South Florida at Syracuse Line

Written by Steve Janus - Google +

The Syracuse Orange will host the South Florida Bulls in a special Friday night Big East matchup. Both of these teams came into the season with the thought that they could surprise and win the Big East, but instead these they sit at the bottom of the conference standings. The Orange dropped to 5-4 overall and 1-3 inside the conference with a 21-28 loss at Connecticut, while the Bulls evened up their record at 4-4 and fell to 0-4 in the Big East with a tough 17-20 overtime loss at Rutgers. Syracuse snapped a five game losing streak against the Bulls with a 13-9 win at South Florida last season.

Taking a look at the week 11 spreads, oddsmakers have South Florida favored by 3.5-points over Syracuse with the total set at 51.5 points.

South Florida:

While the Bulls are the only team in the Big East without a conference win, this team isn’t as bad as their record leads on. Their last three losses have came by a combined 12 points. The Bulls have actually led in the second half of each of their last three games, but have not been able to finish teams off.

The last two losses have been extremely tough to swallow. South Florida blew a 27-17 fourth quarter lead over Cincinnati two weeks ago and a 17-3 fourth quarter lead in their last game against Rutgers.

In their last game against the Scarlet Knights, Rutgers won the total yard battle 381 to 228 thanks to a monster effort on the ground. Darrell Scott rushed for 100 yards and B.J. Daniels added another 64 yards, as South Florida piled on 221 yards on the ground.

While the ground attack was in full force, Daniels and the passing attack struggled to make plays when they needed to. The junior quarterback finished just 14 of 34 for 160 yards with one touchdown and one interception. This came just one week after Daniels torched Cincinnati for 409 yards and three touchdowns.

There’s a good chance Daniels will return to form against the Orange this Friday. Syracuse comes in 102nd in the nation against the pass, allowing just over 267 yards a game. The Orange are much better against the run, allowing just 115 ypg, but are giving up 132 ypg in conference play.

Syracuse:

The Orange opened up conference play with a tough 16-19 double-overtime loss at home to Rutgers, but bounced back with a shocking 49-23 win over heavily favored West Virginia. Instead of building off that win the Orange have taken a step back with back-t0-back road losses against Louisville and Connecticut.

As bad as Syracuse has looked in their last two games, I wouldn’t be so quick to bet against the Orange at home. They are 4-1 at the Carrier Dome this season with impressive non-conference wins over Wake Forest and Toledo along with that huge win over West Virginia.

In order for the Orange to get back on track with a win against South Florida, they are going to need a much better effort from their offense than they have got in their last two games. Syracuse has failed to rush for more than 90 yards in each of their last two games, which has put extra pressure on junior quarterback Ryan Nassib to keep the offense on the field. Nassib threw for 275 yards and two touchdowns last week against Connecticut, but also had two interceptions, including a huge pick late in the game when Syracuse was marching for the go ahead score.

Getting the ground game going against South Florida won’t be easy. The Bulls have really put the clamps on opposing teams rushing attacks after giving up 307 rushing yards to Pittsburgh. They held Connecticut and Cincinnati to 118 yards a piece and just held Rutgers to -7 in their last game. It will be up to Nassib and the passing attack to take advantage of a South Florida defense that has allowed 624 passing yards over their last two games.