Syracuse football aims for a winning season and consecutive postseason appearances for the first time since Doug Marrone and Scott Shafer led Orange teams to bowl game victories over Power 5 conference schools in 2012 and ’13, respectively. In his eighth season, Dino Babers is tasked to lead the program to the same result. With all the craziness surrounding conference realignment this summer, let’s enjoy the games this fall. We finish our three-part chronological look at each SU contest with the final four regular season games plus the postseason.

We wrote this in January when the ACC released the 2023 schedule, and it still applies heading into the season: The Boston College game should always be the regular season finale Thanksgiving Weekend alternating the location each year at either the Dome or suburban Boston. The ACC could have flip-flopped this game with Wake Forest to end the season. SU-BC simply makes sense from a geographical rivalry standpoint as the ACC’s two northern most schools in a southern-based conference, the series history, relative ease of fans to attend, and it is usually competitive on the field. Sometimes, as in last year’s finale in Chestnut Hill, emotions even get stretched on both sides as witnessed just before halftime and following the game’s conclusion when several winning SU players attempted to bring the school flag to midfield. This year (November 3) coming off an unusual Thursday-to-the-following-Friday game week schedule, it takes the Orange a little while to get going in an eventual 38-20 victory. (7-2, 3-2)

It is easy to complain about athletic director John Wildhack taking the lead as the university approved transferring the Pittsburgh home game to New York City (November 11) to commemorate the centennial anniversary of the first college football game played at (the old) Yankee Stadium – between the two schools. But it is hard to argue the logic about moving this specific game, even though we usually never like to lose a scheduled Dome date. The Yankees are longtime partners to Syracuse athletics, and playing in New York City occasionally does not hurt in the big picture. The goodwill and historic nature for this game means some inconvenience, but as a one-off situation we can live with it. On October 20, 1923 Syracuse edged Pitt 3-0 in front of an estimated 25,000 in The Bronx, going on to finish 8-1 that season (including a 23-0 win over Alabama at Archbold Stadium). In the 24th college football game to be played in the current Yankee Stadium dating to 2010, the Panthers will extend their winning streak to six straight over the Orange with a second half comeback winning 31-28. That leaves SU’s record at a staggering 5-19 against Pitt dating back to 2000. (7-3, 3-3)

When Syracuse travels to Georgia Tech for its final regular season road game (November 18), it will be back to the scene of the first-ever ACC shutout loss and one of two 56-point defeats that 2013 debut conference season. The Jackets blasted Scott Shafer’s final team 56-0 (Florida State blew out SU 59-3) a week after the Orange had garnered their first league road win at N.C. State. By this time most seasons under Babers, the injury bug has decimated the team’s depth, so this game could turn out to be a test of the roster strength. Tech coach Brent Key earned the full-time job with an impressive end-of-last-season performance including wins over North Carolina, Pitt, and Duke, and he is constantly staring at the sport’s current brightest star, two-time national champion Georgia, down the road in Athens. This is a head-scratching game for Orange fans to watch so late in the season. with the team seemingly a step behind the entire game falling 30-17 and drop to under .500 in ACC play. (7-4, 3-4)

One of the interesting elements of the transfer portal as it relates to 2020 Covid season players with one final year of eligibility, is that several starting quarterbacks in the ACC decided to find immediate playing time in greener pastures for this upcoming season. One of those QBs is former Wake Forest standout Sam Hartman who after five record-setting seasons with the Demon Deacons is now at Notre Dame (BC’s Phil Jurckovec transferred to Pitt and N.C. State’s Devin Leary went to Kentucky). Sophomore Mitch Griffis has the unenviable task of replacing Hartman and the defense needs to improve as the season progresses. By the time Senior Day rolls around in the Dome, the Orange will be looking for the most regular season victories since 2018, and in a dominating show against a team that struggles on the road, SU emphatically gets its eighth win 38-21. (8-4, 4-4)

The last time Syracuse football played a bowl game in Texas was a decade ago, in the 2013 appropriately named Texas Bowl in Houston. The Orange will head back to go bowling in the Lone Star State selected by the ACC and CBS to play in the Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl in El Paso against Oregon State. The Beavers also finished 8-4 in presumably the last season of Pac 12 football. The big news heading into the game is that Garrett Shrader opts in to play, and the offense is humming on a sunny and pleasant late December afternoon in the stadium located practically a stone’s throw away from the Mexican border city of Juarez. Shrader passes for three scores and rushes for another in his final SU game, while the defense gives up just three field goals in a 28-16 (OSU scores on special teams) victory that continues the program’s momentum upward in an uncertain future of both the ACC’s and Power 5 college football’s conference alignment. (9-4, 4-4)

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