North Carolina Football: 3 bold predictions for season-opener vs. Syracuse
By Nick Fiore
North Carolina football kicks off a much-anticipated 2020 season with a battle against ACC foe Syracuse. What can we expect from this battle?
North Carolina and Syracuse open up their conference schedule in Chapel Hill this Saturday. There’s a lot of excitement around this Carolina team, and for good reason. Mack Brown has done an incredible job in his short time back and there’s reason to believe UNC will be competing for the ACC title very soon.
The Tar Heels are bringing back a ton of talent, led by quarterback Sam Howell who was one of the top freshmen last year.
On the other side, Syracuse disappointed last season, going 5-7, after winning 10 games in 2018. Overall, Syracuse has not been good under Dino Babers, over the last four years the Orange are 23-26. Another losing season this year and his seat could start to warm up.
One of the many things that is weird about this season of college football will be facing conference opponents to start the season. Most Power Five programs open the year with some lowly program in a “tune-up game” where you can work on things from practice in a live game and get an easy win to start your season.
Going straight into conference play so early on is going to be trouble for some teams. Preparation is going to be more key than ever this season and we’re really going to see the top run programs separate themselves.
This game between the Tar Heels and Orange isn’t expected to be very close as Carolina opened up as a 21.5-point favorite. This season will be as unpredictable as ever early on, here’s a few bold predictions for this matchup.