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Kyle McCord continues torrid start, leads Syracuse to upset win

Cory Nightingale

By Cory Nightingale

Published:

Kyle McCord continued to show Saturday that maybe he just needed a change of scenery to have some success.

Yes, it’s still very early in the college football season, but McCord was absolutely flawless for Syracuse in Saturday afternoon’s 31-28 home upset of No. 23 Georgia Tech. The transfer from Ohio State threw for 381 yards on 32-of-46 passing with 4 touchdowns and 0 interceptions as the Orange took down the Yellow Jackets, who came in with a 2-0 record that included a season-opening upset of their own over Florida State in Ireland.

McCord backed up his performance from Week 1, when he led Syracuse’s 38-22 home victory over Ohio by throwing for 354 yards on 27-of-39 passing with 4 touchdowns and 1 interception.

That’s multiple 300-yard passing days and multiple 4-TD games in 2 starts at Syracuse for McCord, whose difficulties at Ohio State were well-documented before he transferred last December. According to ESPN, he’s the first Syracuse quarterback since 2012 to have multiple 300-yard, 4-touchdown games in the same season, and he did it in his first 2 games there.

McCord called the decision to leave Ohio State for Syracuse a “business decision” during an appearance on The QB Room podcast on Jan. 3. McCord was the primary starter for Ohio State last season, throwing for 3,170 yards and 24 touchdowns. He had an 83.7 Total QBR.

Only 2 games into the 2024 season, McCord’s decision is looking like a great one.

It only took first-year Cuse head coach Fran Brown one week to say this about McCord after the Ohio victory: “I should send Ryan Day a bottle of champagne for allowing us to get Kyle McCord.”

And that might not even be enough.

Cory Nightingale