Syracuse football: Would you bet $2,500 on the Orange?

In my first few years out of college, living in California, I was a frequent visitor to nearby Las Vegas. While I’ve played my misguided hands of late-night Blackjack at Caesars, and have placed the occasional optimistic futures bet on a favorite team, my appetite for high-stakes gambling is low.

The same can’t be said for Eddie Purcell, as Syracuse.com’s Chris Carlson discussed yesterday.

Last week, Manlius resident Purcell was in Vegas and dropped $2,500 on the Syracuse Orange football team to win more than four games (the over/under since May). Though many local casinos wouldn’t accept money on the Orange, he finally found a taker at South Point.

As he told Carlson, he believes the hype. And if he succeeds, he plans to parlay those winnings ($4,500) into bowl tickets.

Again, quite the optimist... Or is he?

When Hoya Suxa crunched the numbers in August, Syracuse came up most likely to win five games. And that thought was echoed by Bill Connelly this week, who also saw just over five wins for SU. As we’ve discussed numerous times, the Orange’s schedule is among the country’s more difficult ones out there, and winning more than a handful (Colgate, UConn, Wake Forest, Boston College?) will be far from a walk in the park.

So if you had the chance, in Vegas or elsewhere, would you drop this sort of money on Syracuse or any other team? For those who would, have you done so in the past for the Orange (or, again, another team at all). I can’t say I would (#disloyalidiot), but I’m sure there are several here who’d entertain the idea.