Football

Shafer jokes about 3rd quarterback ahead of Wake Forest

Terrel Hunt has a fractured fibula. Austin Wilson had a “pretty good headache” after leaving Syracuse’s 38-20 loss to then-No. 1 Florida State and officially has an upper-body injury now, SU head coach Scott Shafer said.

That leaves true freshman AJ Long to make his first start when the Orange plays Wake Forest at noon on Saturday and sophomore Mitch Kimble to back him up. And in his Thursday morning press conference Shafer said that while Syracuse has practiced for an emergency third-quarterback situation, he couldn’t say what the team’s plan is should SU need to use its fourth quarterback of the season.

“Yeah we’ve done some things there. Hopefully we never get to it. I wouldn’t want to say what we’re doing exactly going into it, so at least there could be an element of surprise,” he said, laughing. “But we’ve done some things. We’ve been creative.”

Punter Riley Dixon threw what proved to be the game-winning touchdown on a fake field goal in the Orange’s season-opening 27-26 double-overtime win against Villanova. Dixon also played some quarterback at nearby Christian Brothers (New York) Academy until about 11th grade.







Top Stories

state

Breaking down New York’s $237 billion FY2025 budget

New York state lawmakers passed Gov. Kathy Hochul’s $237 billion Fiscal Year 2025 Budget — the largest in the state’s history — Saturday. The Daily Orange broke down the key aspects of Hochul’s FY25 budget, which include housing, education, crime, health care, mental health, cannabis, infrastructure and transit and climate change. Read more »