Why Syracuse football could run into serious issues vs Pitt

The Syracuse football squad could run into some serious issues vs the Pitt Panthers on Friday night. Here’s why and some analytics to back it up.

Prior to the 2019 Syracuse football season starting everyone knew what the key was to success or failure: the offensive line.

So far the main reason the Orange is 3-3 and struggling is their offensive line issues.

The analytics are damning:

• Syracuse has the 109th ranked rushing offense (119 yards per game).
• The Orange possesses the fourth-worst pass protection unit in the nation (26 sacks allowed). That has resulted in -164 sack yards. In other words, Syracuse is surrendering 4.3 sacks per game.
• Orange Is the New Fast?
  • Syracuse has only scored 153 points this season, which is an average of 25.5 points per game, that’s 91st in the country.

So on top of the offensive line struggling with communication and execution, the team is constantly shooting themselves in the foot with penalties.

The Orange have 55 penalties on the season, only five teams in all of college football have more. That’s 444 negative penalty yards, you can’t move an offense, let alone win football games with that much dysfunction and lack of discipline.

If that wasn’t bad enough on paper, the next opponent for Syracuse has a dominant defense that could present a lot of issues.

These analytics could keep offensive coordinators up at night:

• Pittsburgh has 16th best rush defense in the nation. Allowing only 2.87 yards per clip and holding opponents to less than 100 yards rushing per game.
• The Panthers have the 41st best secondary in the country as it pertains to opposing passing yardage.
• 88th ranked red zone defense in the country.
• Overall Pitt has only allowed 135 points on the season, good for 43rd best in the nation which is an average of 22.5 points per game.
• Pitt has recorded the second-most sacks in the entire nation with 27, only one behind Ohio State for the college football lead.

This is about as bad of a matchup as you could dream up. On a basic level Syracuse struggles to protect their quarterback and Pitt excels sacking the opposing quarterback.

Pitt’s arrow is trending upward, they’re 4-2 (1-1 in the ACC). The Panthers have won three straight (upset over No. 15 UCF, Delaware, and Duke) and are looking to continue their momentum on Friday night.

While the Orange are trending downward, they’re 3-3 (0-2 in the ACC). Syracuse has won two out of their last three, they just haven’t looked very impressive doing it. This is as close to make or break as you can get.

Syracuse will be in the lovely confines of the dome on Friday night vs Pitt with kickoff set for 7:00 p.m. We’ll see if the home field advantage will be enough to carry the Orange to their first conference win of the season.