Can Syracuse turn out to be the sleeper program that can have some surprisingly great recruits? Fran Brown is making one great roster addition after the other. He’s also getting them from some great programs. Already looking to begin the 2025 season with quite the fanfare, this latest addition is one who’d be of great use to the new QB, Steve Angeli. All things considered, the HC seems to be on a roll with the recruits he’s getting.

Brown already scored big when he got the fallen Notre Dame QB from the spring portal. Angeli saw that the QB1 role would ultimately go to CJ Carr and would be backed by Kenny Minchey, prompting him to leave the program. The HC is once again flexing his recruiting skills, which gave Kirby Smart a lot of talent when the former was his DB coach. Joining the Orange is a recruit who was once a four-star prospect out of high school and played both sides of the ball.

Fran Brown just scored the commitment of Chris Peal in the transfer portal. He saw very little game action during his time in Georgia and will join Fran Brown with three years of eligibility left. Peal comes with running back experience from high school, too. He has a total offensive yardage of 2,475 yards, and 34 touchdowns. On the defensive side, Peal comes with equally great numbers: 123 tackles, 3 interceptions, and 40 defended passes. After redshirting his freshman year and being reserved for his sophomore season, he will now see more game time at Syracuse.

Peal was pursued by Brown when he was recruited at Georgia. He was then the No. 25 CB in the 2023 class. Given his impressive numbers on both sides of the ball, Peal was seen as an important addition to the Bulldogs. However, he wasn’t getting an opportunity to start, and decided to move camp. He is the latest Bulldog transfer to Syracuse’s roster, as players from the former have slowly trickled to the latter, with Brown’s move.

As the HC continues to shake things up at Syracuse and builds the program into one that carries promise, he also seems to have developed a dilemma in the QB room.

Steve Angeli stands to threaten the future of the QB1 already picked by Fran Brown

Steve Angeli’s inclusion in the QB room adds a new twist to Brown’s decision for his QB1. He had quickly named Rickie Collins as his starter, but then went into the portal and got the former Notre Dame QB over. Collins may have the numbers, but Angeli is the more seasoned player. “[Yes], it will be a competition, with the odds on Angeli,” Matt Park revealed on the Cuse Sports Talk show. With this new addition, can Collins once again be in a position to sit out?

But what Collins has is time. Angeli has only two years of eligibility left, while Rickie Collins has three. “They’re trying to build, you know, the common accord obviously worked great for everybody concerned, right? But in general, you don’t want to be dealing with one-year transactions and one-year rentals, particularly at the quarterback position, and so you bring in guys that have a little more eligibility and you can start overlapping them,” Park said. That means, for Collins, he stands at an advantage to be a long-term option for Brown down the road.

Adding Angeli to the mix gives Brown another reliable option to use, hoping to swap with Collins. “[Now] you’re really talking about building a program. And so that’s what I think they have in mind. I think they would have been fine with Collins if that was the only option. But Angeli is maybe a little more suited to what they do,” Park said about how to use the two quarterbacks.

Both of them are talented, and both look set to be the starter, with their own set of advantages. Will Brown be leaning towards Angeli, now that he has another option after Collins? With two great QBs and a talented recruit, Brown is seriously posing a challenge to new HCs at programs with the way he’s building Syracuse.