West Virginia fans won’t forget what happened last year when Syracuse came into Morgantown. They had to watch the Orange defeat their hometown Mountaineers 19-14 and capture the Schwartzwalder Trophy for the first time in the past 8 years. In that game, quarterback Geno Smith threw three first-half interceptions to go along with five sacks. However, Smith is in his second full year starting and along with his teammates, is much improved from that of last years.
# 11 West Virginia (5-1), is coming off a much needed bye week and is ready for the stretch of six Big East games in the second half of the season. Although this will be their seventh game of the season, this will be only their second game away from Milan Puskar Stadium. West Virginia opened up Big East play with a 43-16 victory against reigning Big East champions UConn two weeks ago. Syracuse (4-2), is coming off a victory against Tulane last week and hopes to shock the nation on primetime Friday night. Syracuse has Ryan Nassib as quarterback again this season and he is off to a good start with 11 touchdowns to only four interceptions.
West Virginia will look to take advantage of a weak Syracuse pass defense that is ranked 112th in the nation out of 120 teams. West Virginia currently leads the Big East and is fourth in the nation in passing yards averaging 381 yards per game. Look for coach Dana Holgorsen to gameplan around the passing game to allow Smith to have a big game. The speed of West Virginia’s receivers Tavon Austin, Stedman Bailey and Ivan McCartney will be too much for the Orange to handle.
On the other side of the ball, West Virginia comes in just behind Rutgers with the second overall defense in the Big East. West Virginia is first against the pass in the conference however. Last year, Syracuse came out attacking with the run and running back Antwon Bailey and the rest of the Orange rushing attack will look to do much of the same this year.
“It was 3rd-and-17 and they were still running the ball on me last year so they’ll come out and do the same thing,” said West Virgnina senior defensive end Bruce Irvin.
Syracuse will keep it close early, but the overpowering offense of West Virginia will prove to be too much in the end. Look for West Virginia to win this one 45-21 at 8 p.m. on ESPN.
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