Kyle McCord found a home at Syracuse. Here’s how the ‘Camden Orange’ prepared him for the NFL.

Duce Chestnut and Kyle McCord have a running joke. It dates back to 2013, when they were in elementary school, playing youth football in South Jersey.

McCord, Syracuse’s quarterback, was on the Fleetwood Indians, and Chestnut, a Syracuse defensive back, was on the Pennsauken Panthers. The two teams had a fierce rivalry, and that year, Pennsauken had an edge over Fleetwood. The Panthers had beaten the Indians three times, a fact Chestnut made sure his friend would never forget.

But McCord quickly came up with a savvy response. Pennsauken didn’t win its youth football championship until 2015, when McCord transferred over.

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“So his trash talk to me is, ‘Oh, I beat you,’” McCord said. “And my trash talk to him is, ‘You couldn’t win the championship without me.’”

Chestnut’s response: “Just make sure you say that I beat Kyle three times in one season. I beat him three times.”

This well-intentioned ribbing is just one of the many ways Syracuse has become a home away from home for McCord. After transferring from Ohio State in 2023, he was reunited with youth football teammates like Chestnut, but also with family friends in head coach Fran Brown and offensive coordinator Jeff Nixon.

Syracuse was an unconventional choice. When he entered the transfer portal, the Orange were coming off a 6-7 season. They didn’t have as much NIL money as other schools that had pursued McCord.

But they did offer their unconditional support. If anything, that was the crux of Brown’s pitch. McCord was their guy. Brown didn’t expect him to be perfect, and when he inevitably made mistakes, they’d learn from them together.

After his three years of overthinking at Ohio State, that message resonated with the young quarterback. McCord went on to have the best season of his career in 2024. And as he heads into the NFL draft on Thursday, he feels as confident as ever, largely because of his time at Syracuse.

“It felt like I was playing in high school,” McCord said. “It was that same type of relationship with the coaches. You’re just going out and playing free. You’re not getting too caught up on mistakes.

“Mistakes are bound to happen. It’s football. It’s a part of the game, but it’s knowing that even when those mistakes do happen, the coaches still have full trust in you.”

When they were kids, McCord, Chestnut, and their Panthers teammates always talked about playing Division I football together. Chestnut was skeptical it would ever happen. But then, in December 2023, an opportunity presented itself.

Brown, a native of Camden, had recently announced he’d be heading to Syracuse. So was Nixon, an offensive coordinator with South Jersey ties, who had coached 14 seasons in the NFL.

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The head coach and offensive coordinator would be joining quarterbacks coach Nunzio Campanile, a longtime head coach at Bergen Catholic, who grew up in Fair Lawn, N.J.

Defensive back Alijah Clark, a Camden native, had transferred to Syracuse in 2022. Defensive lineman Denis Jaquez Jr., another member of the 2015 Pennsauken Panthers, had been there since he was a freshman.

The New Jersey ties were too compelling to ignore. So after the 2023 season, a group of the former youth football players — Chestnut, McCord, Clark, Jaquez, and edge rusher Fadil Diggs — got on a call.

Diggs, Chestnut, and McCord were in the transfer portal, and Diggs made it clear where he wanted all of them to go.

“He was like, ‘Let’s go make the move to Syracuse, man,’” Chestnut said. “And we kind of all just talked about it for a while, and then we were like, ‘Yeah, let’s do it. Let’s put it on for Jersey.’”

They quickly came up with a nickname for themselves.

“They were saying, ‘This is Camden Orange,’” Chestnut said. “This is the Camden Orange instead of the Syracuse Orange.”

It was a seamless transition. That spring, they all walked into a familiar locker room, full of faces they’d known for years. For McCord, this was especially true.

His father, Derek, worked in the same hospital as Brown’s wife, Teara. He used to show her videos of his lanky 13-year-old son, flinging footballs all over the field. Teara told her husband, who showed up to a Panthers practice one day.

“It was kind of weird seeing a college coach at a youth football game,” McCord said. “But that’s a perfect example of who he is.”

McCord has known Nixon since he was in kindergarten. Nixon and Derek McCord used to coach their sons’ youth basketball and football teams together in Mount Laurel. The quarterback played alongside Nixon’s son, Will, who is now one of Syracuse’s running backs.

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When McCord was deciding which high school to go to, Campanile tried to persuade him to play at Bergen Catholic. It did not work. His mother was not about to let him move to North Jersey, and he ended up staying nearby at St. Joseph’s Prep.

But about a decade later, their paths crossed again in central New York. McCord is grateful they did.

“[Campanile] gave me a new perspective on the game,” the quarterback said. “He was a big reason why I went out and played so free last year. I think a lot of it was because of his coaching.”

There was not much room for error at Ohio State. Because McCord was there before the expansion of the College Football Playoff, he couldn’t afford to lose a game.

He was keenly aware of this, and the pressure quickly sank in. Ohio State is one of top programs in college football, and instead of taking advantage of the talent around him, McCord began to worry.

“If you lose a game, your season is over, for the most part,” he said. “So you’re definitely walking on a tightrope. You can’t slip up at any point, or else it’s over.

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“Especially being the first-year starter, being surrounded by so much talent, you almost just want to not make a mistake because, you know you have some talent around you. And then it was kind of the opposite mentality at Syracuse. Just playing free, trying to make plays, not really worrying too much about mistakes. It was just two completely different mindsets in terms of where I was last year on the field. And I think it definitely showed.”

He was named the Buckeyes’ starter for the 2023 season, and, overall, things went well. Ohio State posted a record of 11-2 (11-1 in McCord’s starts).

But his team lost the most important game of the year: Michigan vs. Ohio State on Nov. 25, 2023. McCord had two interceptions, despite throwing for 271 yards and two touchdowns against the eventual national champions on the road.

He entered the transfer portal that offseason.

“They wanted to go in a different direction,” McCord told Jon Gruden last week.

He was approached by some bigger-name schools, but Syracuse stood out. He could tell that Brown was genuinely invested in him. This trickled down throughout his staff, from Nixon, to Campanile, and on.

Campanile and McCord, in particular, hit it off. They had a conversation early in the season about expectations that helped the quarterback take some weight off his shoulders.

“Listen,” Campanile told him. “It’s one thing to draw it up and know it on the whiteboard, but football is not played on the whiteboard. And it’s not always going to be perfect, exactly how you draw it up. You just have to trust what you see, trust your eyes and let it rip.”

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“Hearing your quarterback coach tell you that, I think, is very liberating,” McCord said. “And that was a big reason why I just felt like I could go out there and just play free and trust what I see.

“I feel like, sometimes, guys feel like their coaches are trying to get them to overthink things, and that was the complete opposite at Syracuse. And I feel like it really shows itself when you do make a mistake.

“And you tell them, ‘I saw this, and I just thought it would be there, and so I ripped it.’ And they’re like, ‘Yeah, it happens, it’s football.’ So I think when coaches are understanding when mistakes happen … I think that is very freeing.”

The results showed almost immediately. It wasn’t always easy — Syracuse played a lot of close games — but it ended the season with a 10-3 record, its best mark since 2018.

McCord finished 10th in Heisman Trophy voting. He led the country with 4,779 passing yards. He set a slew of school records, including touchdowns (34), completions (391), and attempts (592).

He feels like in many ways, his final collegiate season prepared him for his next chapter in the NFL. Nine of Syracuse’s 13 games were decided by eight points or less. They went 7-2 in those one-score games.

“A lot of that was because of his poise,” Campanile said. “Just like in the NFL, where every game is a close game, we felt like it was an advantage for us to be able to win hard games, and be great at situational football. To not lose your cool when it doesn’t go perfect.”

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Nixon ran a pro-style offense, which gave his quarterback a lot of responsibility. Playing in this type of system was an asset for McCord as he met with NFL teams.

“It kind of gives you a sense of peace knowing that you’re running the concepts that they run in the NFL,” McCord said. “[The quarterback is in charge of] pass protection, getting us on the right page, reads and different progressions. There’s just a lot on the quarterback’s plate, right? And that’s how you want it.

“In Coach Nixon’s offense, if the quarterback plays well, you’ll win. If not, you probably lose. And so that’s what you want. It puts a lot of responsibility in your hands. Teams seem to really like that.”

McCord said he has learned important lessons from Ohio State, too. He experienced a level of scrutiny there that he wouldn’t have at any other school. Wherever the quarterback ends up in the NFL — he is expected to be a mid-round draft pick — he will be under a microscope again.

But he is better equipped to handle it now.

“He has a really high standard for himself,” Campanile said. “If he made a mistake in a game, he was a guy that was going to take ownership of it. So I thought that was something that was good for his personality. To be like, ‘All right, we’re not going to dwell on this. OK, it happened. Let’s learn from it.’ And he really did a great job with that.

“And as the season went on, you could see that if he made a mistake, he just came back and kept firing away. Shooters shoot. It’s kind of like if Steph Curry misses a shot. He’s always going to take another one.”