We really should stop and appreciate 8 wins...

[supp]

Most people thought we could get there because of the schedule and some hope.

We almost got to 10-11 wins.

But many of the teams turned out to be better than people gave them credit for.

Uconn got to 7.
Ohio to 9.
Unlv to 10.

Cal was much better than expected and probably deserved 8
Pitt got to 7-0

The rest of the ACC was as expected, tough but not great.

We may wind up having played only one team with a losing record all year, depending on how NC State and VT do next week. Nobody great on the schedule this year but much tougher than people had predicted before the season.

I have to say, though, that if Stanford is the only team with a losing record on the season sked, it will make that loss sting a bit extra.

 

[Doc5120]

Syracuse has played 123 seasons of college football. 2024 is currently tied for 12th all-time for wins.

12th all-time! That's a top 10% season in the century and a quarter of SU football.

If you look at the regular season only, then this season is 9th all-time. NINTH!

Now, this isn't to say this is a top 10 all-time SU team. There are other measures of that besides wins where this team doesn't rank as well. However, as a fan, the most entertaining thing to experience is wins, and this team is doing that better than all but a couple handfuls of SU teams ever.

I also suspect winning 8 games will help us considerably in attracting players here. Every coach can sit in a guy's living room this winter and not only sell a vision of the future but also sell tangible results from their very first season. Evidence, not just faith, is a very powerful tool.

We all have our gripes about certain position groups, certain coaching tactics, certain plays, certain penalties, certain breakdowns, and all that stuff. But this is a great week to step back and applaud what these staff and players have done. It's literally one of the best results in the history of the program, and there's still games left to improve on that.

I agree 8 wins is nice, but this is quite a bit misleading. The regular season used to have anywhere from 8-10 games in it for many of those years, and didn't become 11 games until the early 70's. 12 game season have been the normal since 2001, so 8 wins today isn't 8 wins as of a quarter century ago. That said, it has been a very nice season and I would love it if we could get to 9 regular season wins.