Next Up: Orangemen

[WoadBlue]

After a bye week that can be used to get everyone healthy and make some in-season adjustments, the Tar Heels will host Syracuse, which also is 4-0. And this coming week, Cuse hosts Clemson. Clemson is a much better team that the 2 losses suggest. The loss to Dook is a freak anomaly: the only one in school history ion which the Tigers had 200 yards in both passing and rushing yards and still lost. The loss to FSU was all about a 3 play series with the fulcrum being an RB who blocks poorly and never seems to want to block, being left in the game when he was tired. Without that Clemson probably would have hit FSU so hard that series that the game would have been all but over. Instead, it flipped and stayed flipped.

So Syracuse does not have an easy week before traveling to Chapel Hill. And a Cuse W over Clemson would be impressive, marking a more sound 5-0 team than the 2022 Orange were. Right now, Syracuse is not ranked, and that will be locker room talk the next 2 weeks for them. They feel disrespected by polls and other ACC teams. They are hungry to prove that they belong among the ranked teams at the very least.

 

[blazers]

Cuse will be our best opponent yet per FEI and SP+. We're 25th, they're 30.

 

[bluetoe]

a poll I saw, don't remember which one, had us ranked 19 and them 20.

I think they're going to give us quite a challenge, based only on the fact that a team like Syracuse will play with a grudge over not getting the respect they think they deserve. And of course, we won't be giving them the respect they deserve.

But it's true, we'll see what kind of a team they have when they play Clemson. Can't wait to see.