Much has been said about how Syracuse football struggled at quarterback in the 2025 campaign after starter Steve Angeli went down in the Orange's fourth game, a win at Clemson.
Following Angeli's unfortunate season-ending injury, the 'Cuse, at 3-1, would drop eight straight to finish the 2025 stanza at 3-9 overall. Head coach Fran Brown and his staff appear to have a deeper and more talented quarterback room in 2026, but let's get real: SU's defense was poor in 2025.
Assuming Angeli is fully healthy and the offense is clicking, that's encouraging as the 'Cuse attempts to rebound from last year's disappointing results. However, if Syracuse football wants to get anywhere close to what it did in Brown's head coaching debut, a 10-3 mark in 2024, including a bowl-game victory, the squad has to vastly improve on defense.
1️⃣1️⃣as1️⃣🍊🎯 https://t.co/AYwwK3afFd
— Vince Kehres (@vkehres) June 27, 2026
To that end, among Brown's offseason coaching moves, he brought in defensive coordinator Vince Kehres, who was an absolute stud in the same role over the past six seasons at Toledo. Earlier this week, ESPN's Bill Connelly wrote: "Brown landed some fun transfers on defense, but the most important newcomer is coordinator Vince Kehres, whose Toledo defenses ranked 32nd in SP+ in 2023 and 21st in 2025 and absolutely dominated against the pass last season."
SU linebacker Antoine Deslauriers, a freshman All-American for the 'Cuse in 2025, was one of the Orange's three players who represented the program at the annual ACC Kickoff event on Thursday in Charlotte, N.C. He said that he "couldn't be more privileged" to be around Kehres, who has a vast knowledge of football and "brings the energy."
Syracuse football defensive coordinator Vince Kehres is a rising star in the college coaching profession.
In 2025, the Orange gave up 34.9 points per game, which was dead last in the Atlantic Coast Conference, while allowing 427.5 total yards per contest, the second-worst amount in the league.
Understandably, Brown knew that he needed to make changes to his assistant coaching staff. He wanted to bring on Kehres as the new defensive coordinator, which meant that the Orange's DC for the 2024 and 2025 campaigns, Elijah Robinson, would have to be demoted.
That couldn't have been an easy thing for Brown to decide, given that he and Robinson are dear childhood friends from Camden, N.J. Robinson would return to Texas A&M as its co-defensive coordinator and defensive line coach.
At the ACC Kickoff on Thursday, Brown said that Kehres "truly believed in our program," and his goals were to win national championships and take over the conference. This is what Brown wants, too, and their aligned mindsets made for a perfect match. "That's why I wanted him here. Coaches have to buy in," Brown said.
Brown has said that he believes the Orange's defense will be more agile, and can make more adjustments throughout the course of the 2026 season, due to Kehres leading the charge. In 2025, Toledo allowed just 13.31 points per game, which was No. 4 nationally and directly ahead of fellow ACC school Miami, which reached the College Football Playoff national title game.
Add us as a preferred source on Google