Syracuse Football: Three All-ACC players returning for senior year is positively massive

Like every other team across the country in college football, Syracuse football has seen numerous players from its 2023 roster enter the NCAA’s transfer portal.

It’s inevitable. One of the latest departures, to me, was a pretty big one, as redshirt sophomore linebacker Stefon Thompson said he was going to hit the portal.

Still, on paper anyway, what head coach Fran Brown and his staff are assembling for their roster for the 2024 season looks impressive.

Given the team’s reasonable 2024 schedule, many fans and some national commentators are speculating that the ‘Cuse could make a run at the Atlantic Coast Conference title and perhaps even the expanded College Football Playoff, which is going from four participants to 12.

We’ll have to see about that. However, in recent days, three All-ACC performers said they would come back to Syracuse football for their respective senior years, and I can’t stress enough how monumental this is for the Orange program.

Syracuse football got several doses of huge news this holiday season.

Earlier this month, amid the early signing period, Brown and his assistants have put together a terrific 2024 class, made up of at least 18 high school seniors and at least seven college transfers.

Still, all of those ‘Cuse commits are new to the team. It’s important for the Orange coaching staff to also retain key veteran players on the existing SU roster.

To that end, lately, junior linebacker Marlowe Wax Jr., junior defensive back Justin Barron and junior receiver Oronde Gadsden II have all said in recent days on social media that they’ll be back in 2024 with Syracuse football.

Wax and Barron were both Orange captains in the 2023 season, when the squad went 6-7 overall. They were also both All-ACC players.

Gadsden, meanwhile, was an All-ACC performer in the 2022 stanza, when the ‘Cuse sported a 7-6 record. He missed most of 2023 after suffering a Lisfranc injury early in the season.

Candidly, it wouldn’t have surprised me at all if any of these three returnees elected to forgo their senior term and declare for the 2024 NFL Draft.

But they all wanted to run it back with Brown & Co. at the helm. Orange players, and the team’s fan base, certainly sense a buzz in the air and are excited about what Syracuse football can do in 2024.

Wax and Barron will prove two critical players for the Mob defense next season, under new defensive coordinator Elijah Robinson, who is currently the interim head coach and co-defensive coordinator at Texas A&M.

On offense, obviously, we all hope that Gadsden will be fully healthy in the 2024 term. Assuming he is, Gadsden will lead a deep and talented receivers’ room for new quarterback Kyle McCord, a transfer from Ohio State who was a former five-star prep recruit and had a pretty darn solid junior season for the Buckeyes in the Big Ten Conference.