Syracuse football’s 2023 offensive line: A starting 5 seems clear, but chemistry still needs to be created

By Emily Leiker | Syracuse, N.Y. — Joe More had been in the NCAA transfer portal about a week when he made his mind up on Syracuse football. Appearing on teammate Chris Bleich’s podcast, More, who transferred from University of Richmond, shared how an in-person visit from former Orange offensive line coach Mike Schmidt solidified SU as his future home. Schmidt called More from Boston, where he was on a recruiting trip, then flew down to Washington D.C. and drove three hours back up to Richmond, Virginia to meet More. “By him doing that I really felt like this was a place where they cared about me,” More said. More is the oldest of six new members of Syracuse’s O-line, which lost three starters last season — left tackle Matthew Bergeron, right tackle Dakota Davis and center Carlos Vettorello — but returns everyone else from its depth chart plus three additional players. The group has a depth of experience but still has to build the chemistry required for its unit through the four weeks of fall camp leading up to Syracuse’s first game against Colgate on Sept. 2. Returning from last year’s depth chart are left tackle Mark Petry, left guards Kalan Ellis and Jakob Bradford, center Josh Ilaoa, right guards Chris Bleich and Joe Cruz, and right tackle Enrique Cruz Jr. Patrick Alberga, Wes Hoeh and Austyn Kauhi are also back. New additions to the team are More, Kentucky transfer David Wohlabaugh, junior college transfers J’Onre Reed and Lysander Moeolo, and true freshmen Jayden Bass and Trevion Mack. That puts the group at 16 deep. New offensive line coach Steve Farmer, who joined staff in January, should have relative freedom in crafting the starting line, as last year’s group was one of the few that did not lose a player to a season-ending injury. Ellis missed a couple games with a lower body injury and there were some single-week injuries, but otherwise the group was unscathed. Bleich, the team’s most veteran returner who’s struggled with a number of injuries, said recently on his podcast that he is completely healthy and feels “like [he’s] 18 again.” The starting five is relatively easy to predict: Enrique Cruz at left tackle, Ellis at left guard, Ilaoa at center, Bleich at right guard and More at right tackle. Though the youngest of the group as a redshirt sophomore, Cruz has the best pass blocking grade (71.5 per Pro Football Focus) among SU’s returning linemen who appeared in five or more games last season. He started games at both left and right tackle as the first reserve to a veteran group that included new Atlanta Falcon Matthew Bergeron. Ellis and Bleich come in not far behind Cruz on pass blocking with grades of 70.1% and 67.1%. The former actually posts the team’s highest pass blocking efficiency rating at 98.6% according to PFF with Cruz and Bleich at 98.2%. Ilaoa will have work to do establishing a connection with starting quarterback Garrett Shrader, who missed all of spring practice recovering from a procedure on his right arm. He appeared in four games at center specifically last season with one start (Wake Forest). More was a starter for four of his five seasons at Richmond and in his final year allowed only four sacks in 542 snaps. His early arrival with the team for spring practice helped establish him alongside Bleich as what Ilaoa described as “the OGs.” That’s a pretty good front for an offense that will be pass-heavy this year after losing record-setting running back Sean Tucker and has a QB-minded offensive coordinator leading it. Run blocking will certainly need to improve for when Syracuse does hit the ground, though. None of the projected starters post higher than a 59% run block grade according to PFF. That’s potentially where Wohlabaugh comes in. Through three appearances at tackle for Kentucky last season, PFF gave him a 66.7% run blocking grade. Wohlabaugh and Reed are likely to be the two primary backups to the starting five, assuming SU continues its approach from last year of preparing all linemen to play across the line and using the top six or seven somewhat interchangeably. Both need a bit more game experience under their belts to match what Syracuse’s projected starters currently have. Wohlabaugh, the son of SU alum Dave Wohlabaugh who played for the Orange in the early ‘90s, appeared in 10 games for Kentucky as a backup. Reed primarily played center in four games for Hutchinson Community College. He also previously played at Blinn College. If there’s one area all of Syracuse’s O-line definitively needs to improve, it’s discipline. The offensive line was responsible for 53 of the Orange’s 70 total offensive penalties in 2022. SU tied Utah State for the most penalties in all of the Football Bowl Subdivision. In the spring, head coach Dino Babers had said the goal for the offensive linemen in attendance was to find enough consistency that they could teach the rest of the newcomers this summer independently of the coaching staff. August should be a good test of whether that consistency and connection was actually established.