Wagner is number 257 of 261 teams.
That alone hurts us. Playing them at home...
If it comes down to schedule strength, let's take a look at how we stack up with Wake Forest.
We both play the same 4 teams in the Atlantic, though we play Wake on the road. So we have a harder schedule for those games.
For intradivision rival, our annual Coastal rival is Pitt, who is going to be the best or the second best team in the Coastal. I think that is pretty much a given at this point. We play them in Pittsburgh.
I believe Wake's Coastal rival is Duke. At Duke.
Advantage Syracuse.
The other Coastal team we play is Virginia. At home. Wake plays UNC, also at home.
Advantage Wake.
As far as OOC opponents go, here is who Wake plays this year:
at Vanderbilt
Liberty at home
VMI at home
Army at home
We play
at Connecticut
Purdue at home
Wagner at home
ND at home
Vanderbilt is 3-4 and has given up over 50 points in all three SEC games they have played. That said, they are probably still a little better than 3-5 UConn.
I was going to say Purdue is better than Liberty this year but Liberty is 6-1. Their best win at against Old Dominion. They barely beat Southern Mississippi and Gardner Webb.
Purdue has wins over Minnesota, who was ranked at the time, at Maryland and vs Nebraska. I think they are the better team but not by a ton.
And obviously ND, even in a down year, is far better than Army, who is having a down year (currently 2-4).
So we have the strength of schedule. Still think we need to beat them head to head to stay solidly ahead of them. But if we both end up with 2 losses, and we beat them (on the road), this should be a no brainer.