2024 College Football Bowl Previews (Dec 21st)

Roofclaim.com Boca Raton Bowl: South Florida Bulls (6-6) vs Syracuse Orange (6-6)

What you need to know: South Florida is in their first year under Alex Golesh and it was an incredible turnaround in just a year, from 1 win to 6 wins, and the first bowl appearance for the Bulls since 2018. Their offense has been electric thanks to QB Byrum Brown, if you haven’t seen him play yet this is your chance. His favorite target is WR Sean Atkins who has 86 catches this year. Their defense is a problem, however, the Bulls have to win games in shootouts a lot. Syracuse will be led by interim coach Nunzio Campanile who is familiar with this role, having served as an interim coach at Rutgers in 2019, he led Syracuse to a win in their last regular season game to get them to this game. Syracuse once again started strong going 4-0, only to collapse down the stretch. QB Garrett Shrader is expected to be healthy which is good news for their offense. Update (12/21): Schrader needed surgery and is ruled out for this one.

Previous Meetings: These programs were former Big East foes before Syracuse went to the ACC. South Florida was good back then and as a result the Bulls hold an 8-2 edge in the 10 meetings these 2 programs had. Oddly enough both of Syracuse’s wins in this series occurred in Tampa. Also every game has either been a blowout South Florida win or a close Syracuse win!

Motivation Edge: South Florida has to be absolutely ecstatic to be back in a bowl again so you know the Bulls will be motivated. You’d think with a new coach on the way that Syracuse would be ready just to end this season and get out of here but they rallied well to win their last regular season game under Campanile so he seems to have this squad motivated. I give South Florida just a slight edge.

Best Bet: Over 61 – South Florida’s offense will be ready to put on a show, meanwhile I suspect Shrader will have Syracuse’s offense going against a South Florida defense that might struggle to make stops. Update (12/21): Schrader ruled out but I still expect a lot of points, you can take the over at a better number now (56).