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What’s college football saying about Syracuse after Week 4?

Talk that talk

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NCAA Football: Connecticut at Syracuse Mark Konezny-USA TODAY Sports

Obviously the only website you read is TNIAAM. But did you know other websites also exist? And they have opinions about our football team, too!

Each week, we’ll take a look at what those other college football media sites are saying about the Syracuse Orange.

Poll Updates

In case you missed the Sunday post Syracuse is now three spots out of the top 25 in the Coaches Poll and received 25 votes in the AP Poll. Like we’ve been saying, it’s not who you beat, it’s how many you beat.

S&P+ Rankings (SBNation)

Syracuse moves up 12 spots to 49th right between the Baylor Bears and Colorado Buffaloes. The leap was the ninth-highest on the S&P list (it was a busy week). Not to get ahead of ourselves but no matter what happens next weekend at the Clemson Tigers Bill C’s numbers indicate there is reason for optimism the rest of the way now it’s on Syracuse to take advantage of the opportunity.

Perhaps the most noteworthy thing four weeks in: the ACC is bad.

In the preseason, I noted that while this conference might only have one true national title contender (Clemson), it might also have no truly bad teams. We’ll see how the coming weeks play out, but while only two teams were projected worse than 62nd in the preseason projections, sixare now 68th or worse a month into the year.

Miami’s nearly climbed back to where it was in the preseason, and Duke (28th), NC State (29th), BC (41st), Virginia (46th), and Syracuse (49th) are all higher than they were a month ago.

But woof, is that bottom tier bad. Not “Big Ten bottom tier” bad, but bad ... and without the Big Ten’s upside.

Week 4 Power Rankings: ESPN

Syracuse makes an appearance in ESPN’s Top 25 Power Rankings at 22nd and this is what they had to say

Don’t look now, but the Orange are 4-0 for the first time since 1991 and only the fourth time since the end of World War II. Syracuse scored 50 points or more in three of its four games -- and blasted Florida State 30-7 in the other. The Orange will find out how far they’ve come under third-year coach Dino Babers, whose teams went 4-8 in each of his first two seasons, in next week’s trip to Clemson.

ACC Power Rankings: ESPN

Syracuse is now up to 5th in the ACC rankings by ESPN one spot ahead of the Boston College Eagles.

Dino Babers has his team undefeated through four games for the first time since 1991. That’s impressive enough, but if the Orange can upset Clemson for the second year in a row on Saturday, there will be a whole new level of excitement in Syracuse.

Syracuse was mentioned in ESPN writer David Hale’s College Football Season Review piece.

Basketball schools are good at football too

Kentucky, Syracuse and Duke aren’t exactly known as challengers for New Year’s Six bowls. Combined, they’ve finished a season in the Top 25 just twice in the 2000s. But after the Orange toppled Florida State in Week 3, Kentucky upended Mississippi State in Week 4 and the Blue Devils won consecutive road games against Northwestern and Baylor, the three supposed basketball schools are a combined 12-0. How crazy is that? Kentucky’s win over the Bulldogs was its first over a top-15 opponent in more than a decade. Syracuse hadn’t started 4-0 since 1991. From 1990 through 2011, Duke had just two seasons in which it won more than four games.

Syracuse.com’s Chris Carlson moves the Orange up two spots to 5th in his ACC Power Rankings this week and even with the move Carlson knows there’s a lot of season left to play

Syracuse has won all four of its games comfortably and certainly looks like a good football team. The rest of the season will show how good, as the Orange is unbeaten but also unproven.

CBS Sports’ 1-130 has the Orange jumping up 12 spots to 25th right after the South Florida Bulls.

The Athletic has the Orange up 8 spots to 30th in their rankings this week and all these moves forward come after Syracuse beat one of the worst FBS teams in the country over the weekend. Even if the Orange lose at Clemson if they come back in October and take care of business we’ll be talking about them moving up in each of these rankings.