Each year, SB Nation’s Bill Connelly goes through the exhaustive work of compiling in-depth previews for every team in college football — here’s his Syracuse Orange preview from this year, if you missed it the first time around.
After completing each conference, though, he also ranks all the teams, while providing some additional context (numerical and not) around why things may sort out that way. This year, he picks Syracuse 13th out of the ACC’s 14 squads.
While that may not seem overly optimistic, Bill does believe that every team in the league has top-40 potential, and SU jumping up to his perceived “tier three” largely hinges on the receiving corps.