Syracuse Football: Hopefully, QB Chase Brice won’t break SU hearts again

Two years ago, Syracuse football had Clemson on the ropes, but reserve QB Chase Brice – now with Duke – led the Tigers’ comeback.

In 2017, Syracuse football shocked the collegiate football world when the Orange stunned No. 2 Clemson, 27-24, inside the Carrier Dome.

A year later, the ‘Cuse held a double-digit advantage over the No. 3 Tigers, this time on the road, in the fourth quarter of their Atlantic Coast Conference battle.

But Clemson, guided by reserve quarterback Chase Brice, marched more than 90 yards down the field, and running back Travis Etienne’s 2-yard touchdown run with about 40 seconds remaining lifted the Tigers to a 27-23 victory versus Syracuse football.

That heart-breaking loss in 2018 by the Orange at the hands of Brice and Clemson still stings, and now Brice is the starting quarterback at Duke, as the winless Blue Devils (0-4) travel to the ‘Cuse (1-2) on Saturday afternoon for an ACC clash.

Hopefully, in this go-round, Syracuse football doesn’t allow Brice to engineer such an epic comeback for his own team, which this time is struggling Duke as opposed to the national juggernaut that is Clemson.

Obviously, Brice has since transferred from the Tigers to the Blue Devils, where he is listed as a 6-foot-3, 235-pound redshirt junior within his bio on the Duke athletics department Web site.

Syracuse football will have to contain Duke quarterback Chase Brice, who broke the Orange’s collective heart while with Clemson in 2018.

During his career with the Tigers, Brice saw action in 25 contests, per his Blue Devils’ bio. In those games, Brice completed 82-of-136 passes for 1,023 yards with nine touchdowns thrown against four interceptions.

His tenure with Duke has proven a tad more challenging. So far in the 2020 stanza, Brice is 81-of-154 for 993 passing yards, three touchdowns and seven picks.

According to his Blue Devils bio, Brice led Grayson High School in Loganville, Ga., to the 2016 state championship and a 40-7 mark as the starting quarterback there.

Brice, a top-200 prospect nationally and a top-15 quarterback in the 2017 recruiting cycle, registered 2,830 passing yards, 33 TDs and just three interceptions during his senior year, when Grayson High School went 14-1 and finished ranked No. 10 in the USA TODAY Sports Super 25 high-school poll.