Beloveds toe it up at Syracuse righch now. Is Pitt-Syracuse a rivalry? Wiks has it labeled so. The "Panthers" and Arrange have played every year since 1955. :o That sounds like a rivalry to me. But it doesn't feel like a rivalry to me. Nor to most Pitt and Syracuse fans, I think.
The spread in this one opened at 2.5, went up to 3.5 and is now at 4. I'm not making this game an investment vehicle, the line is too slim. I also can't get a read on either team that amounts to an abiding conviction. How about Sports Illustrated and USAToday picking Pitt for the Orange Bowl? What do they see? Pitt is 4-2, has blown leads, two huge ones, in four of its six games, lost two of the four; and its last five games have been decided by 10, 7, 1, 3 and 3 points. That's a team that's going to run the table and finish 10-2 and go to the Orange Bowl? Uh, no. Their D got some ink a couple of weeks but geez they've given up 30, 34, and 30 points in half their games. I am not convinced. And they can't run the ball. Their O is all passing. Dangerous. Pitt lives on the edge. Dangerous.
Syracuse is an enigma. Good coach, Dino Babers has won everywhere he's been, including here. Ten wins last year (but a loss to Pitt). But this year...The Arrange are 3-3, haven't beaten anybody--Liberty, Western Michigan, Holy Cross--got blown out at home by Clemson, no shame there, lost last week on the road to a decent NC State team. But what warrants them the enigma label is the game at Maryland in the second game of the season. Maryland is 3-3 on the season but their only wins are over Howard 79-0, Ruptures 48-7...and Syracuse. They beat Syracuse 63-20. That's nine touchdowns. After laying that 63 on Syracuse Maryland lost the next week at Temple, scoring 17 points, and the week after that lost at home to Paterno-Sandusky 59-0. 59-0. Syracuse lost to that team, got murdered by that team. Who is Syracuse? There is no way you can tell so far. Pitt has beaten Syracuse five of the last seven times they've played.
The ACC this year (most years recently) is Clemson plus a couple of underachievers (FSU, Miami) and then a Great Middle: teams like Pitt and Syracuse; NC State, BC, Wake, Duke, UNC, on and on; teams with decent coaches and three star talent who play like decent three star talented teams. Maybe FSU will rise back under Willie Taggart but Jumbo Fisher left Tally a potty. Maybe Manny Diaz can get the "Hurricanes" roaring again but, Manny Diaz looks a little wobbly to me. The proof of the pudding though is in recruiting. If you have three star talent a five star coach may git 'em to a four star finish every now and agin' but not even Bear Bryant can take hisn and beat yourn or take yourn and beat hisn if it's always three stars against fives. T'ain't gonna happen.
Which brings us to North Carolina. North Carolina to me in tackle football is what Brazil is to nations. I remember reading a Sports Illustrated story back in the '80's I think, no later than the '90's, that UNC was the next big thing in the game, just as we've heard for fifty years that Brazil will be the next great nation. UNC was awash in money back when that story was written. They had upgraded their football facilities to top notch. They were going for the big time. Splashing the money on big name coaches. So, let's take it from 1980, the earliest I could have read that article. In the thirty-nine seasons from 1980-2018 UNC has finished ranked nine times. Their highest finish was #4 under Mack Brown in 1997. Their longest string of ranked teams since 1980 was four under Dick Crum, 1980-83. They went seventeen years, from 1998-2014, finishing not ranked. Like Brazil, it has just not happened for the "Tar Heels."
Now Mack is Back. And today there was news that Mack had lured the #2 high school player in the whole nation, this nation, the U.S.& A, not Brazil, to UNC. That is what it is going to take. That kid, plus a whole bunch other five stars. That is what it will take for UNC, or Pitt, or Syracuse, Miami, FSU or any other school in the Great Middle to rise. Nothing else and nothing less.
I have no idea who is going to win the game tonight. Go Pitt but if you end up 10-2 in the Orange Bowl I'll eat your three star teats.
The spread in this one opened at 2.5, went up to 3.5 and is now at 4. I'm not making this game an investment vehicle, the line is too slim. I also can't get a read on either team that amounts to an abiding conviction. How about Sports Illustrated and USAToday picking Pitt for the Orange Bowl? What do they see? Pitt is 4-2, has blown leads, two huge ones, in four of its six games, lost two of the four; and its last five games have been decided by 10, 7, 1, 3 and 3 points. That's a team that's going to run the table and finish 10-2 and go to the Orange Bowl? Uh, no. Their D got some ink a couple of weeks but geez they've given up 30, 34, and 30 points in half their games. I am not convinced. And they can't run the ball. Their O is all passing. Dangerous. Pitt lives on the edge. Dangerous.
Syracuse is an enigma. Good coach, Dino Babers has won everywhere he's been, including here. Ten wins last year (but a loss to Pitt). But this year...The Arrange are 3-3, haven't beaten anybody--Liberty, Western Michigan, Holy Cross--got blown out at home by Clemson, no shame there, lost last week on the road to a decent NC State team. But what warrants them the enigma label is the game at Maryland in the second game of the season. Maryland is 3-3 on the season but their only wins are over Howard 79-0, Ruptures 48-7...and Syracuse. They beat Syracuse 63-20. That's nine touchdowns. After laying that 63 on Syracuse Maryland lost the next week at Temple, scoring 17 points, and the week after that lost at home to Paterno-Sandusky 59-0. 59-0. Syracuse lost to that team, got murdered by that team. Who is Syracuse? There is no way you can tell so far. Pitt has beaten Syracuse five of the last seven times they've played.
The ACC this year (most years recently) is Clemson plus a couple of underachievers (FSU, Miami) and then a Great Middle: teams like Pitt and Syracuse; NC State, BC, Wake, Duke, UNC, on and on; teams with decent coaches and three star talent who play like decent three star talented teams. Maybe FSU will rise back under Willie Taggart but Jumbo Fisher left Tally a potty. Maybe Manny Diaz can get the "Hurricanes" roaring again but, Manny Diaz looks a little wobbly to me. The proof of the pudding though is in recruiting. If you have three star talent a five star coach may git 'em to a four star finish every now and agin' but not even Bear Bryant can take hisn and beat yourn or take yourn and beat hisn if it's always three stars against fives. T'ain't gonna happen.
Which brings us to North Carolina. North Carolina to me in tackle football is what Brazil is to nations. I remember reading a Sports Illustrated story back in the '80's I think, no later than the '90's, that UNC was the next big thing in the game, just as we've heard for fifty years that Brazil will be the next great nation. UNC was awash in money back when that story was written. They had upgraded their football facilities to top notch. They were going for the big time. Splashing the money on big name coaches. So, let's take it from 1980, the earliest I could have read that article. In the thirty-nine seasons from 1980-2018 UNC has finished ranked nine times. Their highest finish was #4 under Mack Brown in 1997. Their longest string of ranked teams since 1980 was four under Dick Crum, 1980-83. They went seventeen years, from 1998-2014, finishing not ranked. Like Brazil, it has just not happened for the "Tar Heels."
Now Mack is Back. And today there was news that Mack had lured the #2 high school player in the whole nation, this nation, the U.S.& A, not Brazil, to UNC. That is what it is going to take. That kid, plus a whole bunch other five stars. That is what it will take for UNC, or Pitt, or Syracuse, Miami, FSU or any other school in the Great Middle to rise. Nothing else and nothing less.
I have no idea who is going to win the game tonight. Go Pitt but if you end up 10-2 in the Orange Bowl I'll eat your three star teats.
