The time is set for Syracuse football’s next game – Oct. 18 at 7:30 p.m., putting the Orange back on their home field at the JMA Wireless Dome against longtime rival Pitt.

That game will come after a much-needed bye week for head coach Fran Brown’s Orange squad, which just a little over two weeks ago was riding high after a 34-21 upset win at Clemson.

Oh, how things change.

Since that win, the Orange have lost starting quarterback Steve Angeli to a season-ending Achilles injury and dropped two consecutive clunkers: a 38-3 home loss to Duke on Sept. 27 and a 31-18 road defeat at SMU in Dallas on Saturday.

The Orange slipped to 3-3 (1-2 Atlantic Coast Conference) on the season. Pitt is 3-2 (1-1 ACC) with meeting set with No. 25 Florida State on the road this Saturday.

Brown and his staff have extra time to figure things out before facing the Panthers.

And that starts at quarterback, where Brown said coaches will work with Angeli’s replacement, Rickie Collins, ahead of the Pitt game. Collins was 22-of-45 passing for 279 yards with one touchdown and three interceptions in his second start in place of Angeli against SMU. He carried the ball 10 times for 57 yards.

Collins, a redshirt sophomore, spent the past two seasons at LSU and saw limited action – seven pass attempts and seven carries. He transferred to Syracuse in the offseason, and Angeli won the quarterback competition in camp.

Brown, after the SMU game, said Collins deserves time to grow. And against the Mustangs, he saw improvement from his young quarterback.

“He started getting a little better. He threw a touchdown pass; didn't throw one last week. Ran one in. So we’re just getting better. We just got to keep working. I mean, it's his first time getting the opportunity to go behind {the line) and lead a football team. There’s things that he has to get better at weekly, right?

“It’s just a part of building the culture in the program and having a new kid coming at quarterback of doing it. It's almost like he's a freshman, right? He's a redshirt sophomore, but he hasn't played since high school. So, there's a lot that he has to learn.”

And Brown said he and his offensive staff are up to the task of mentoring Collins.

“I got to be there to being willing to teach him, right? I got to make sure that I'm able to do that and have his back and be behind him 100% as he's learning and going through these rough patches of the game of football, which happens,” he said.

It isn’t just an inexperienced college player Brown has at quarterback, but throughout the lineup. Expectations need to be managed for his young team, he said.

“We're building a program. It's a culture, right? It's something that takes time to do,” the second-year coach said. “We got a chance to win a lot early. We won some bigger games this year being able to do it. And I think that we'll keep winning. We got six left. So, you just got to judge us by towards the end and not off of just what you're seeing right now because, you know, we got young guys at positions all over the football field. A lot of guys played.”

Collins, at a postgame news conference on Saturday, was frank about his level of play in the SMU game and said he needs to translate what he learns from the coaching staff during the week to the playing field.

“Just got to take the coaching. I got to do better, taking meetings or whatever the case may be and translating it to Saturdays,” Collins said.

And then there’s the execution.

“I had to deliver the ball more accurately,” Collins said. “I was very inaccurate today.

“Nothing more, nothing less.”