In advance of Cal's ACC opener at Syracuse on Saturday afternoon, we spoke with Orange beat writer Javon Edmonds of the Syracuse Post-Standard.Here are the five questions we posed and Edmonds' responses:1. Syracuse clobbered FSC New Hampshire 66-3 in its opener. Given the level of the opponent, what did you see from the Orange that convinces you they will better than last season? Edmonds took us back a year to when Syracuse scored a less-than-impressive 66-24 victory over FCS-level Colgate. It was “not a clean operation . . . it showed that was a team that had some work to do.”By comparison, the Orange clicking on all cylinders from the start against New Hampshire. “It was, from the second drive on, a whuppin’. “2. Tell us how quarterback Steve Angeli is doing. He was leading the nation in passing yards last year when he tore his Achilles against Clemson. He had great numbers (263 passing yards, 3 TDs) against New Hampshire. Does it look like he’s all the way back and how important will he be to the team this season?Edmonds said he was confident Angeli had made a full physical recovery from his injury. But there was another side to the equation.“He just needs to know he can take a hit again. He took a few hits,” he said of the New Hampshire game. “Got sacked. Got a late hit out of bounds that his offensive line wasn’t happy about. “Got tangled up, grabbed at his knee for a minute. I’ve never heard a sporting event get as quiet as it did when he started holding his knee. When he got up and sprinted off, that place got so loud and the crowd started chanting `Steve Angeli.’ I think Steve’s looking pretty fine.”3. Ju’Juan Johnson was penciled in to be the No. 1 running back, but did not play the opener because of an ankle injury. Will he be available against Cal and is Shavane Anderson Jr. now the starter after becoming the ACC’s first true freshman to rush for 100 yards in at least 20 years? What is Anderson’s skill set?Edmonds gives high marks to Anderson, the 6-foot-1, 200-pound freshman, who rushed for 105 yards against New Hampshire.“I’ll tell you a story: The second-to-last week of fall camp was one of the few times we got to see a lot of practice. Shavane Anderson had that place going `ooh’ and `aah.’ He had back-to-back reps of just running clean through guys. You could hear the pop.“So he gets out there vs .New Hampshire and what happens? Six broken tackles, 80 yards after contact. That’s just who he is: A brutal, physical, downhill runner. But he’s not some slow, stiff guy. He’s fast, he’s got wiggle to him.”4. Syracuse allowed nearly 35 points per game last season. How much impact do they expect from senior linebacker Keyshawn Johnson, the FCS All-American last year at Tennessee-Martin? I believe he had a pretty good debut last weekend.“If anyone on that defense needed a good game it was him. Brought you up from the FCS level, he had 13 1/2 sacks down there last year. Need to see you replicate that and (he had) 2 1/2 sacks. One of them was a strip sack. They need him to really perform this year.“They had a transfer last year from Cal — David Reese, an eighth-year guy. David came in and had 2 1/2 sacks all season. Seeing that from Keyshawn was positive, but he’s got to do it against the ACC teams. So Saturday’s going to be a big measuring stick for him.”5. Tell us about Demetres Samuel Jr., who is a defensive back, returns punts and kickoffs and can even play a little wide receiver. He had a 42-yard kick return and brought back four punts for 83 yards against New Hampshire. How busy do you expect him to be this season and how great a weapon is he for the Orange?Edmonds calls Samuel “an electrifying kid . . . one of the spectacles of college football.” He says Samuel is just 17 years old, but records say he turned 18 in April.Even so . . . “They’ve got probably the best cornerback duo in the ACC in Demetres Samuel and Chris Peal. It’s going to be a lot of man to man and just let those guys win their matchups. They got a few coverage sacks off that against New Hampshire.”As a punt return specialist, Samuel has made a deal with the other 10 players on the unit and promised each of them $100 if he takes one to the house. At the same time, he Samuel has an arrangement with coach Fran Brown, who will give him $1,000 for scoring on a punt return.Do the math — the kid is smart. His financial arrangements are a break-even proposition, but he’ll score points with 10 happy teammates in doing so.Follow Jeff Faraudo on Twitter, Facebook and BlueskyAdd us as a preferred source on GoogleFollow