Is Syracuse the New DARK HORSE of the ACC? Orange Football 2023 Season Preview & Predictions

[OttoinGrotto]

Everyone responded with great points to why the minimum bar for now needs to be consistent bowl eligibility.

 

[GeauxSU]

I mean I'll obviously take it but I didn't envision us as favorites at Purdue at night. I figured we would be in the 3-7 point underdog range.

Also, calling Western Michigan and Army "guaranteed" wins is way too aggressive. We will most likely win if we play well, but the only game that is virtually guaranteed is Colgate.

I think the Colgate game is imperative for getting guys outside the two deep real playing experiences. If it is up to me, Dino plays the back ups starting in the second half.

 

[Goin' Deep]

Making a bowl is nice.
We haven't been "consistently nice" much for the past 2 decades.
Now we are...NICE

Next step is that 7-5//8-4 type season. That will be termed as "Good".
You will appear in polls as "others receiving votes" and possibly sniff a 24th ranking for a week.
I believe CUSE will be GOOD this season and the majority of seasons going forward.
Class of '25 will come in at 40.

Hold onto our coaches(for the most part) and we could be VERY GOOD once in a while...play for an ACC championship. Who thought a nutritionist could make this difference?

 

[JeremyCuse]

I mean I'll obviously take it but I didn't envision us as favorites at Purdue at night. I figured we would be in the 3-7 point underdog range.

Also, calling Western Michigan and Army "guaranteed" wins is way too aggressive. We will most likely win if we play well, but the only game that is virtually guaranteed is Colgate.

Western Mich is in complete rebuild mode, new coach and lost almost everyone with a P5 pedigree to the portal. They are going to be bad. You are right about the Army game though, that screams potential nightmare from an SU standpoint.

 

[cusefan88]

I've said this before, with the playoffs expansion to 12 coming in future the "occasionally great" season puts that goal within reach.

 

[HRE Otto IV]

Yes.
It’s not only important, it’s vital.
Crucial.

Syracuse hasn’t gone to a bowl in consecutive seasons since ‘12 & ‘13.

We need to stack bowl-eligible seasons back to back to back, to show we’re competitive, and to attract more and better talent and more fans.

Cuse never gets the best NY croots?
Win, and we will.

Cuse doesn’t get legacy croots?
Win, and we will.

Cuse doesn’t put guys into the NFL?
Win, and we wil.
(We’ve starting doing a lot more of this of late, and need to keep it rolling).

Winning fixes everything.

And making a bowl is the baseline we need to hit every year, or at least 3-4 out of 5 years, to show that players can win here, get NIL here, win awards here, get drafted here.

I meant the playing in and prep for the game itself. Not the act of being Bowl eligible. That is important.

As long as we have an FCS team scheduled, IMO we should be striving for 7-5 or better 3 out of 4 years. That means we are 6-5 vs FBS and have a winning record overall. That should be the benchmark, not simply making a Bowl.

 

[FrancoPizza]

I think the Colgate game is imperative for getting guys outside the two deep real playing experiences. If it is up to me, Dino plays the back ups starting in the second half.

Hopefully without heisman talk this year we don’t have to worry about Dino keeping certain starters in the game well into the 4th when the game is decided.

 

[FrancoPizza]

We need to meet or exceed last year’s win total. 2024 looks to take a step back with evicted departures of key talent so we need to capitalize now.

 

[RF2044]

We need to meet or exceed last year’s win total. 2024 looks to take a step back with evicted departures of key talent so we need to capitalize now.

Not necessarily. College sports has always been about attrition. Players have finite eligibility. Every year, players exhaust their eligibility and / or graduate and move on, and you have to replace them.

That situation has been exacerbated by the transfer portal, with player movement occurring now more freely -- but it doesn't change the attrition-based paradigm. Need to capitalize this year, to enable SU to remain an attractive transfer option. And then just replace the departures [no matter what category they fit into] with quality replacements -- same as always.

Shrader is the biggest departure, IMO -- but we'll have CDRW with two full years in our program, working with Beck. QB room looks to be in good shape long-term. There's no reason why we can't sustain success for the next few years.

 

[upperdeck]

we play 2 teams that will be much better talent wise (fsu/clemson)
we play 3 teams we will have more talent then(army/colgate/WMU)
we play 1 team that is a stretch to beat but plays down all the time (UNC)

the other 6 teams its a wash and is really just who plays better that day.. Some have more talent than SU in some spots and some SU has more talent.

as bad as we have been , we could quite easily 4-3 vs clemson the last 7 yrs. Should have had 2 wins on the road as well.

 

[RF2044]

we play 2 teams that will be much better talent wise (fsu/clemson)
we play 3 teams we will have more talent then(army/colgate/WMU)
we play 1 team that is a stretch to beat but plays down all the time (UNC)

the other 6 teams its a wash and is really just who plays better that day.. Some have more talent than SU in some spots and some SU has more talent.

as bad as we have been , we could quite easily 4-3 vs clemson the last 7 yrs. Should have had 2 wins on the road as well.

You bring up a good point. Scheduling for success only gets you so far -- need to beat some peer programs to compile a good record.

Same as any year. If you are going to amass wins and get to 7, 8, plus -- need to beat a few teams.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

I meant the playing in and prep for the game itself. Not the act of being Bowl eligible. That is important.

As long as we have an FCS team scheduled, IMO we should be striving for 7-5 or better 3 out of 4 years. That means we are 6-5 vs FBS and have a winning record overall. That should be the benchmark, not simply making a Bowl.

I don't disagree, I just think that's the next step in expectations.

The last HC that took us to back to back bowls was Pasqualoni. That's nuts.

And no, Shafer clawing us into a bowl on the last drive of the season after Marrone doesn't really count for a whole lot.

We need consecutive bowls under the same HC to be the norm. Then dream bigger.

 

[elimunelson]

To me this is the make or break year for Dino. As Dick says upthread, the barometer is consistently good, occasionally great. I'll grant last year "good" for the sake of argument although i'm stretching that metric.

If we falter to sub 5 wins, I would hope a change is made. I think the program at this point has to show back to back good seasons at this point in his tenure. These are all his players, these are his facilities, these are his assistants. The entire show is Dinos.

 

[sufandu]

Is making a Bowl even important anymore? Players opt out of the game or exit for the portal. Your roster will flip dramatically between December and August. It has become meaningless.

Since Bowls are even bigger crap shoots than they used to be, IMO 7-5 is the new magic number as it guarantees a winning season.

We need to create a winning culture where we are consistently going 7-5 or better 3 out of 4 years. Given the team we have this year, going 6-6 would be a disappointment. This year shouldn't be our 1 out of 4 worse than 7-5.

I think it's not so much that making a bowl is big deal, it's that missing one is.

 

[djorange1989]

Western Mich is in complete rebuild mode, new coach and lost almost everyone with a P5 pedigree to the portal. They are going to be bad. You are right about the Army game though, that screams potential nightmare from an SU standpoint.

If we beat Purdue then the Army game gets scarier because we are looking at a potential College Gameday(at the very least a massive game) against Clemson the week after Army, classic trap. If we lose to Purdue I think we will be laser focused against Army. Either way I think we win but they are never easy to beat. As far as WMU, dead on, they are in total rebuild mode and if they are going to be half decent it won’t be in week two.

 

[cusefan88]

If we beat Purdue then the Army game gets scarier because we are looking at a potential College Gameday(at the very least a massive game) against Clemson the week after Army, classic trap. If we lose to Purdue I think we will be laser focused against Army. Either way I think we win but they are never easy to beat. As far as WMU, dead on, they are in total rebuild mode and if they are going to be half decent it won’t be in week two.

Beating Purdue on the road in primetime on NBC is a signature moment that Dino and the program need. Trap game be damned!

 

[OttoinGrotto]

I think it's not so much that making a bowl is big deal, it's that missing one is.

Well said.

 

[Cuse12]

Firstly, we need to acknowledge how much progress we have made in regards to public perception. The fact that right now we are favored in 9 games pre season (albeit some by the skin of our teeth) is a data point which shows positivity. It’s a good thing regardless of us not playing a down yet this season.


Moving on some more notes about this season’s schedule.

1. We need to go 4-0 to set us up to hit or be closest to our ceiling (I think 9 wins is ceiling)
2. If we can steal one game during the 3 game gauntlet then we are positioned very well to come close to our ceiling also. I think we all want to see 1-2 record during that stretch and anything more is simply setting us up for a remarkable year. I just do not see anything more then 1 game won in that stretch.
3. We have to beat wake and BC no questions about it.
4. Pitt will be a loss on my schedule yearly until we prove that we can beat them for 2 consecutive years. They’ve owned up lately and I can’t stand it.
5. GT is so up in the air for me. I want to say it’s a win, but late in the year on the road… 50/50 game.
6. VT also is a 50/50. Overall I say we go 1-1 against the tech schools.

I keep coming to 7-5 or if we take 1 we “shouldn’t” like Pitt or UNC then I can see 8-4. I don’t love that Purdue game either. That game is where we find out what we are made of. 6-6 if we go 1-3 against Purdue, VT, GT and Pitt.

Essentially if we go 8-4 that’s just a great year for our program, 7-5 is a good year, and 6-6 is an okay year. Anything below is utter failure at this point.

 

[djorange1989]

Firstly, we need to acknowledge how much progress we have made in regards to public perception. The fact that right now we are favored in 9 games pre season (albeit some by the skin of our teeth) is a data point which shows positivity. It’s a good thing regardless of us not playing a down yet this season.


Moving on some more notes about this season’s schedule.

1. We need to go 4-0 to set us up to hit or be closest to our ceiling (I think 9 wins is ceiling)
2. If we can steal one game during the 3 game gauntlet then we are positioned very well to come close to our ceiling also. I think we all want to see 1-2 record during that stretch and anything more is simply setting us up for a remarkable year. I just do not see anything more then 1 game won in that stretch.
3. We have to beat wake and BC no questions about it.
4. Pitt will be a loss on my schedule yearly until we prove that we can beat them for 2 consecutive years. They’ve owned up lately and I can’t stand it.
5. GT is so up in the air for me. I want to say it’s a win, but late in the year on the road… 50/50 game.
6. VT also is a 50/50. Overall I say we go 1-1 against the tech schools.

I keep coming to 7-5 or if we take 1 we “shouldn’t” like Pitt or UNC then I can see 8-4. I don’t love that Purdue game either. That game is where we find out what we are made of. 6-6 if we go 1-3 against Purdue, VT, GT and Pitt.

Essentially if we go 8-4 that’s just a great year for our program, 7-5 is a good year, and 6-6 is an okay year. Anything below is utter failure at this point.

Great breakdown, BC and Wake are both must wins, we get those that gives us 5 wins with Colgate, WMU and Army(no shoe in with them but I feel good about it in general). I keep coming up with 7-5 too, the other two wins from amongst Pitt/Ga Tech/Purdue/Va Tech, but I think we have a half decent shot to get 1 against Clemson or NC. FSU is a no go. Pitt being played at Yankee Stadium and Va Tech scheduled in primetime are both things that do not help our cause in either game

 

[elimunelson]

Firstly, we need to acknowledge how much progress we have made in regards to public perception. The fact that right now we are favored in 9 games pre season (albeit some by the skin of our teeth) is a data point which shows positivity. It’s a good thing regardless of us not playing a down yet this season.


Moving on some more notes about this season’s schedule.

1. We need to go 4-0 to set us up to hit or be closest to our ceiling (I think 9 wins is ceiling)
2. If we can steal one game during the 3 game gauntlet then we are positioned very well to come close to our ceiling also. I think we all want to see 1-2 record during that stretch and anything more is simply setting us up for a remarkable year. I just do not see anything more then 1 game won in that stretch.
3. We have to beat wake and BC no questions about it.
4. Pitt will be a loss on my schedule yearly until we prove that we can beat them for 2 consecutive years. They’ve owned up lately and I can’t stand it.
5. GT is so up in the air for me. I want to say it’s a win, but late in the year on the road… 50/50 game.
6. VT also is a 50/50. Overall I say we go 1-1 against the tech schools.

I keep coming to 7-5 or if we take 1 we “shouldn’t” like Pitt or UNC then I can see 8-4. I don’t love that Purdue game either. That game is where we find out what we are made of. 6-6 if we go 1-3 against Purdue, VT, GT and Pitt.

Essentially if we go 8-4 that’s just a great year for our program, 7-5 is a good year, and 6-6 is an okay year. Anything below is utter failure at this point.

That Tech game being Thursday Night is just brutal for the ability to put that in any category. That's going to be a tough place to play.

 

[texascpa]

Sorry, I simply do not get the concern regarding Army. The wishbone is gone. They are moving towards a more traditional offense. This will be a hard transition for them - McF'itesque transition.

 

[Orangepace]

What’s vegas got the over under win total at?

I locked in around 3 weeks ago at 5.5.

 

[HRE Otto IV]

I think the Shoulds are Colgate, WMU, Army, FSU. I think the Probables are Clemson, UNC, BC, Wake. I think the Tosses are Purdue, VA Tech, Pitt, GA Tech.

In all the Tosses, IMO we are the better team. Purdue I am tempted to put into Probable but it is a night game and our first road game. VA Tech I am tempted to put into Probable but it is a Thursday night game.

None of the 4 Tosses are at home, but at the very least you expect to win one of those. You also expect to lose at least one of those. So we should be looking at 6 to 8 Ws this year.

 

[texascpa]

I think the Shoulds are Colgate, WMU, Army, FSU. I think the Probables are Clemson, UNC, BC, Wake. I think the Tosses are Purdue, VA Tech, Pitt, GA Tech.

In all the Tosses, IMO we are the better team. Purdue I am tempted to put into Probable but it is a night game and our first road game. VA Tech I am tempted to put into Probable but it is a Thursday night game.

None of the 4 Tosses are at home, but at the very least you expect to win one of those. You also expect to lose at least one of those. So we should be looking at 6 to 8 Ws this year.

FSU is predicted to battle Clemson for the ACC crown. They have a -ton coming back. Are you saying we beat them?

 

[David321]

Give me a Clemson win plus another bowl game and I’ll be over the moon.