Syracuse football isn't projected to win another game this season

(That doesn’t mean we won’t, however)

The Syracuse Orange aren’t projected to win another football game this season, at least according to Bill Connelly’s S&P+.

As Connelly’s metrics further incorporate this season’s results (vs. the preseason numbers its initially based on), we’re seeing the defense’s poor results make a larger and larger impact. Following another poor showing against Notre Dame this Saturday, the S&P+ sees that as the norm now and expects minimal to no improvement as the year wears on:

Along with the minimal expectations around the Orange defense, this is also populated by the strength of schedule you’ll notice above. Of the seven teams left, just two are ranked higher than 32nd, and four are 25th or better (including three top-15 squads). Virginia Tech may be the most surprising of those top squads, though the Hokies also just entered the AP top 25 for the first time all season.

Again, this is far from set in stone that Syracuse loses all of these matchups. Those Wake Forest and Boston College games are under a touchdown swing and influenced by them being SU road games. But the overall trends are indicative of the schedule we’ve belabored and the defense we dread watching factoring in more. The schedule’s not changing, though perhaps the defense can at some point?

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Though in hard numbers, Syracuse is slated to go 2-10, you see the cumulative projected wins at 3.73. By the end of the year, that projected figure will even out to a whole number. If it makes everyone feel better, Connelly feels there’s just a 13 percent chance of Syracuse going 2-10, versus a one percent chance of going 7-5 (the top level of projections). The most likely outcome is either 3-9 or 4-8 right now, both at 32 percent probability right now.

In more optimistic news, SB Nation’s latest bowl projections see Syracuse going 5-7, but getting a bowl invite (to the Birmingham Bowl) by way of quality APR scores.

No matter what happens, though, the win-loss results really are gravy -- as we’ve discussed before here. As long as we still see the plan laid out for us at the end of the year the same way we do now, all will be good heading into year two of the Dino Babers era.

... but seriously, if we can avoid going 2-10, that would be much appreciated by your author.