Reply to thread

Message: [QUOTE="Archbold44, post: 5458241, member: 10528"] This is the toughest schedule Syracuse has EVER faced. Our home slate is not favorable. It would have been nice to get Cal, Wake Forest, or Virginia at home. Instead, we get Duke and UNC. Duke was a 9-win team last year and spent a bunch on a QB via the portal. Pitt/BC are rivals that always play us tough (see last year). UNC has Belichick. UConn is well coached. Beyond Colgate, there is not a team here that it is beyond reason for them to upset us like Stanford did. This coaching staff lost to a terrible Stanford team at home. Only Colgate will be worse than what Stanford was last year. In fact, I would go so far as to say it will be difficult to get to 6-0 at home. Not impossible. Difficult. On the road, we do not have any teams that are slated to miss a bowl. Quite the contrary, we have 5 teams that are expected to be in the playoffs (and a few--Clemson/ND--to make a deep run). Georgia Tech is rightfully a sleeper. Tennessee is, strangely, the most winnable game. They made the playoffs last year and if they go 9-4 without a playoff run, their coach should be safe. If we win that one, that is our buffer for a home loss. We have little returning talent on offense and our defense lost a few key players to graduation also (and was already quite underwhelming last year). And then we suffer a hit of losing two DL recently in the portal. If our defense nevertheless improves from last year... perhaps that unit can steal a game for us this year with a performance like Pitt inherited from us... a few defensive TDs, etc. We have a much better program in terms of coaching, etc. But it is one thing to pull an upset. It is another thing to face a gauntlet of teams that are just in a better situation right now. Dick MacPherson stole a game against Nebraska. He did not have to also play Oklahoma, Notre Dame, and Miami that year in addition to our normal rivals. In Coach P's first season, we blew out #5 Florida at home. But then we went to Florida State and were beat 46-14. We also lost to East Carolina. We only played one other ranked team all year en route to 10-2. Injuries could make each of our tough games more winnable than it looks now. But it is also just as likely that we suffer injuries that make a winnable game less winnable. You root for 12-0, 13-0, 17-0. But the objective reality is that this team's over-under is validly 5.5. Steal one road win, stub your toe once at home. [/QUOTE]

Verification: What is a Syracuse fan's favorite color?