Syracuse Football: Top 3 replacements for Trishton Jackson in 2020

"“Wait a second Abdul Adams doesn’t play receiver, you idiot!”"

We anticipate reading a few of these comments on social media after people read this, but lets explain.

Sure Syracuse needs to replace Trishton Jackson the star receiver, but they also need to replace the production he left behind. One of the best ways to do that is with a strong running game.

Syracuse “was supposed” (in heavy quotations) to have a strong running game in 2019, but it never materialized on any sort of consistent basis. The team couldn’t replace the rushing production of an MIA Eric Dungey and that cost the Orange dearly.

From purely a running back perspective senior Moe Neal was the lead dog and finished with 846 yards, but he has moved on which leaves a void in the backfield.

A few years ago Syracuse got great news when two transfers from big-time programs decided to come over and join the cause. Trishton Jackson lived up to the hype from Michigan State, now it’s time for Abdul Adams to live up to the hype from Oklahoma.

To be honest it’s been a long time on the hill since a dominant rusher has imposed his will and made his presence known. Truth be told the last 1,000-yard rusher on the hill was way back in 2012 (last decade and over eight years ago) in Jerome Smith.

If the Orange wants to bring themselves back to prominence they’ll need Abdul Adams to be the bell cow, break that embarrassing drought, and fill the offensive void left behind by Trishton Jackson.

A quarterback’s best friend is a good running game. If Adams can be effective running the pigskin, that’ll open things up in the secondary for Tommy DeVito to take advantage of.

In addition, he’ll also have more time to breathe because defenses won’t be able to pin their ears back and feast on DeVito behind a porous offensive line.