Doug Marrone was armed with a plethora of statistics at his weekly press conference Monday, the general summation of them was that Syracuse Football's rich history has always had trouble west of the Mississippi. Marrone pointed out that the Orange, including a 1993 tie at Texas is 1-11-1 in games in the West. The Orange is also hoping to rewrite the history it has with Washington, while the Huskies lead the all-time series by a modest 2-1 margin, this year's seniors remember the last contest, a 42-12 thumping in the 2007 season opener.
There's no question though that this year's team is light years better than the 2007 bunch, which finished with the program's 2nd ever 10-loss season. The Orange looked great against Akron, but Washington will be a much more difficult challenge than the Zips were. If SU can capture the victory, a 4-0 September for the first time since 1991 is pretty likely (in 1991 the Orange opened with wins over Vanderbilt 37-10, at Maryland 31-17, Florida 38-21, and at Tulane 24-0). No doubt, the Orange is taking it one game at a time though, and is well aware of all the challenges facing them on Saturday.
Further evidence of just how far this team has come since the 2007 game is that the leading rusher in that contest was current captain and linebacker Derrell Smith. Smith told me today he hopes to quote "lead the team in tackles, not in rushing yards" this time around, I'd say he has a decent shot at that.
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