Jesse Dougherty

For those that bet on College Football, the Syracuse-Louisville game was a hot ticket this morning. With Louisville (9-0, no. 9 in the country leading into Saturday) only favored by 1 point, many had to think that the Orange would lose by at least a field goal and the spread would be easily covered by the Cardinals. But not so fast. Syracuse may have lost to Cincinnati and Rutgers in their Big East conference schedule, and Northwestern, USC, and Minnesota out of conference, but Louisville met a different team Saturday afternoon. On homecoming weekend, with the Carrier Dome filled with more than 40,000 fans, we learned one thing:

A Syracuse +1 spread may have seemed crazy, even with them playing at home. But at the end of the day, Vegas always know.

What they knew exactly, I can’t be sure of. Did they know Alec Lemon would be virtually unstoppable and end the day with 176 yards and 2 touchdowns on only 9 catches? Did they know that Jerome Smith would have his best game of the year and rush for 144 yards and two touchdowns? Did they know that third down back Prince Tyson-Gulley would add two more of his own, including a 55 yard trot to the promised land that broke the game wide open? And did they know, that with all of the hype surrounding Louisville quarterback Teddy Bridgewater, that the Syracuse defense would swarm the ball for 60 minutes and possibly erase him from the Heisman race entirely?

These are all things they couldn’t have known, it’s just not possible. Doug Marrone pitched the perfect game plan, and the Orange executed it perfectly, and for some reason the Las Vegas lines had only offered them 1 point on a day where they should have been blown out.

Notable Syracuse players Ryan Nassib, Marcus Sales, Alec Lemon, Siriki Diabate and Brandon Sharpe will never play at the Carrier Dome again, and beating Louisville 45-26 was a damn good way to go out.

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