Why 5-0?

[007]

That's what I can't understand. He is bending over backwards in order to paint a pretty picture of two crap teams. While, we still have a chance at a 7, 8 or even 9 win season, but THEY are on the rise?

Because he knows those kind of takes will trigger reactions.

 

[dasher]

I consider New York and New England to be 1 region. They are the same in just about every way. So many people go to work, school, marry, live from one region to the other and the weather is about the same. That is why I follow those teams, it's like they're family. A real big dysfunctional family.

No. There isn't a Syracuse fan alive that would say that Syracuse is considered a laughingstock and that both UMass and UConn are up and coming programs. Not one. Not one. Syracuse won 7 games and went to a bowl game just last year. Will probably do the same this year. UMass and UConn have 2 wins between them. I don't know the game you are trying to play, it isn't worth much, but UConn is so on the come that the Big 12 is looking at the Zags and they don't even have a football team.

 

[CousCuse]

No. There isn't a Syracuse fan alive that would say that Syracuse is considered a laughingstock and that both UMass and UConn are up and coming programs. Not one. Not one. Syracuse won 7 games and went to a bowl game just last year. Will probably do the same this year. UMass and UConn have 2 wins between them. I don't know the game you are trying to play, it isn't worth much, but UConn is so on the come that the Big 12 is looking at the Zags and they don't even have a football team.

7 wins last year with an epic collapse and a bowl loss. Honestly, it seems quite juvenile to not be able to analyze and follow other programs and coaches. I also can't understand how beating 4 lowly ranked teams and getting slapped around by 2 strong teams equates to Syracuse being a team capable of winning 5 in a row or even 3 out of 5.

 

[Chip]

I know you can't always play this game, but just for reference, VT beat Pittsburgh 38-21 in Lane, in a game they dominated the stat sheet.

Pitt's offense is #122 in the country. I would hope we will out-rock-fight them. They will almost certainly be out of bowl contention at that point, maybe even 1-8 coming in. Louisville, @Wake, @ND, FSU. Where's the win in that next 4?

 

[Scooch]

That's where I'm at, as well.

If we can somehow avoid more key injuries, and springboard out of the bye week back to being offensively competent, we CAN go 5-0.

But Pitt, GT, etc. don't seem quite as "gimmes" as they did earlier in the year. So how likely that is, hard to say. I'm a lot less confidence after the UNC game about winning 4+.

Now, I agree that we are better [if healthy]. Hope it plays out that way. Because less than 7 wins is unacceptable to me after beating Purdue on the road.

And maybe we DO get our mojo back, and capitalize on a manageable back half. Impossible to say which direction it will go.

Your point about injuries is my concern (well, one of them).

Needless to say, we rarely have the ability to overcome the injuries that pile up by November. And we know more of them are coming. There's simply no way to avoid it, it's inherent in the game.

Hopefully what we see are of the short downtime, or nagging, injury variety. And not of the catastrophic, season-ending variety.

But there's no doubt that more injuries are coming -- like they are for every school -- so we gotta be prepared to deal with them effectively.

 

[HRE Otto IV]

I know you can't always play this game, but just for reference, VT beat Pittsburgh 38-21 in Lane, in a game they dominated the stat sheet.

Pitt's offense is #122 in the country. I would hope we will out-rock-fight them. They will almost certainly be out of bowl contention at that point, maybe even 1-8 coming in. Louisville, @Wake, @ND, FSU. Where's the win in that next 4?

Wake is possible but even if they pull that slight upset off they will be 2-7 going into our game.

 

[Chip]

Your point about injuries is my concern (well, one of them).

Needless to say, we rarely have the ability to overcome the injuries that pile up by November. And we know more of them are coming. There's simply no way to avoid it, it's inherent in the game.

Hopefully what we see are of the short downtime, or nagging, injury variety. And not of the catastrophic, season-ending variety.

But there's no doubt that more injuries are coming -- like they are for every school -- so we gotta be prepared to deal with them effectively.

We're one QB injury from disaster. Possibly one RB injury from disaster too (we don't seem to have any confidence in the backups seeing the field).

We're one DE injury away from either throwing a true freshman in the fire or dropping down an undersized LB to play there.

We're already in trouble at WR, can't afford an injury there.

I don't know what's going on at OL. We keep thinking Joe More will be back each week, but the season is half over.

Hard to imagine things won't get worse.

 

[richmondcuse03]

We're one QB injury from disaster. Possibly one RB injury from disaster too (we don't seem to have any confidence in the backups seeing the field).

We're one DE injury away from either throwing a true freshman in the fire or dropping down an undersized LB to play there.

We're already in trouble at WR, can't afford an injury there.

I don't know what's going on at OL. We keep thinking Joe More will be back each week, but the season is half over.

Hard to imagine things won't get worse.

And our best transfer OL went down. He looked the part and played well. He may have been the most important part of the line besides Reed.

I’m surprised More isn’t starting yet given the play of the rest of the line.

 

[JeremyCuse]

We're one QB injury from disaster. Possibly one RB injury from disaster too (we don't seem to have any confidence in the backups seeing the field).

We're one DE injury away from either throwing a true freshman in the fire or dropping down an undersized LB to play there.

We're already in trouble at WR, can't afford an injury there.

I don't know what's going on at OL. We keep thinking Joe More will be back each week, but the season is half over.

Hard to imagine things won't get worse.

DE depth was in trouble before the season started as you noted one more injury and Roon will be at DE.

I think there is depth at RB, we played the starter to death last year even though we had Allen. I wouldn't read him getting most of the snaps as a tell on depth.

Wr is a concern overall but with Oronde already out the one guy we couldn't afford to lose we lost so another injury probably doesn't move the needle all that much.

The OL has issues that wont be resolved this year. Ellis is reportedly gonna be hampered all year. More is supposedly close but he was also supposed to be close for WMU and that was a month ago.

 

[dasher]

7 wins last year with an epic collapse and a bowl loss. Honestly, it seems quite juvenile to not be able to analyze and follow other programs and coaches. I also can't understand how beating 4 lowly ranked teams and getting slapped around by 2 strong teams equates to Syracuse being a team capable of winning 5 in a row or even 3 out of 5.Follow other programs.

Follow other programs, sure. A lot of us do. But not crap programs like UMass and UConn. And we certainly don't say moronic things like the ACC better grab UMass before the B1G does. You are a fraud at best.

 

[dasher]

7 wins last year with an epic collapse and a bowl loss. Honestly, it seems quite juvenile to not be able to analyze and follow other programs and coaches. I also can't understand how beating 4 lowly ranked teams and getting slapped around by 2 strong teams equates to Syracuse being a team capable of winning 5 in a row or even 3 out of 5.

7 wins last year. What part of that don't you understand? You play a 12 game schedule. At the end of the year, you take a look at how many of those games you won. The Orange, a team you pretend to root for, won 7 of those. They went to a bowl game. Umass and UConn, well, they didn't. But you call them up and coming programs. See the disconnect? They have two lousy wins between the two of them. Syracuse just played two good teams. See the disconnect. Fraud. Oh, and if UConn or UMass played Purdue or Army, and you had to bet on it, who ya got?

 

[CousCuse]

7 wins last year. What part of that don't you understand? You play a 12 game schedule. At the end of the year, you take a look at how many of those games you won. The Orange, a team you pretend to root for, won 7 of those. They went to a bowl game. Umass and UConn, well, they didn't. But you call them up and coming programs. See the disconnect? They have two lousy wins between the two of them. Syracuse just played two good teams. See the disconnect. Fraud. Oh, and if UConn or UMass played Purdue or Army, and you had to bet on it, who ya got?

I can't think of any other teams that have less bearing on Syracuse football than UMass and UConn. I have no interest in following teams from the SEC, B1G, Big 12, Sunbelt. I like some teams in the other G5 conferences, I really like Wyoming. And, I find it compelling to see coaches trying to make a go of it at 2 of the lowest rated programs in college football. I did not say they were up and coming, what I said is that it appears they are going in the right direction.

 

[GoSU96]

Some more notes

SU hasn’t lost to a team that finished with a losing record since L‘ville in 2021, they had a losing record because they lost their bowl game.

In the last three seasons they have lost to three teams rated lower than 34 in Sagarin, all in 2021, Lviile-52, (6-7) FSU-63 (5-7) Rutgers-88 (5-8)

Other than that, Sagarin - 17, 20, 24, 34, 16, 32, 17, 15, 16, 12, 8, 21. 5- double digit wins, 4-9 wins, 1- 8 win. This year 5-0 UNC and 4-2 Clemson.

Right now, VT -79, BC-90, Pitt-75, GT-76, Wake -66.

You want to argue SU hasn‘t won enough against good teams, fine. But the last three seasons they beat the teams they should with one exception, which was game 2 in 2021.

 

[Scooch]

We're one QB injury from disaster. Possibly one RB injury from disaster too (we don't seem to have any confidence in the backups seeing the field).

We're one DE injury away from either throwing a true freshman in the fire or dropping down an undersized LB to play there.

We're already in trouble at WR, can't afford an injury there.

I don't know what's going on at OL. We keep thinking Joe More will be back each week, but the season is half over.

Hard to imagine things won't get worse.

You know my feelings about the O. We're a one-man show, and when Shrader ain't firing on all cylinders we're totally screwed. It's remarkable how completely dependent we are on him. Forget injuries, if he merely has a somewhat below average game over the last 5 we're almost sure to lose. It's unnerving.

 

[anomander]

Pitt is awful this year
VT is awful this year
BC is bad but has a playmaker at QB, but so do we that’s a win.

GT is not good but at the level we played.
Wake all depends who is healthy but we can easily win.

4-1 would be great
3-2 would be ok, but disappointing
anything less than we have to move on. I thought stability would count for something but we’re not talented enough to always be on the wrong end of the penalties, and game management. That’s what programs like us need to excel at. Great fundamentally, that doesn’t shoot yourselves in the foot. The lack of improvement and the apparent lack of necessity to address the same issues that have plagued us for 8 years is evidence it isn’t going to change.

 

[GoSU96]

Pitt is awful this year
VT is awful this year
BC is bad but has a playmaker at QB, but so do we that’s a win.

GT is not good but at the level we played.
Wake all depends who is healthy but we can easily win.

4-1 would be great
3-2 would be ok, but disappointing
anything less than we have to move on. I thought stability would count for something but we’re not talented enough to always be on the wrong end of the penalties, and game management. That’s what programs like us need to excel at. Great fundamentally, that doesn’t shoot yourselves in the foot. The lack of improvement and the apparent lack of necessity to address the same issues that have plagued us for 8 years is evidence it isn’t going to change.

Wake’s remaining schedule- VT, Pitt, FSU, Duke, NCSt, ND, SU. They are going to be beat to hell.

Pitt plays Lville, Wake, ND, FSU before SU. Probably 1-8 at that point.

GT has a good offense, bad defense.

VT’s offense is awful, defense is better than their offense.

 

[anomander]

Wake’s remaining schedule- VT, Pitt, FSU, Duke, NCSt, ND, SU. They are going to be beat to hell.

Pitt plays Lville, Wake, ND, FSU before SU. Probably 1-8 at that point.

GT has a good offense, bad defense.

VT’s offense is awful, defense is better than their offense.

I was all in on going 5-0 but the lack of preparation, adjustments, and just the will to win made me question if we’re not going to fall apart again. We are relatively healthy compared to prior years. Once we get past FSU there is no reason we can’t win them all or at the very least be competitive in them all and drop one.

 

[GoSU96]

I was all in on going 5-0 but the lack of preparation, adjustments, and just the will to win made me question if we’re not going to fall apart again. We are relatively healthy compared to prior years. Once we get past FSU there is no reason we can’t win them all or at the very least be competitive in them all and drop one.

Last week was an abberation on defense. Last three seasons they have had two games where the defense gave up more than 500yds, last week and last year vs Wake.

They have only had 6 games other games over 400 yds in that span.

Of those 8 games Wake and Sam Hartman had three, UNC and Drake Maye one, Purdue and Aiden OConnell one, FSU and Travis Jordan one. That’s 6 of 8 with NFL or likely future NFL Qb’s.

That’s not the case with the last five games.

Contrast the above with prior to 2021 where they had 12 games of 600 or more, another 8 of more than 500, and another 19 of more than 400.

 

[CanadianSU]

itd be nice but history shows cuse struggles that time of year.

 

[GoSU96]

itd be nice but history shows cuse struggles that time of year.

Not against those types of teams.

 

[FrancoPizza]

I don't know what's going on at OL. We keep thinking Joe More will be back each week, but the season is half over.

Less is More with Joe, apparently.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

Wake outside of Hartman is mediocre at best. And this is their worst team in years. In no way should they be able to win in the Dome.

Pitt is the worst team in the ACC.

Hartman transferred to Notre Dame.

 

[dasher]

Hartman transferred to Notre Dame.

Nit pick

 

[djorange1989]

Wake is possible but even if they pull that slight upset off they will be 2-7 going into our game.

Yep and I doubt they have a Northwestern type APR to possibly earn a bowl at 5-7, at least I wouldn’t think so. So they are dead in the water

 

[HRE Otto IV]

Hartman transferred to Notre Dame.

I meant historically. Not this year. The other QBs before him and when he was out injured made a huge difference to what that O looks like.