday — commuting to work, listening to the Brent Axe postgame show, thinking about how much I hate Rickie Collins, and generally just getting progressively more frustrated with how much the football team sucks.

If you’re my age as a ‘Cuse fan, outside of a few fluke years, this is just how things go. However, the past six games since Steve got hurt are shockingly bad, particularly on offense.

I was born in 1999, so I swear I’ve said “this is the worst offensive team we’ve ever had” about ten times — but this year I think it’s real. Which is saying something, because I never thought anything could top the Robinson era.

So, I decided to hide in an obscure conference room at the office and dig into the numbers to see if this truly is the worst offense I’ve ever seen.

Disclaimer

The Post-Angeli Era

At the end of the day, you can understand an offense with just two stats: Points per Game (PPG) and Total Yards — you need nothing else.

Team	Points	Total Yards
Duke	3	314
SMU	18	389
Pitt	13	212
Georgia Tech	16	381
UNC	10	152
Miami	10	285
AVG	11.7	288.8

Mmmmm, yes. 11.7 PPG in 2025.

For context, only two teams in all of college football are averaging less than that this season:

• UMass: 9.5 PPG (0–9 overall)
• Northern Illinois: 11.4 PPG (2–7 overall)

(Ironically, those two teams are playing this Wednesday in a “Battle for Most Ass!”)

How It Stacks Up (1999–2025)

Let’s see how no-Steve ‘Cuse compares to past Syracuse teams in my lifetime (1999–2025). Here’s the complete list we’re working off of:

Year	PPG	Total Yards	PPG Rank	Yard Rank	Rank Avg
2005	13.8	257.4	2	1	1.5
2025	11.7	288.8	1	5	3.0
2006	17.4	264.0	5	2	3.5
2007	16.4	291.9	3	6	4.5
2020	17.8	265.3	6	3	4.5
2008	18.1	270.2	7	4	5.5
2014	17.1	329.3	4	9	6.5
2010	22.2	322.8	9	8	8.5
2009	21.2	330.4	8	11	9.5
2023	23.5	343.3	11	13	12.0
2001	25.7	329.4	16	10	13.0
2004	23.9	349.0	12	15	13.5
2011	24.2	348.2	13	14	13.5
1999	25.5	335.8	15	12	13.5
2015	27.2	320.1	20	7	13.5
2013	22.7	376.8	10	20	15.0
2021	24.9	367.3	14	16	15.0
2003	26.7	369.8	18	17	17.5
2016	25.7	440.9	17	23	20.0
2000	26.7	378.4	19	21	20.0
2022	27.7	374.4	22	18	20.0
2002	28.9	376.4	24	19	21.5
2017	27.4	456.3	21	24	22.5
2019	28.2	394.6	23	22	22.5
2012	30.0	476.0	25	27	26.0
2024	34.1	467.6	26	26	26.0
2018	40.2	466.8	27	25	26.0

What the Numbers Say

The data paints a pretty clear picture: this Post-Angeli Syracuse football season is offensively on par with the worst of the Greg Robinson era. I ranked PPG and Total Yards (1 being the worst) and then took the average of the two to set the ranking as listed from top to bottom. The 2025 season lands at #2, sandwiched between the 2005 and 2006 Greg Robinson seasons.

It’s both funny and scary to think that we’re comparing a Fran Brown team to a Greg Robinson team in any way, but here we are.

To be clear, I’m not comparing Fran and Robinson as coaches. I have faith in Fran. He just needs to learn how to adapt when injuries happen, as they historically do at Syracuse at the quarterback position.

The funniest part of this whole deep dive? The 2005 and 2006 seasons. The context behind those seasons is what also distinguishes between the two coaches. Syracuse QB Perry Patterson played all 23 games over that two-year stretch. You read that right — a Syracuse QB actually started not just one, but two full seasons. The only other guy to do that in my lifetime? Ryan Nassib. In short, Robinson had stability at the position for those years where Fran has chaos.

Even funnier: all five wins from those seasons were vacated by the NCAA due to some sketchy YMCA payments involving — yep — Perry Patterson.

Final Thoughts

So yes, this season Post-Angeli is Robinson-level bad. By my calculations, it’s the second-worst offensive team output of my lifetime.

Still, if I had to choose? I’ll take this version of bad over Perry Patterson bad any day.