Syracuse Football: Expert forecasts Orange to earn bid to 2023 bowl game

College football expert Brett McMurphy of actionnetwork.com recently came out with some early projections for the 2023 bowl season, and he has included Syracuse football in his predictions.

McMurphy, one of the best in the business, is forecasting that the Orange will suit up in the Military Bowl, which takes place in Annapolis, Md., against Navy out of the American Athletic Conference.

This would be a virtual home game for the Midshipmen, whose campus is located in Annapolis. In the 2022 campaign, Navy finished at 4-8 overall. Syracuse football, meanwhile, was 7-6 in the most recent stanza, falling to Big Ten Conference member Minnesota in the 2022 Pinstripe Bowl, 28-20.

By the way, in his projections, McMurphy has the Orange as a three-point betting favorite over the Midshipmen in the 2023 Military Bowl. He noted in his recent piece that as far as his 2022 bowl predictions are concerned, he had a 95 percent accuracy rate.

Syracuse football is looking to earn bowl invites in back-to-back terms.

I’d love for the ‘Cuse to have a dominant upcoming season and make it to a top-tier bowl game, but if the team is in the Military Bowl, I’m good with that from a personal standpoint, since I live about 30 minutes from Annapolis and would love to attend.

To date in his tenure as the Syracuse football head coach, Dino Babers has reached two bowl games, in 2018 and in 2022. As we look ahead to the upcoming campaign, on paper, the Orange has a challenging schedule with which to contend.

In the off-season, the ‘Cuse lost several star players to both the 2023 NFL Draft and to other college squads via the NCAA’s transfer portal, much like every other team around the country. Conversely, the Orange brought in a solid 2023 high-school recruiting class and has landed some key commitments out of the transfer portal, too.

Navy has a new head coach starting with the 2023 season. His name is Brian Newberry, and he had previously served as the team’s defensive coordinator over the past four terms.

Newberry replaced long-time Navy head coach Ken Niumatalolo, who had served as the Midshipmen’s boss dating back to 2008. Niumatalolo, at the Naval Academy, compiled an overall record of 109-83 and is the winningest head coach in program history.

However, in their last three seasons, the Midshipmen had tallied a sub-par overall mark of just 11-23.