Game Week--Syracuse

Believe it or not the season will go on and the Orange get a chance to send a spike through the heart of another pre-season national championship hopeful one week after a crushing loss. Louisville was bit by the the Orange after losing to Kentucky and now Syracuse attempts to corner WVU and feast on shattered dreams and unrealized expectations washed down with the delicious salty beverage of tears. Due to preseason exptectations, a loss here would turn WVU into one of the college undead forced to stagger through the rest of the schedule only to hope to feed on the misery of others (Pitt, Syracuse, ND, and the loser of Oklahoma/Texas etc.) and not help out the value of those Louisville/WVU tickets at all, but fear not as zombies and oranges both have soft heads (so zombie oranges really have soft heads) which are easy to smash so get out your records and hold onto Purple Rain and the Stone Roses but go ahead and throw the Batman soundtrack.

WVU has won 5 straight over Syracuse which is the longest WVU winning streak in the history of the series. Last year Syracuse was run over in Morgantown as WVU won 41-17. In that game WVU ran for 457 yards behind 247 yards from Pat White and 163 yards from Steve Slaton. White passed for only 99 yards in a game in which the pass was not needed. What was needed was a diaper for Syracuse linebacker whose name escapes me but micturated at least 3 times in a Gatorade bottle on the sidelines during the game. Blader infections are a terrible thing, but at least he had no problems with a shy bladder. Speaking of terrible the Syracuse offense that day was able to compile 81 rushing yards and 227 total yards in the defeat and that offense included the only big play from Syracuse which was a 47 yard touchdown thrown by Perry Patterson on a broken play similar to Grothe last Friday.

The Orange are currently 1-4 and ahead of WVU in the Big East standings because of their victory over Louisville. In that game Syracuse was able to score over 20 points for the only time this season. Of course the Orange followed up Greg Robinson's greatest victory with a return to form in a 17-14 loss to Miami (OH). Offensively Syracuse is lead by Andrew Robinson and his 1145 passing yards in 5 games and Taj Smith with 342 yards receiving. The passing offense is capable and ranks 57th, but the run offense has been horrible and is 118th in the nation (second to last ahead of only Notre Dame) at 40.6 yards per game and have allowed the second most sacks per game in the nation (again Notre Dame). The Orange are averaging 16.8 points per game. Defensively the Orange cannot stop the run. They are giving up 231.4 yards per game (111th) and another 253.4 through the air (87th). Joe Fields is leading the Orange in interceptions (3) and tackles (41) and does not play with a diaper as far as I can tell.

The game will be shown on ESPN Gameplan. Those fortunate enough to not get the game can listen and save their eyeballs from the uniforms only a program of the undead could love at Sirius channels 122 and 140.

UPDATE: Thanks to Mike in the comments we can also relay that MASN is showing the game for those in the DC/Baltimore area or that have DirectTV channel 626.