TNIAAM Reacts: Orange fans feel confident about their chances in Week 13

Nov 25, 2022 - 4:00 PM

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The college football season is winding down. Your 6-5 Syracuse Orange face off against 3-8 Boston College Saturday night at 7:30 in the regular season finale. We asked ‘Cuse fans how the team and its key offensive weapons will perform, and now it’s time to see the results:

Nearly three-quarters of you agreed that the Orange will beat the Eagles and finally nab their elusive seventh win of the season. DraftKings has Syracuse as 10.5-point favorites - and it wouldn’t be the first time SU has found success closing out the season against BC. The Orange won their last game at Alumni Stadium in 2018, elevating them to a spot in the Camping World Bowl, and they also clinched bowl berths by taking down their Boston foes in 2013 and 2004.

Just over half of voters say Garrett Shrader will have a respectable day through the air. He eclipsed the 200-yard mark in five of the six Orange victories to start the season but cooled off for a while after that. Then against Wake Forest, Shrader showed he can still sling the ball and set a new career-high with 324 passing yards. We’ll see if he can have another good game against a BC defense averaging just over 200 yards allowed through the air.

If that happens, it will also line up with an earlier prediction, where a similar percentage said Shrader would finish in the 2,251-2,500 range in passing yards this season. He’s currently at 2,025 on the year.

In the most surprising result (at least to me), the majority of you said SU’s WR1 will have more catches than his BC counterpart. Flowers has 70 receptions on the season compared to Gadsden’s 48, and he needs just 33 more receiving yards to reach 1,000 in what is most likely his collegiate sendoff. Another big difference is how Zay is the heart and soul of the Eagles’ attack, while the Orange have two guys who should be running the ball a lot and taking away potential pass opportunities.

Still, if the Mob can really zero-in on Flowers, they can stop the opposing offense before it gets a chance to take off.

And finally, nearly half of the Orange fans who voted say that Sean Tucker will conclude the regular season with his sixth Pleasing Performance of 2022. Wake Forest was also his best game since the last ‘Cuse win: his fourth game of the year with 100+ rushing yards. This is probably his final regular season game with Syracuse, so we hope he does end up #PL34SED - and that he comes back to give us a seventh in the Bowl.

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