The Daily Orange is an independent newspaper published in Syracuse, New York. The editorial content of the paper — which originated in 1903 and went independent in 1971 — and its online platforms are entirely run by Syracuse University students.
The D.O.’s coverage of the Syracuse area is disseminated through 87 issues during the 2019-20 academic year with a circulation of 750,000 copies and a readership of 30,000.
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STEPPING UP
Dear readers,
It’s no secret that Syracuse, after years of mediocrity, changed its ways last year. It’s first bowl appearance since 2013. Winning double digit games, a feat that took 17 years to accomplish. And most recently, holding its only preseason AP Poll ranking of the century. There’s no denying the hype before this season is real. But last year’s core is gone and three new faces lead the Orange. A wide out who risked sitting out a season and leaving his dream school to reverse his football fortunes. A quarterback prepped to lead a team since he was six years old steps in the spotlight after learning under Syracuse’s most decorated signal caller. And a running back who’s one-game audition proved to Orange fans, and himself, that he can be a force in the back field. Meet the new faces of Syracuse football, one approaching its most anticipated season in decades. Thanks for reading. KJ Edelman, Sports Editor
STARTING OVER
To save his football career, Trishton Jackson left home for SU
By Andrew Graham senior staff writer
Trishton Jackson sat in his room at the Manchester Grand Hyatt in San Diego two Decembers ago and thought about life. He considered his three teammates kicked of the team after the four came to college together 11 months prior. He considered the younger players on Michigan State’s wide receiver depth chart exceeding his dwindling role. And he considered how his dream school revealed itself as detrimental to him.
Jackson said a prayer to himself that night — something he made up in the moment and doesn’t remember today. Then he called his mother, Carol. He admits now that he was too close to home, but he fails to explain precisely what that entailed. Two days before the Spartans thrashed Washington State in the 2017 Holiday Bowl, Jackson had made his decision to transfer.
On the phone that night, Carol sensed her son’s conflicted mind. She asked him if he was happy.
“I don’t think I was at that time,” Jackson said. “I was low at that point.” He came to the hard realization that there wasn’t a path for him to succeed at Michigan State. In Syracuse, he’s followed a better trajectory since enrolling in January of 2018. After a year in limbo — the make-or-break period of Jackson’s transfer — his decision paid of. In his first game for SU, he reeled in an acrobatic touchdown catch in the Orange’s Camping World Bowl win over West Virginia.
“I had faith that when I’d come here I’d be more focused,” Jackson said. “I wouldn’t be too close to home. I wouldn’t want to call Mom everyday, stuf like that. I would have to grow up and mature as a man. And I think I’ve been doing a really good job of doing that.”
Michigan State was a natural landing spot for Jackson out of high school. Playing quarterback at West Bloomfield (Michigan) High School in the suburbs of Detroit — 70 miles from East Lansing — Jackson grew up in the middle of the Michigan-MSU rivalry that divides the state. His former high school coach, Ron Bellamy, and close family friend Braylon Edwards both played wide receiver at Michigan. But Jackson had always been partial to the Spartans. He watched former MSU wideouts Plaxico Burress, Aaron Burbridge and Tony Lippett growing up, encountering the latter two playing high school football in the greater Detroit area. More than anything, Jackson loved the blue-collar nature the Spartans exemplified under head
coach Mark Dantonio.
The rising senior turned in a stellar performance, playing receiver at the 2015 rendition of the annual Sound Mind Sound Body football camp. In an address at the camp, to more than a thousand high school athletes, Dantonio told them, “You want to be the breadwinner, you want to be the man,” according to a story in the Detroit Free Press.
Dantonio spoke to Jackson and his father, Obbie, after the camp, ofering a gray shirt to play wideout. The next day, MSU ofered a scholarship that Jackson committed 24 hours later.
stances could change. In January 2017, freshman wide receiver Donnie Corley, along with fellow freshmen Josh King and Demetric Vance, were suspended and ultimately dismissed from the team in June 2017 for alleged sexual assault. It was shocking for Jackson to see three close friends were removed in a matter of months.
“I definitely got that realization, about how life can change so quickly,” Jackson said. “And it made me mature, to make the decision to leave. I think I matured from that situation.”
Even with MSU’s top four receivers from 2016 gone, Jackson stagnated in 2017, catching just seven more passes than the year prior for a mere 143 total yards. He never got into the end zone and three true freshmen had more receptions for more yards.
In his final season at Michigan State, Trishton Jackson accounted for just 5.1% of the team’s receiving yards 5.1%
The quarterback-turnedpass catcher exceeded expectations his first season for the Spartans by just cracking the rotation of mostly upperclassmen, finishing with five receptions, 89 yards and a touchdown. With the departure of three of MSU’s top four pass catchers to graduation, Jackson should’ve been one of the Spartans’ top returning options.
Then, the Spartans lost the fourth receiver of that group and Jackson saw how fast circum-
The coaching sta f at MSU wasn’t the best fit for Jackson, either, he said. Orders were given without explanation and, even when well-intended, rubbed the wrong way. Though the relationship soured, Jackson holds no ill will toward Michigan State.
“It’s more Saban-esque, business-y-like vibes and I don’t think everybody liked what he had to say about things,” Jackson said about Dantonio and the culture at Michigan State.
Neither Dantonio or then-wide receivers coach Terrence Samuel were made available for interviews by Michigan State for this story.
Jackson’s high school coach, Bellamy, got a call from MSU’s coaching sta f that the receiver was transferring. The coach reached out to Jackson to figure out what was going on. Then, he started calling college coaches. One of them was to Vinson Reynolds, Syracuse’s defensive line coach who’d previously recruited
“
It made me mature, to make the decision to leave. I think I matured from that situation.
Trishton Jackson, Wide Receiver
Jackson’s older brother to Western Michigan. Bellamy told Reynolds that Jackson had interest in SU. Bellamy then looped in Evan Foster, Jackson’s high school teammate and current SU safety, and asked whether Syracuse could be a good place for Jackson.
After he realized he would have an opportunity to win a starting job or significant playing time Jackson and his mother visited Syracuse in January 2018.
SU head coach Dino Babers entered the meeting and started with two questions.
“First he asked me if I’m fast and of course I said, ‘Yeah,’” Jackson said. “Then he asked me would I like to catch 100 balls. And I said, ‘Of course, yes.’” Carol saw her son “light up like a Christmas tree” talking to Babers. He knew the Orange wanted him as much as he wanted them.
The commitment came with the year-long wait Division I football transfers must go through when changing schools, finishing two semesters in residence before becoming eligible. During spring ball, Jackson practiced with his new team and continued with summer workouts. While the rest of the team prepared to play Western Michigan, Jackson toiled through camp toward a season on the scout team, emulating the opponent’s receivers week-to-week.
Back at MSU, the receivers that in-part squeezed Jackson out of its rotation almost all got hurt. In total, eight receivers combined to miss 23 games in 2018 for MSU. It was a window, one that Jackson knew he might have to live with missing when he made this decision.
Two years ago, Jackson would’ve seen the injuries and felt he made the wrong choice. Instead, he was at peace waiting for the opportunity he knew would come at SU.
A new NCAA rule allowed both Jackson and Oklahoma transfer running back Abdul Adams to play in SU’s bowl game last season. When Jackson got the news, he called Bellamy and told him he had a surprise.
“He was like, ‘I might be eligible to play in the bowl game,’” Bellamy remembered Jackson saying. “You know, I didn’t know the rule. I was like, ‘Dude. We’ve had this discussion. You have to sit out a year.’” Jackson caught a touchdown on the first play of the fourth quarter in the Camping World Bowl, making what he hopes to be the first of many plays for Syracuse in his two years of eligibility remaining.
Finally eligible and finally in a place he’s mentally at peace, Jackson has become good friends with his quarterback, Tommy DeVito, playing paintball and eating steak. He’s bonded with the receivers, taking some leadership in organizing additional workouts in the summer with skill position players and going with them to see ‘The Lion King.’ He’s in a place he believes that will benefit him on and of the football field.
When his mom asks him if he’s happy now, the answer is obvious. aegraham@syr.edu @A_E_Graham
photo by corey henry
sarah allam illustration editor
NEXT IN LINE
The years of waiting that brought Tommy DeVito on the cusp of stardom
By Josh Schafer senior staff writer
For three years, Tommy DeVito watched. Watched as the media hyped him up, marrying the fourstar recruit to the beginning of the Dino Babers era in Syracuse. Watched as backups started in place of an injured Eric Dungey so DeVito wouldn’t burn his redshirt season. He even watched Dungey return to the starting role despite DeVito saving a game the week prior.
“Sometimes you gotta wait your turn,” DeVito said following a practice in August.
It’s not just a saying, but a mantra DeVito’s forcefully lived by. DeVito waited in youth football while coaches’ sons played over him. A transfer seized the starting job in high school. So even when DeVito broke out at the Elite 11 prospect camp, it was too late. The guys who had been on the scene — fellow campers Jake Fromm and Tua Tagovailoa — tossed touchdowns in the College Football Playof National Championship while DeVito hadn’t taken a collegiate snap.
Stuck behind a formidable predecessor in Dungey, a fouryear starter who set or tied 25
individual school records, it didn’t matter that DeVito understood the ofense entering his redshirt freshman season. Maybe the comeback performance against North Carolina should’ve been the turning point. It should’ve been the moment his resume flipped from unproven hype to tangible evidence. From waiting, to starting. DeVito would never say that, not even this fall camp now that he’s the starter and Dungey’s graduated.
“It’s always coach’s decision,” DeVito said.
DeVito sees the whole picture. Saying he should’ve started now doesn’t earn him back anything. It’s the type of thing that has been ingrained in him. The experiences — the aggressive coaching from an early age and learning to be a backup — have prepared him for this moment, and now it’s finally his.
Entering his redshirt sophomore season, DeVito’s the starter for a No. 22 Syracuse squad ranked in the preseason for the first time since the year he was born. Finally, he has the opportunity to join his former campmates in Fromm and Tagovailoa in college football lore. If it’s to work out, if the wait was worth it and
DeVito can spearhead Syracue’s continued success from 2018, it’ll be predicated on the path which brought him here.
“He’s used to taking the long road, as long as you get there,” said DeVito’s father, Tom. “But you got to go through the process...now it’s put up or shut up time.”
DeVito’s trained to be a start-
ing quarterback since he linked up with quarterback coach Leon Clarke at six years old. He dissected defenses and developed a quick delivery, efortless long ball and technically sound footwork.
As DeVito entered sixth grade, his dad started media training with his son, Tom said. He often simulated postgame interview questions, gearing DeVito’s answers toward position groups, not specific players. He wanted his son to be fluent in “coach speak,” and avoid offending teammates or opponents.
DeVito was often featured in articles on Youth1, which ranked top prospects in his recruiting class before high school. Once he reached his sophomore season at Don Bosco Prep (New Jersey) High School, DeVito was the expected starter. But then Wesley McKoy, an athlete who could play both receiver and quarterback, transferred and plucked DeVito’s spot.
“If you have to sit, you sit,” Clarke remembered instructing DeVito. “You be a good teammate. You wait your turn.”
If DeVito didn’t play much on a Friday night, he’d throw with Clarke the next Saturday or Sunday. Practice sessions had clear focuses, from run-pass option
drills to situational practice based on ball placement and the area of the field.
Clarke’s practice regiments polished DeVito’s skills, but could only take him so far. In DeVito’s final regular season game of his sophomore season — against a rival high school on Thanksgiving — DeVito completed 7-of-16 passes for 155 yards with one touchdown and two interceptions, per NJ.com.
The next season, Don Bosco hired former NFL quarterback Mike Teel as an offensive coordinator. He brought a new offense, similar to what he played with as a quarterback at Rutgers and with the Seattle Seahawks. The reads started simple: How many safeties were there? If there was only one player as the last line of defense in the secondary, then DeVito would look for one set of receivers. If there were two safeties, he’d throw a different direction. Slowly, it became more advanced. DeVito noted where linebackers dropped to coverage and threw opposite their movements.
It was advanced skill play, Teel noted, more comparable to something he’d learned at Rutgers, not in high school. Throughout the season, DeVito learned more about defensive alignments and shifted more play calls at the line.
“
Always just be ready, if your number’s called go out and do what you gotta do, play football.
Tommy DeVito, Quarterback
By season’s end, he’d thrown for 17 passing touchdowns and led Don Bosco to a state championship.
“It took him some time to kind of figure it out and catch on because it was di ferent and it was probably pretty di fcult,” Teel said. “But as he grew and as he became more comfortable, you could see he had a really high football IQ.”
The summer after his junior season, DeVito surprised scouts at the Elite 11 and The Opening, another top quarterback camp. He quickly rose to a four-star recruit, but Teel remembers that summer for DeVito staying level-headed. He continued his process with Clarke and became one of the strongest players on the team despite being a 193pound quarterback.
DeVito’s done the same at Syracuse, where videos have surfaced of him hang-cleaning 330 pounds as receivers gawked at his confidence. He spent the last two years understanding the quick-hitting Babers ofense with occasional first team practice reps.
He’s stayed quiet publicly, watching and learning from Dungey’s pressers, just as Clarke wanted. But when the time came for DeVito to take his first live snaps at Syracuse, it was similar to his first chance at Don Bosco — some good, some bad, but flashes that ignited excitement.
And so, DeVito is done waiting for his chance, just in time to prove himself once more.
“It was nothing new to me,” DeVito said. “Always just be ready. If your number’s called, go out and do what you gotta do, play football.”
jlschafer@syr.edu @Schafer_44
photo by corey henry sarah allam illustration editor
A single blue stripe on helmet
Blue stripe on sleeve
1950s
NEW THREADS
Syracuse changed its uniforms reverting back to the
2019
Added number on shoulder
“Orange” above number
White stripe on helmet
New white stripe on pants
1980s
Thin orange outline on numbers
Thin blue stripes on pants
THREADS
uniforms coming into 2019, roots of its past attire
New stripe on helmet
Blue collar
Stripes on sleeves
Numbers on sleeves
Altered stripe design on pants
New number design
All white pants
Helmets reverted to 1950s style
Only one blue stripe on helmet
New stripes on shoulders 2014
STAY READY
By Eric Black senior staff writer
For a chance to revive his dwindling football career, Abdul Adams had to leave Oklahoma. Two years with the Sooners without consistently seeing the field left the former top 10 high school running back with few options. So Adams transferred, and for the first time in nearly three years, finally had a steady role.
On the Syracuse scout team.
Adams had fallen a long way since rushing for 2,036 yards and 21 touchdowns during his senior year at Hillside (North Carolina) High School. When he got to SU, he waited and watched his team from the sidelines during home games and from his South Campus apartment during road games. Syracuse, a team he hadn’t yet played a minute for, ran through Florida State, almost dethroned Clemson, and eventually, made its first bowl game in five years.
The message to Adams throughout 2018 was simple: Stay ready.
“All season, they (were) like, ‘You could play in a bowl game,’” Adams said.
On Dec. 28, Adams finally got to suit up for the Orange’s first bowl game in five years, after sitting out the season due to the NCAA transfer rules. In his first game action since January, the fresh-of-the-scout-team tailback scored two touchdowns, leading the charge for SU’s 34-18 win in the Camping World Bowl. Adams hasn’t had the success in college he always thought he would. But on the first Syracuse team ranked in the preseason AP Top 25 since 1998, he finally has the opportunity he’s always wanted.
“You live and learn from things,” Adams said. “I don’t regret (any) of the decisions I made, and I’m happy at the place I am now.”
The Camping World Bowl was only a glimpse of the explosive, long-undervalued Adams that Syracuse had sought after. But his college career — bouncing between two teams, standing in the backfield sparingly — has been far from as smooth as it was in
Abdul Adams’ three-year preparation has him poised for a breakout season
high school.
Adams entered Woodrow Wilson (Washington, D.C.) High School at 155 pounds as a talented, but skinny freshman who didn’t see many varsity minutes. Still, head coach Mark Martin said, as soon as he saw Adams, he knew he’d be a pro one day.
With one play left in the first half of a Woodrow Wilson game seven years ago, Martin recalled subbing Adams into the game to catch a bubble screen on the team’s own 20-yard line. They needed some sort of spark to stay in the game. And Adams, the scrawny freshman, maneuvered his way down the field, all the way to the end zone.
“That’s when we knew we had to have him on the field,” Martin said. But the strength and agility he needed to fully realize his potential weren’t there. He began training with Sean Washington, dubbed the “Monster Maker,” who started to transform Adams’s physical development with Prowler sleds. By his sophomore year, Adams had gained 25 pounds. Two years later, he was 205.
Abdul Adams’ weight increased 50 lbs throughout high school when he started training with Sean “Monster Maker” Washington. Adams is currently listed at 202 lbs.
“He would go practice after practice,” Martin said. “He would go workout before practice, leave for practice, and then go workout again.”
A scholarship at Oklahoma validated his hard work after a transfer to Hillside, but like his freshman year at Woodrow Wilson, Adams was far down the depth chart. Ahead of him were
was passed over again, remaining the third-string back.
When he did play, Adams was as explosive as any back in the country, leading the Sooners with 9.2 yards per carry. He even tied the NCAA record with a 99-yard touchdown against Baylor.
But that’d be his only highlight from that season. Again, he failed to make an impact in Oklahoma’s biggest games — the Big 12 Championship and the College Football Playoff.
“It was defnitely an up and down year,” Adams said. “I just took it one day at a time.”
Adams decided to leave Oklahoma, noting “maturity” as one of the biggest reasons why. Oklahoma declined to comment for this story, citing “their focus is on this year’s OU players and team.”
Coming to Syracuse put his two years at Oklahoma in the past, but he was still required to sit out the regular season.
That’s why he started on the scout team, where he prepared Syracuse’s starting defense for the running back it would face in the next game. While some players of Adams’ caliber might have dismissed the role, Adams relished it. He called his role on the team a “blessing,” and used it to stay in shape and perfect his craft.
“Going into weeks where we had (to face) a tough running back, he was giving us a great look,” SU defensive back Andre Cisco said. “Maybe even a better look than we were gonna see.”
Adams’ only hope to play during the season depended on if Syracuse could have its best season under head coach Dino Babers and reach a bowl game. Babers foreshadowed the possibility of an Adams return midway through the 2018 season, pending a bowl game appearance. In December, it became a reality.
In his lone appearance for the Orange, Adams converted on a pair of goal line touches, scoring Syracuse’s frst two touchdowns of the Camping World Bowl. He chalks up his bowl game success to his preparation throughout the season and staying focused despite the fact that he couldn’t even travel with the team for road games.
“Once I got the call that I could be able to play I knew I would be ready,” Adams said. “I was watching flm, working in the weight room, staying ready, keeping my conditioning up.”
But even after his breakout bowl game, the ups-and-downs of Adams’ career resurfaced. Adams sat out the spring and frst half of summer practices after breaking his left scapula, but in mid-July, he was listed as one of the featured running backs on SU’s preliminary depth chart. That’s continued into training camp, where he’s handled frst-team running back duties along with Moe Neal.
two future NFL running backs — Samaje Perine and Joe Mixon. As Adams largely watched from the sidelines, Oklahoma went on to win 11 games, including the Sugar Bowl, en route to a No. 5 ranking in the final AP Poll of 2016.
When the two backs in front of Adams were drafted following the season, it seemingly opened up a starting spot for Adams. But he
Compared to Neal’s lofty goal of becoming SU’s frst 1,000-yard rusher in seven years, Adams’ ambitions are tempered. For him, it’s the frst time in college he’s expected to have a signifcant role. He’s just happy to put in extra work the same way he has since he was just a 155pound high school freshman.
“Preparation is key,” Adams said. “If you’re not preparing the right way, it’s gonna show on the feld. If you’re taking everything serious, all the little things serious, you’re gonna have much success.” erblack@syr.edu | @esblack34
photo by corey henry photo editor
In two frustrating years at Oklahoma, Abdul Adams was given just 112 attempts after being a four-star recruit in high school. As a transfer, Adams redshirted all of last year, but he was able to play in Syracuse’s bowl game, rushing for 19 yards and two touchdowns.
High school senior Oklahoma freshman Oklahoma sophomore
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