Syracuse Football: Revised expectations from dreams to reality

Syracuse football must have revised expectations after what has transpired so far in 2019. Here’s how the Orange went from dreams to a harsh reality.

It appears we’re back to bean-counting on the hill.

Through eight weeks of play, the Syracuse football team is staring at a sub .500 record (3-4) and a harsh reality that they aren’t as good as they were last season.

Through seven games, Syracuse already has more losses than they had in 13 games in 2018. The offensive line is worse than anyone could’ve imagined. Tommy DeVito hasn’t made the strides we thought he would (part of that is the offensive line).

Prior to the season commencing there was a lot of optimism coming off a 10 win season that the Orange could take the next leap into national relevance. Of course, those dreams would include terms like College Football Playoff, Orange Bowl, and perhaps even winning the conference outright.

Those dreams likely were murdered in College Park vs Maryland in Week 2. The 63-20 beatdown came out of nowhere, Orange fans remained in denial that this wasn’t a sign of things to come. The Terrapins we thought must be a better team than we gave them credit for, but they weren’t.

The Terps have lost four out of their last five games. With five games left in their season and three of them against top-20 teams in the country, things are only going to get worse.

With four losses on the season, Syracuse isn’t going to reach any of their lofty preseason goals, but the new question that remains will the Orange even reach a bowl game?

Oh, how time flies. A few months ago we thought Syracuse could do the unthinkable and we dreamed of things we could’ve never thought possible. Now we’re back to the good ole days of hoping for mediocrity, attempting to win as many games as we lose, 6-6.

That used to be good enough on the hill. It was an annual tradition among Syracuse fans, as soon as the schedule was released we all tried to guess and predict if the Orange could somehow find a way to win the bare minimum six-game requirement to reach bowl eligibility.

After a one-year vacation in the Bahamas, we’re back to a harsh reality, winning isn’t easy. With five games left on the schedule can the Orange do what needs to be done?

Per the ESPN FPI Analytics here’s what the odds say:

• At Florida State (3-4): 77.3 percent FSU favorite.
• Vs Boston College (4-3): 58.8 percent Orange favorite.
• At Duke (4-3): 66.8 percent Blue Devils favorite.
• At Louisville (4-3): 64.6 percent Cardinals favorite.
• Vs Wake Forest (6-1): 56.3 percent Demon Deacons favorite.

In other words, Syracuse is only favored to win one of their five remaining games. If the Orange want to reach a random sponsor dot com bowl, they’ll need to come away with three victories during that stretch.

That seems hard to fathom, especially since Syracuse is the only team in the ACC Atlantic who has yet to win a conference game. Now we’re asking the Orange to win three of them?