Syracuse football: Orange open as favorites on the road against Purdue

We’re here in week three of this football season. The Syracuse Orange are sitting where they need to be at 2-0 on the year, following victories over Colgate and Western Michigan in games that proved to be warmups for the bellwether game this week against the Purdue Boilermakers on the road in West Lafayette, Indiana.

At present, Syracuse is looking to head on the road for the first time, as favorites in the primetime Saturday matchup. The game is opening with Syracuse as 2.5 point favorites on the DraftKings Sportsbook. The over/under is currently set at 56 points on the week. The Orange have covered and hit the over in both weeks this season, with offensive explosions against Western Michigan and Colgate while only giving up seven points total on the year.

Purdue is 1-1 on the year, coming off a late victory against the Virginia Tech Hokies during a rain soaked, weather delayed mess of a game last Saturday in Blacksburg. Prior to that, the Boilermakers lost a 39-35 barnburner to the Fresno State Bulldogs at home, giving up over 350 yards in the air and over 100 on the ground. This mix of results is leaving a lot of questions for what’s going to actually happen in this game and it may take until late Saturday night to actually figure it out.

Last season, the Orange beat the Boilermakers in Syracuse, with a flurry of fourth quarter action. That Purdue team had a very different look, with Aidan O’Connell and Charlie Jones putting on a show with 424 yards passing against the Orange. A pair of Orande Gadsden scores put the Orange ahead finally with seven seconds on the clock for the win. After Isaiah Jones scored his first touchdown of the year, he also went down for the season during this game and looks to make it his comeback story, filling in for what may be a banged up Gadsden in the receiving ranks.

Per DraftKings, Syracuse’s over/under line for the 2023 regular season was at 6.5 wins heading into the Orange’s season-opener.

Odds/lines subject to change. T&Cs apply. See draftkings.com/sportsbook for details.