Syracuse coach Fran Brown said his leading receiver Trebor Pena entered the transfer portal after he asked for a larger NIL deal Brown wasn’t comfortable granting.
“We paid him enough. He was going to get paid more. There were some numbers that were asked to me that I didn’t feel I would be able to do and move on,” Brown said in a Wednesday interview with local radio station WTLA-AM. “I treated him right, did everything that was needed, and I just said, ‘Yo, you got to go.’”
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Pena, who caught a team-high 84 passes for 941 yards and nine touchdowns last year, was the leading returning receiver for the Orange. Syracuse improved from six wins to 10-3 under Brown, a first-time head coach. It was Syracuse’s second 10-win season since 2001. Pena was named a team captain and was the only player on the roster other than the quarterbacks given a non-contact jersey during spring practice.
“You gonna make $2 million at wide receiver? That’s the homie at Ohio State (Jeremiah Smith). Ain’t nobody else making that money. I’m not giving no wide receiver $2 million in college. That ain’t me,” Brown said. “I ain’t doing that unless they tell me we have a chance to have Travis Hunter come back to college. He can come here and play for us, then he gonna get some of my check.”
Miami is reportedly one of Pena’s possible future destinations.
Brown said he gave a glowing recommendation for Pena to a nearby coach when he called to inquire about his former receiver. He also said that after news broke among the team that Pena was leaving, players texted him asking if they could receive some of the money Pena was earning.
“Sometimes people be asking for an outrageous number. You’re not about to make more than every coordinator,” Brown said.
Former Syracuse quarterback Kyle McCord, who set the ACC single-season passing record with 4,779 yards, is off to the NFL. The Orange named LSU transfer Rickie Collins, a four-star prospect out of high school, the starting quarterback earlier this spring.
Brown said Pena expressed reservations about the change at quarterback.
“When you’re young and you feel like, ‘Ah, this is my last opportunity. I gotta go with a guy that could do different,’ or he might not think that Rickie is the guy,” Brown said. “‘How you know Rickie gonna be good? He’s super talented, but, like, would he be good next year and not this year?’
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“Hey, that ain’t your freaking job to be thinking that. I ain’t got time for you to be doing all that stuff,” Brown said, noting that Collins was playing behind Jayden Daniels and Garrett Nussmeier, one of the nation’s best returning quarterbacks in 2025, at LSU.
Syracuse played its annual spring game on Saturday and closed spring practice on Wednesday. Brown said he was confident in the future of the offense without Pena, citing offensive coordinator Jeff Nixon’s past success at Baylor under Matt Rhule.
Said Brown: “Why would I try to convince somebody to be somewhere when I know the offense works?”
(Photo: Sean M. Haffey / Getty Images)
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