Louisville at Syracuse

Written by Steve Janus

This Saturday the Syracuse Orange will look to continue their impressive play when they host the Louisville Cardinals. After getting demolished by Pittsburgh 45-14, the Orange have rolled off back-to-back wins over the West Virginia and Cincinnati to become bowl eligible. The Cardinals met up with that same Pittsburgh team last week, and wound up losing 20-3 for their second loss in their last three games. Louisville took home a hard fought 10-9 win last year when these two teams met up, but the Orange had won the previous two. If you are thinking about betting on the game this weekend, the current college football odds have the Orange favored by 6-points over the Cardinals at home.

Louisville (4-4, 1-2 Big East): While the Panthers defense was playing great last week, the Cardinals really suffered a big blow when Bilal Powell, the Big East rushing leader with 1,067 yards, went down with a knee injury early in the third quarter. The Panthers were down just 13-3 at the time of the injury, and the offense stalled the rest of the way. The Cardinals ended up losing the game 20-3.

It doesn’t look promising that Powell will be able to go this week against Syracuse. Leading backup Victor Anderson is also questionable to return after missing the last three games. If neither back can suit up, the Cardinals will likely turn to freshman Jeremy Wright and senior Blayne Donnell to carry the load.

With offense possibly missing their best player, the defense will be counted on heavily this week, and while the Cardinals ended up on the wrong end of the scoreboard, the defense actually played pretty well last week, holding Pitt to just 20 points after the Panthers had racked up 86 points in their last two games.

Syracuse (6-2, 3-1 Big East): The Orange are really playing some solid football right now, winning five of their last six, including three conference games on the road. The reason the Orange are where they are right now is the play they are getting from the defensive side of the football. If you throw out the 41 points they allowed to Washington and the 45 they gave up to Pittsburgh, the Orange are allowing just 9 points a game, getting it done against both the run and the pass.

Last week the Orange held a Cincinnati offense that had scored at least 29 points in their last four games to a single touchdown. Syracuse allowed just 277 yards of total offense and forced three big turnovers, including a fumble that was recovered in the endzone by Ryan Bartholomew. With the Powell either out or not at 100% this week, the Orange figure to have another strong showing on this side of the ball.

Offensively Syracuse hasn’t been all that impressive, as they come in 72nd in the country averaging just under 26 points a game and are 85th in total yards per game at 233. The key for the Orange this week is to play mistake free football on offense and let the defense go to work.

Looking at the Odds: This is a very difficult game to predict, without knowing the status of Powell. If Powell plays and is 100% I actually like the Cardinals to cover the spread, but if he isn’t able to go I think Syracuse is the better play. The play I really like in this game is the UNDER 44.5, as both teams come in allowing less 19 points a game. My final score prediction, based on Powell not playing, is Syracuse 24, Louisville 13.

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