No, SU not likely to go 7-5

Recently, Fred Miller and Gene Conte of WIBX Radio’s Sportswatch asked me on the air how Syracuse University’s football team would do this year.

 

SU’s program has fallen on hard times, without a winning season since 2001. The Orange now are well below the radar, and this year the Big East media picked them to finish last in the league.

 

Well, Fred and Gene went down the schedule and asked me, game by game, if SU would win. When they added it all up, I had predicted seven wins and five losses.  

 

Do I really think SU will go 7-5? No. I hate making predictions. Media people who make them are just full of it. And there is no risk. If the record isn’t as good as what you forecasted, it’s the team’s fault. If better, the team has overachieved and you can’t be blamed for not seeing that coming.

 

Still, everyone expects sportswriters to make predictions. And those guys kind of trapped me into it!

 

If the Orange do go 7-5, we’ll have a parade down Erie Boulevard. My response was based on the possibility of winning games. It isn’t beyond reasonably for the Orange to beat Northwestern, Akron, Northeastern, Pittsburgh (at the Carrier Dome), Louisville (also at home), Rutgers and Connecticut. I don’t think they can beat Penn State, West Virginia, South Florida or Notre Dame, at least at South Bend. It is possible they can beat Cincinnati, too, but that would mean eight wins. That’s just too much for a team that has won seven games in three seasons. Now that I think of it, they are more likely to beat Cincinnati than they are Pittsburgh.

 

On any given day, they SU can beat any team on the schedule, but it’s rare to have seven or eight “any given days.” The Orange do have four straight games at home after opening at Northwestern. If they can go 4-1 or 3-2 in those games, their confidence will grow and  a good season is possible. I hope that’s what happens, for coach Greg Robinson’s sake and for the future of the football program in general.