Syracuse football at No. 14 in ACC via ESPN.com, Andre Cisco snubbed
By Neil Adler
ESPN.com is the latest national media outlet to forecast a gloomy 2020 campaign for Syracuse football.
If the prognostications of many national pundits are correct, then Syracuse football is in for an arduous and pain-staking 2020 term.
As the Orange gets set to suit up at No. 18 North Carolina this Saturday at noon in the ‘Cuse fall opener, a boatload of national media outlets has published their pre-season predictions for the Atlantic Coast Conference.
One of the more recent pieces is from ESPN.com, whose Mark Schlabach is slotting Syracuse football at No. 14 in the ACC, with only Georgia Tech falling behind the Orange in the league’s projected order of finish.
Schlabach, like everyone else, has Clemson at No. 1. After the Tigers are Notre Dame, North Carolina, Louisville, Pittsburgh, Miami, Florida State, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest, Duke, Virginia, N.C. State, Boston College, Syracuse and Georgia Tech.
Two interesting things in Schlabach’s article to note. He writes that, in addition to Clemson star quarterback Trevor Lawrence, another ACC signal-caller could end up as a Heisman Trophy finalist.
Among the contenders are North Carolina’s Sam Howell, Notre Dame’s Ian Book, Miami’s D’Eriq King and Louisville’s Micale Cunningham.
While the Orange doesn’t face off with the Hurricanes in 2020, the ‘Cuse does play the Tar Heels, No. 1 Clemson, No. 10 Notre Dame and Louisville – all on the road. Yikes.
Schlabach also predicts that UNC will conquer the Fighting Irish, thereby knocking Notre Dame out of College Football Playoff contention.
Syracuse football junior safety Andre Cisco left off the ESPN.com pre-season All-America team.
In a separate ESPN.com story by Chris Low, he shares his 2020 pre-season All-America squad. Syracuse football junior safety Andre Cisco, who per the Orange’s first depth chart of this stanza will serve as the secondary’s rover, didn’t make the cut on Low’s crew.
The two safeties who did get included are TCU junior Trevon Moehrig and Georgia senior Richard LeCounte, both of whom, in all fairness, are excellent at this position.
Still, as the active FBS leader with 12 career interceptions, I don’t get how some of these media organizations are failing to feature the 6-foot, 209-pound Cisco on their pre-season All-America groups. Heck, he didn’t even make the All-ACC pre-season unit, which is comical from my perspective.
Regardless, Cisco remains in store for a stellar 2020 term. However, the pessimistic outlooks continue to pour in for Syracuse football as a whole.