Syracuse Bowl Watch: Beef is eternal

The Syracuse Orange lost to the Rutgers Scarlet Knights on Saturday. This all but guarantees no one is going to be including the Orange in bowl watches until ‘Cuse starts stringing together wins, and this week is a great chance to start that streak.

Albany, should ‘Cuse win, would get the Orange ¹⁄₃ of the way to bowl eligibly. (For more on how this process works, check last week’s piece.) The other ²⁄₃ will require defeating Liberty, and some combination of ACC teams to get to 6-6, which would land Syracuse in what I’m calling the BEEF ZONE.

Historically, the Orange have quested for beef many years, and if you don’t get the joke, the Beef O’Brady’s bowl was typically part of the “bottom tier” bowl games that air before Christmas and feature a buffet or 6-6 teams, from up and coming program rebuilders, to non-power five schools just happy to be included. While 2018 showed that the Orange could quest for chicken or even steak, this year’s team, should good things happen, seems destined for the 2021 beef equivalent. What is this year’s artificial beef? Glad you asked.

• Union Home Mortgage Gasparilla Bowl | Dec. 23, 2021 | ACC vs. SEC or AAC | Tampa Bay, FL
• Military Bowl Presented by Peraton | Dec. 27, 2021 | ACC vs. AAC | Annapolis, MD
• TicketSmarter Birmingham Bowl | Dec. 28, 2021 | ACC vs. SEC or AAC | Birmingham, AL
• SERVPRO First Responder Bowl | Dec. 28, 2021 | ACC vs. SEC or AAC | University Park, TX

Listen, there’s not much else to say here, other than beating Liberty gets this train rolling again. Here’s to hoping the Orange take care of business versus Albany, and then we can focus on getting the beef train back on track.