Heading into Syracuse football's game last September at Clemson, starting quarterback Steve Angeli was leading the country in total passing yards. Then he went down for the 2025 season in the team's win at the Tigers, and the Orange spiraled after that, losing eight straight games.
If the 6-foot-3, 215-pound Angeli, a fifth-year player, is able to stay fully healthy, and he has similar production as he did last year in those first few games, it's entirely feasible that Angeli could contend for All-ACC status in the upcoming 2026 campaign, which kicks off in a couple of weeks.
Individual accolades, though, aren't Angeli's focus. "It all comes down to winning. We play this game to win. My only goal is to win," Angeli said during a recent media availability session, amid the 'Cuse starting its preseason camp last week.
He says that the chemistry he's been building with his receivers, dating back to the spring, is going well, a sentiment echoed by head coach Fran Brown and offensive coordinator Jeff Nixon.
Angeli says that as he was rehabbing his Achilles tendon injury, he became closer with his teammates, and the mental aspect of the game is something for which he's vastly improved. He's also added about 10 pounds of muscle to help withstand "the load of the season. ... I feel like I've grown and am a completely different person," Angeli recently said.
Syracuse football will have a much better 2026 season with a fully healthy Steve Angeli at QB.
Both Brown and Nixon praised Angeli and the entire quarterback room for working together for the betterment of the team. Brown says that other quarterbacks on the 2026 roster "will push Steve and bring the best out of him."
Nixon noted the "unique situation" in which Angeli helped recruit and then mentored some of the Orange's other QBs, even though they are all technically competing for the starting job. That's what you call a we-first, instead of a me-first, mentality.
On Monday, ESPN published a piece where it looked at some of the top quarterbacks in the country for the upcoming campaign, and what opposing teams are saying about these signal-callers.
A defensive coordinator in the Atlantic Coast Conference had this to say about Angeli: "He's just very accurate, very poised, not really a runner, but doesn't need to be in their system. He just doesn't get fazed. He's very very level-headed, even-keeled. He can hurt you if you give him any look where he knows where the ball is going, he's a machine. He's impressive. That ball comes out on time, very accurate, so he's going to make them a threat."
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