The Syracuse Orange will travel to Kalamazoo, Michigan to square off with the Western Michigan Broncos in an ACC vs. MAC showdown set to take place at Waldo Stadium on Friday, August 31st at 6:00 PM ET. The affair will be televised on CBS Sports Network. The two teams have never met before.
Syracuse Orange at Western Michigan Broncos Overview
Syracuse Orange
The Orange’s 2017 season came to a crashing halt when they lost their last five contests down the backstretch, resulting in the Orange failing to qualify for a bowl appearance. In their previous outing, Cuse was smoked at the hands of the Boston College Eagles falling 42-14 at home. The Orange lost standout wide-receiver Steve Ishmael who graduated from the program after last season.
Western Michigan
After putting together a storied run to the Cotton Bowl in 2016, the Broncos came back down to Earth in 2017. Most notably, it was the first season without the mastermind of their fabled journey to the New Year’s Six, P.J Fleck. Nevertheless, Western Michigan returns 13 starters and will look to improve upon a 6-6 mark in 2017 that was far misleading as they lost two games by a margin of four points or less.
Reasons To Back Western Michigan
Out of the gate, we have seen the public jump all over the Orange reflected in a 2.5-point line movement upward to bring the market to its current position. The fact remains this is likely an overreaction to the match-up of a Power Five constituent versus a Group of Five member. From a situational perspective, Western Michigan is getting what could likely be inflated points at home. The Broncos by no means are afraid of playing premier competition, and Syracuse by no stretch should be deemed as such an outfit. When you combine with this with the experience of this outfit (many of whom were in the Cotton Bowl against Wisconsin), the Broncos have tremendous upside here.
Reasons To Avoid Syracuse
Though trends are often an aspect of subjectivity when dealing with what occurred last season, we cannot help but fix our focus on how the end-of-season skid affected Cuse in the off-season. Syracuse traditionally is known as a football power but have since regressed to one of the whipping boys of the Atlantic Coast Conference. Given how they fared last season, it is not unreasonable to assume that this team will be trying to figure itself out once again especially now that they lost their best playmaker in the off-season. This game has trap written all over it for Syracuse as it will journey into a hostile environment against an animated fan base that wants to empower its team to a historic win for their program.
Get more details: Syracuse at Western Michigan NCAAF Match-Up
