2014 Schedule

[Consigliere]

I've read in several places reference to this years schedule being markedly tougher than last year and frankly am not sure I agree, particularly when you look at last year's results and likelihood to flip losses into wins and vice versa. Let's look at it in components:

OOC - Wagner - Villanova - push
Tulane - @CMU - push
Penn State - Notre Dame - push though ND might be a bit more highly regarded we can only lose
this game once - same as last year.
@ Northwestern - Maryland - on paper easier since last years result was the NW loss.

Summary - 2013 record was 2 - 2. Would be a disaster to do worse this year and the likelihood is we have a good shot to win at least 3.

Common conference foes: FSU, Clemson, NC State, BC, Pitt, Wake. Key thing here is that 2 home wins are road games next year and the only road loss that becomes a home game is FSU. Not a big upside to improve on the 3- 3 performance from last year. We would likely have to sweep roadies against BC, Pitt and Wake and hold serve with NCSU. Certainly achievable but challenging.

New conference matchups: Two road games replaced by two home games - @Georgia Tech and @ Maryland - Duke and Louisville. I guess on paper this is a bit tougher (Duke in the Dome > @ Maryland) and we could potentially lose both but that would be a major disappointment and I'm going to hold to no worse that a split.

So I'm in the boat with Coach Shafe's goal of 8 wins and see the Maryland game as a critical bellwether.

Thoughts?

 

[Alsacs]

We should go 3-1 in the 4 non-conference games. If our offense is better we could challenge ND at Metlife.

Florida State/@Clemson are still losses IMO.

That is 3-3
@Wake- should be a win new coach for them.
@Boston College- tossup
@Pitt- tossup we need split BC/Pitt ideally a sweep but unlikely

5-4
Louisville
Duke
NC State
we need to win 2 of these 3 minimum. If we beat Louisville I would expect a sweep, but realize we will have a What loss most likely.

Thus 7-5 is bar for me.
If we are lucky 9-3 win every 5o/50, if we sweep BC/Pitt and go 2/3 home games 8-4, if we lose both BC/Pitt we are looking at 6-6 not good.

 

[TexanMark]

I think Nova is better than Wagner. Wagner was pretty bad coming off a decent season the prior year. I think Notre Dame is a tad tougher than the Penn State we saw. ND has a QB issue but I think the rest of their athletes are better. PSU had really only one guy that gave us fits (the WR).

I think 7 or 8 wins regular season sounds about right.

 

[KaiserUEO]

I think Nova is better than Wagner. Wagner was pretty bad coming off a decent season the prior year. I think Notre Dame is a tad tougher than the Penn State we saw. ND has a QB issue but I think the rest of their athletes are better. PSU had really only one guy that gave us fits (the WR).

I think 7 or 8 wins regular season sounds about right.

ND has a QB issue??

They're going to start the guy who put them undefeated in the NC game.

Wish that was our QB problem....

Maryland is key, they don't beat them, it's going to make for another stressful game by game ACC season.

 

[TheCusian]

We should go 3-1 in the 4 non-conference games. If our offense is better we could challenge ND at Metlife. Florida State/@Clemson are still losses IMO. That is 3-3 @Wake- should be a win new coach for them. @Boston College- tossup @Pitt- tossup we need split BC/Pitt ideally a sweep but unlikely 5-4 Louisville Duke NC State we need to win 2 of these 3 minimum. If we beat Louisville I would expect a sweep, but realize we will have a What loss most likely. Thus 7-5 is bar for me. If we are lucky 9-3 win every 5o/50, if we sweep BC/Pitt and go 2/3 home games 8-4, if we lose both BC/Pitt we are looking at 6-6 not good.

We were really close to sweeping BC and Pitt last year. BC will be worse - and I think Pitt is almost always overrated.

 

[javadoc]

We were really close to sweeping BC and Pitt last year. BC will be worse - and I think Pitt is almost always overrated.

We were also really close to losing out against Pitt and BC last year!

 

[AAM62]

Yeah the Penn state to ND comparison isnt apples to apples because they didnt play the stud wide receiver in the first half.

 

[CousCuse]

Yeah the Penn state to ND comparison isnt apples to apples because they didnt play the stud wide receiver in the first half.

That helped Penn St as our D was out of sync with him when he started the second half. It was a clever coaching ploy by O'Brian.

 

[Hokie Mark]

FWIW, I see the Orange blowing out Villanova, CMU, and possibly even Maryland. Then the hit parade begins. I see Notre Dame, Louisville, and @Wake Forest all being close (i.e. < 7 points) games. 'Cuse gets blown out by FSU and Clemson, but blows out NC State at home. Down the stretch I see 3 more really close games vs. Duke, @Pitt and @BC, with that last one being a revenge game for the Eagles.

IMO, if Syracuse wins 7 games (regular season) vs. this year's schedule it will be a good year. 8 or more would be very good. Add a bowl victory and the momentum continues to build...

 

[AAM62]

FWIW, I see the Orange blowing out Villanova, CMU, and possibly even Maryland. Then the hit parade begins. I see Notre Dame, Louisville, and @Wake Forest all being close (i.e. < 7 points) games. 'Cuse gets blown out by FSU and Clemson, but blows out NC State at home. Down the stretch I see 3 more really close games vs. Duke, @Pitt and @BC, with that last one being a revenge game for the Eagles.

IMO, if Syracuse wins 7 games (regular season) vs. this year's schedule it will be a good year. 8 or more would be very good. Add a bowl victory and the momentum continues to build...

is clemson supposed to be that explosive this year? I get that the chances of leaving death valley with a win are rough but a blowout?

 

[Eric15]

I've read in several places reference to this years schedule being markedly tougher than last year and frankly am not sure I agree, particularly when you look at last year's results and likelihood to flip losses into wins and vice versa. Let's look at it in components:

OOC - Wagner - Villanova - push
Tulane - @CMU - push
Penn State - Notre Dame - push though ND might be a bit more highly regarded we can only lose
this game once - same as last year.
@ Northwestern - Maryland - on paper easier since last years result was the NW loss.

Summary - 2013 record was 2 - 2. Would be a disaster to do worse this year and the likelihood is we have a good shot to win at least 3.

Common conference foes: FSU, Clemson, NC State, BC, Pitt, Wake. Key thing here is that 2 home wins are road games next year and the only road loss that becomes a home game is FSU. Not a big upside to improve on the 3- 3 performance from last year. We would likely have to sweep roadies against BC, Pitt and Wake and hold serve with NCSU. Certainly achievable but challenging.

New conference matchups: Two road games replaced by two home games - @Georgia Tech and @ Maryland - Duke and Louisville. I guess on paper this is a bit tougher (Duke in the Dome > @ Maryland) and we could potentially lose both but that would be a major disappointment and I'm going to hold to no worse that a split.

So I'm in the boat with Coach Shafe's goal of 8 wins and see the Maryland game as a critical bellwether.

Thoughts?

This is by far my favorite SU non-conference schedule of the past 15-20 years. The way it's constructed is just absolutely perfect to build momentum and fan excitement.

That said, we had better not treat Nova as if it's a bye week/exhibition/just show up and win game (and I don't believe we will). Literally every single year, strong programs lose in Week 1 to FCS teams (Michigan, Virginia Tech, Oregon State, Ole Miss, Minnesota, etc etc.).

 

[Eric15]

I know conventional wisdom says that FSU will come into the Dome and destroy us, but, for historical precedent purposes...

1999: We get humiliated 62-0 at Va Tech by a national title caliber team with a Heisman-level QB
2000: A heavily favored #2 Va Tech returns to the Dome with most of that same team, and we give them all they can handle and really should have won the game.

 

[JackBauer44]

We should go 3-1 in the 4 non-conference games. If our offense is better we could challenge ND at Metlife.

Florida State/@Clemson are still losses IMO.

That is 3-3
@Wake- should be a win new coach for them.
@Boston College- tossup
@Pitt- tossup we need split BC/Pitt ideally a sweep but unlikely

5-4
Louisville
Duke
NC State
we need to win 2 of these 3 minimum. If we beat Louisville I would expect a sweep, but realize we will have a What loss most likely.

Thus 7-5 is bar for me.
If we are lucky 9-3 win every 5o/50, if we sweep BC/Pitt and go 2/3 home games 8-4, if we lose both BC/Pitt we are looking at 6-6 not good.

NCSU is going to be bad this year. I've heard people saying that DD is coaching for his job this year (and it's only year 2).

 

[texascpa]

WF not only had a new coach but didn't their starting QB leave, as well?

 

[Alsacs]

I know conventional wisdom says that FSU will come into the Dome and destroy us, but, for historical precedent purposes...

1999: We get humiliated 62-0 at Va Tech by a national title caliber team with a Heisman-level QB
2000: A heavily favored #2 Va Tech returns to the Dome with most of that same team, and we give them all they can handle and really should have won the game.

Florida State has too much talent for us to compete with them. Their QB is the reigning Heisman Trophy winner and Mario Edwards is going to beast at DE this year. I think if we are competitive going into the 4th quarter I will be really happy. Florida State unlike Va. Tech is actually for real and not a paper tiger.

I think we should always root for the best, but we aren't beating FSU for 2 years IMO. Shafer/McDonald are building on Marrone's rebuild. Marrone made our 23-50 deeper, but we still lack the elite talent on top like a Kevin Johnson/Donovan Darius/Tebucky Jones/Dwight Freeney level. McDonald looks like he will be able to get talent into the program, but we need more recruits before we can compete with the elite of the elite.

 

[Doc5120]

Florida State has too much talent for us to compete with them. Their QB is the reigning Heisman Trophy winner and Mario Edwards is going to beast at DE this year. I think if we are competitive going into the 4th quarter I will be really happy. Florida State unlike Va. Tech is actually for real and not a paper tiger.

I think we should always root for the best, but we aren't beating FSU for 2 years IMO. Shafer/McDonald are building on Marrone's rebuild. Marrone made our 23-50 deeper, but we still lack the elite talent on top like a Kevin Johnson/Donovan Darius/Tebucky Jones/Dwight Freeney level. McDonald looks like he will be able to get talent into the program, but we need more recruits before we can compete with the elite of the elite.

If it's close at halftime (2 Td's or less), I'll be ecstatic. FSU is light years better than us, and most of the rest of the country as well.

 

[AZOrange]

ND has a QB issue?? They're going to start the guy who put them undefeated in the NC game. Wish that was our QB problem... Maryland is key, they don't beat them, it's going to make for another stressful game by game ACC season.

Agreed. What problem? I really don't see the nd game being v close. Golson is nearly impossible to contain.

 

[Trueblue25]