Syracuse Football: Orange looks for second-straight romp of Blue Devils

Syracuse football will host a winless Duke squad on Saturday afternoon, although the Blue Devils actually lead their short series together.

Syracuse football is hoping for a repeat of its performance on the road against Duke a season ago, when the Orange went into Wallace Wade Stadium in Durham, N.C., and absolutely crushed the Blue Devils, 49-6.

Duke (0-4) will seek to exact revenge when the Blue Devils enter the newly renovated Carrier Dome this Saturday, with their kick-off versus the ‘Cuse (1-2) slated for 12:30 pm and television coverage coming on the Regional Sports Network.

These two Atlantic Coast Conference foes haven’t competed against each other all that much, with Duke presently maintaining a 3-1 all-time advantage over Syracuse football, according to a cuse.com announcement.

That press statement says that Saturday’s meeting will represent the third among the squads as ACC opponents. As non-conference adversaries decades ago, the Blue Devils bested the Orange in both 1938 and 1939.

After defeating Georgia Tech on Sept. 26 to get into the victory column for the fall term, the ‘Cuse has an excellent opportunity to even its record at .500 versus a struggling Duke crew.

Syracuse football is attempting to notch its second conquest of Duke in a row.

The Blue Devils are in the ACC’s Coastal division, whereas the Orange is in the league’s Atlantic division, so for this pair of groups to suit up opposite one another for the second-consecutive stanza is a bit of a scheduling oddity, and that’s due to the novel coronavirus pandemic shifting the docket model for conference units.

Each ACC team is playing a 10-game league calendar during the 2020 campaign, plus one non-conference battle, and the two divisions have gone away for this season. According to cuse.com, under normal circumstances, “Duke wouldn’t have visited the Orange again until 2025 after their 2019 meeting in Durham.”

Cuse.com notes that Syracuse football in 2020 is going toe to toe in four contests versus what would have proven ACC Coastal-division squads, and the Orange is 5-6 under head coach Dino Babers in affairs against groups from the Coastal department.