Overheard after North Carolina shuts down Syracuse with little prep on new QB: ‘We have our sources’
Syracuse, N.Y. — Syracuse football lost its fifth consecutive game by falling 27-10 to Bill Belichick and North Carolina on Friday night in the JMA Wireless Dome.
Here’s the best of what we heard from coaches and players after the game.
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syracuse Orange Football 2025: Syracuse vs University of North Carolina
Fran Brown
On continuing to build Syracuse “the right way”
“So if you got any faith or any hope, if I was you, I would put my money on Fran. And put the money on our players, because we’re not going to stop, we won’t quit.”
On Joe Filardi’s rise up the depth chart
“There’s a lot of guys that have been walk-ons that went to school and it went really well. Like, Baker Mayfield is doing extremely well. I was with Stetson Bennett at Georgia, who’s doing extremely well in it. So you just got to give them time, right?”
On his new-look team following 10 wins last year
“We got a lot of freshmen and sophomores on the football field. And I understand, and I know, I want to win, guys, like I want to win by all means, right? And last year, we were able to go do that, but I had 12 guys leave and go to the NFL.
“So when 12 dudes go play the National Football League, naturally, there wasn’t 12 waiting to go to the league the next year. So we have to build and keep going, right?
“You seen Kyle McCord out there. We don’t have Kyle there yet, but maybe when he’s a fourth-year guy, to be able to play one of those guys that have the opportunity of being that. Or us having a chance of being able to get Steve back next year, things of that nature.
“But it just takes time, and it’s a young football team.”
Bill Belichick
On how he found at Filardi was starting for Syracuse
“We have our sources.”
On Brown’s Syracuse tenure
“Fran’s done a great job. Last year, can’t do much better than he did last year. Set every, almost every, school record offensively. He had a great season, and then there’s turnover like there always is.”
On facing the Orange this week
“We all know in football, it’s not who you play, it’s when you play them. We were probably fortunate to get them as opposed to the week they played Clemson.
“It’s one of those things. I think he’s a good coach, done a good job, he recruits well, team plays hard, they played a good scheme. They certainly gave us a lot of problems in the first half with their defensive scheme.
“And as I said, offensively last year, I don’t know how you break any more records than they broke in one season. He broke two dozen records. I don’t know, I lost track, there’s a lot.”
Joe Filardi
On receiving the starting nod
“I’ve been preparing every week as if I would play. That’s kind of what you have to do, because you really never know what’s going to happen. So I just trust the coaching and try to do what they say.”
On whether he had a moment where playing looked a little harder than how Kyle McCord and Steve Angeli made it look
“Quarterback is definitely a tough position, and just football in general.”
Da’Metrius Weatherspoon
On Brown’s decision to start Filardi
“We trust whatever decision Coach Fran makes, so whatever decision he makes, we support him 100%. And then after that, we just got to step up and support whoever he chooses.”
UNC QB Gio Lopez
On whether UNC’s offense tried to exploit any part of Syracuse’s defense
“We don’t need to focus on exploiting anybody when we just play our football. In the first half, we’re averaging eight yards a play. So I think for us, we weren’t more worried about exploiting, more executing our part of our offense. We started doing that even better in the second half.”
UNC DE Melkart Abou Jaoude
On what the Tar Heels did before the game to catch up on preparing for Filardi
“Nothing. The coaches just said, ‘Do your job, nothing changes,’ and that’s what we did.”
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