Louisville
vs.
Syracuse
ACC
College Football
Pick with Analysis
10/4/14
Louisville and Syracuse will square off in ACC football action this Saturday in Syracuse. Syracuse will be playing their first Conference Game of the season while Louisville is already 2-1 in ACC action. The Game opened at Louisville -3.5 at 5 dimes sportsbook and still sits at that number as of this writing on Monday morning. Thus far the public betting action is split 50/50.
Of note in this Game is the status of Louisville QB Will Gardner. He missed last Game and is listed as questionable this week as of Monday. We’ll assume he’s playing.
Of the two teams, it would be Louisville who has played better against the better teams they have faced. They beat Miami and lost by two to Virginia. Their other wins came against weak opposition and their performance against Wake Forest offensively can be excused a bit due to having to start a Freshman QB. Syracuse barely beat Villanova and then beat Central Michigan before losing to Maryland and Notre Dame.
Without overanalyzing here, Louisville looks to be the better team. The matchup to watch is the Syracuse offense vs. the Louisville defense. Syracuse comes in with a yards per point number on offense of 19.8 which is very poor and shows the weakness of that offense so far in 2014. The Louisville defense to this point, looks to be almost as good as their defensive unit of a year ago which was one of the best in the nation, albeit against a weaker Schedule than other top teams. Their defensive ypp number is 17. Good, but not yet up to last years number.
As of this writing there is no total posted on this Game. However, if the number comes up around 44 or so, we’d lean heavily towards the under. We also lean towards the Louisville side but would prefer to lay -3 or less. Syracuse does have the home field edge and it should come into play here on a Friday Night in prime time in a nationally televised Game.
Louisville -3 or less and under the total as we feel Louisville wins a low scoring Game.