Syracuse football: Orange 11th in ESPN’s ACC power rankings

Back in the preseason, the Syracuse Orange received an unceremonious last place finish in ESPN’s power rankings. After just one week of action, SU finds itself up to 11th.

The ACC blog had this to say about the Orange’s week one effort:

“Dino Babers’ offense showed great potential in the Orange's win over Colgate, as Eric Dungey threw for 355 yards and two scores, and transfer receiver Amba Etta-Tawo had 210 yards receiving and a touchdown.”

Those sound like facts. We can deal with facts.

Syracuse jumped over Boston College, Wake Forest and Virginia, respectively; the four of them making up the perceived “bottom” of the conference at the moment. Wake Forest was a winner over Tulane this week by a score of (yikes) 7-3. Boston College suffered a close defeat to Georgia Tech, while Virginia was blown out by FCS opponent Richmond.

As we’ve said repeatedly, beating these teams (BC and Wake, particularly) hasn’t done much for perception in the past. But perhaps eventually it will. Looking at this week’s results, sometimes you don’t even have to beat them at all. Perceptions shift because of what pundits see from them (offensive struggles) vs. what they see from SU (a much-improved offensive attack).

Sean reminds us that we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves after just one game, and I certainly agree. But some outsiders already are, to an extent, just by way of looking at the pace of what the Orange can do. As we pointed out throughout the offseason, if Wake and BC were unable to score more points this season, it would be hard to keep pace with Syracuse -- whether they’re actually “better” or not. The theory on both (and another “slower” team like UConn) will get put to the test soon enough.