Notre Dame
vs.
Syracuse
College Football
Pick – Analysis
9/27/14
After suspensions to five Notre Dame players early in the season, the over/under dropped for the Fighting Irish significantly. After a nice 3-0 start and a dominant win against Michigan, anyone who backed the under is hoping for a complete collapse from them. Unfortunately for under bettors, that collapse may not be coming at all, and probably won’t be in this Game. The line for this Game opened at Notre Dame -13 and went as high as -14 before getting bet all the way down to -9.5 as of Thursday morning at 5 dimes sportsbook.
The Irish are coming off a bye week, which makes this even tougher for Syracuse. This is a stout defense and Everett Golson is picking up where he left off in 2012.
Things don’t look as good for Syracuse. After beating a couple of weaker teams, they lost by two touchdowns at home against a mediocre Maryland squad. This is a run-heavy team that will definitely have problems against the Irish front seven.
Starting with the Orange offense, they have three guys that are averaging at least 6.9 yards per carry. Quarterback Terrel Hunt (273 yards, 5 TDs) leads the group, but Prince Tyson-Gulley (251 yards) and Adonis Ameen-Moore (193 yards) are solid coming out of the back field. However, no one has been able to really run on Notre Dame yet and there’s no reason to believe ‘Cuse will be doing that. Even after running for 370 yards last week against Maryland, somehow they still lost 34-20.
Hunt will likely have to use his arm a bit in this one if Syracuse gets behind and that’s not a good thing. At the moment he’s completing fewer passes than last season (58.7%) and still only has one passing TD and one INT through three Games.
Notre Dame’s offense hasn’t been amazing by any means, but they have been consistent, which was something they lacked a season ago. Their run Game hasn’t done a whole lot with Four guys having at least 22 carries, and none of them surpassing 119 yards. Still, the group seems to get the job done every week and Golson at QB has been solid with 11 total TDs (7 passing), zero interceptions and 780 yards through the air.
Syracuse played well against Maryland’s C.J. Brown last weekend, but again, they still lost by 14 points. Golson is the same type of QB, probably with a better arm and as mobile out of the pocket.
If the Orange can’t move the ball on the ground, there’s almost no way they will cover in this Game.
The Fighting Irish are 5-1 ATS vs. a team with a winning record, but only 1-6 ATS in their last seven Games on field turf. The Orange have covered in five straight neutral-site Games and are 7-1-1 ATS in their last nine following an ATS loss.
Not a heck of a lot to go on here considering the opponents these two have faced to date. For Syracuse it’s been a 1 point win over Villanova, blowing out Central Michigan and losing to Maryland. For Notre Dame, it’s big wins over Rice, Michigan and Purdue and while the Michigan Game initially looked like a good win, it’s obvious the Wolverines have big problems this year.
Now that the line has dipped under -10, we see some value with the Irish here. They’re the better team and a TD and a field goal shouldn’t be too much to ask here. We also see a little value going UNDER the total of 49 as we see a slightly lower scoring Game than predicted. Notre Dame -9.5 and Under 49