Syracuse football “will be ready” for Trevor Lawrence, Clemson Tigers

One expert says Syracuse football “will be ready” for Trevor Lawrence and the Clemson Tigers in 2019. Here’s why that’s the case and all the details.

The prohibitive favorite to win the 2019-20 National Championship is the Clemson Tigers. They’re led by Trevor Lawrence, who is the prohibitive favorite to win the 2019-20 Heisman trophy. Last season the Tigers were undefeated and ran through every challenge, well almost every challenge.

Only two games went down to the bitter end for the Tigers, one of those games was against the Syracuse football squad.

Ultimately Clemson came out on top 27-23 but needed some last-second heroics to pull out the slim victory.

Heading into 2019, Michael Collins of FanSided said Syracuse “will be ready” for Trevor Lawrence this time around:

"“Lawrence arrived in a big way at Clemson last season and nobody was really sure just how good this kid would be against some tough college competition. He rose to the challenge and helped lead the Tigers to their second national championship in three years.No small feat for a true freshman quarterback.But this year, teams will be ready. Especially teams like Syracuse, Florida State, South Carolina, and non-conference toughie, Texas A&M. Those teams and every other Clemson opponent have film and a list of tendencies on Lawrence now, as well as a book on what he can and can’t do well. He’s not going to surprise anyone this season.”"

That’s the unique advantage of joining the scene without prior experience. No one is aware of your strengths, weaknesses, or tendencies. You can surprise people and that’s exactly what Lawrence did on his record-breaking campaign in 2018.

Now Syracuse football has a whole season of film to evaluate. While defensive coordinator Brian Ward won’t love what he sees on film, because Trevor Lawrence is ridiculously talented, he’ll be able to exploit the holes in Trevor’s game.

Speaking of the defensive side of the football, the Orange retain their entire secondary and the majority of their defensive line (sans Chris Slayton). Syracuse does lose their entire linebacking corps, but they’re used to playing musical chairs at the position with Dino Babers at the helm.

While on the other side of the field, Syracuse will have that same advantage that Lawrence did in 2018. Tommy DeVito hasn’t started a college football game in his career and has minimal tape on him.

The Orange will have played two games (at Liberty, at Maryland) before they face off against the Tigers in Week 3 of the 2019 season.

Even though there will be two games of footage on him, it will also be minimal. SU will be large favorites over both Liberty and Maryland, so DeVito likely won’t even play the full games. Which means advantage to Syracuse.

Clemson has won two out of the last three National Championships, Syracuse is hoping to win two out of the last three matchups vs the Tigers including 2019. Perhaps with another win this season, we can officially say that “Syracuse is back.”