First year head coach Fran Brown received an easy schedule as he begins his helm with Syracuse. The College Football Network has a strength of schedule metric that ranks SU’s schedule as 12th hardest out of the 17 ACC teams.
That spells out opportunity for the Orange, who are searching for their first bowl win since 2018. In conference play, SU avoids top ACC talent like Clemson, Florida State and North Carolina. But a big part of Syracuse getting bowl eligible (and getting a good bowl) will be racking up non-conference wins. A big reason SU made a bowl last year was a 4-0 non-conference record.
Syracuse has matchups with Ohio, Holy Cross, UNLV and UConn for the 2024 season. All are non-power conference opponents and winnable games. But of the four, UNLV has the best chance to be a trap game.
Holy Cross and UConn can be crossed off the list. The Crusaders haven’t beaten SU since 1958 and are an FCS program. UConn meanwhile has struggled in recent history, not registering a winning season since 2010.
Ohio meanwhile will be a good test for the Orange. The team had a solid 2023 campaign, going 10-3 with a win in the Myrtle Beach Bowl against Georgia Southern. But a season opener at the Dome is a hostile environment, and Syracuse hasn’t lost its first game since 2020.
This leads one last non-conference game in UNLV, a team that won nine games in 2023 before losing to #23 Kansas in the Guaranteed Rate Bowl.
This is a UNLV that will have a lot of new. The Rebels lost their quarterback Jayden Maiava to USC. But the defense is one to watch. UNLV was active in the transfer portal, grabbing Texas safety Jalen Catlon and Texas A&M corner Tony Grimes.
The team may depend on Matthew Sluka, a transfer QB in from Holy Cross who threw for almost 6,000 yards in four years.
That’s a lot of question marks for UNLV. But by Oct. 3, the Rebels will have had a chunk of time to figure out their schemes. It’s also a Friday night game, meaning Syracuse will have a short week of prep plus traveling far west.
While the Orange likely will be a favorite entering this matchup, of the four non-conference matchups, this is the one that may be most likely to trip up Syracuse.
