College Football

2013 Syracuse football schedule: Opponents, game dates and more

What lies ahead for Syracuse in its first ACC season? A tough start, for one thing.

Aug 28, 2013, 5:00 PM UTC

USA TODAY Sports

Welcome to the party, pal. Syracuse's inaugural season as an ACC member is here, and circumstances could be a bit more ideal for the Orange considering that Doug Marrone took the Buffalo Bills head coaching job during the offseason and the team has to replace Ryan Nassib at quarterback. Syracuse replaced Marrone from within, promoting defensive coordinator Scott Shafer to the head coaching position, which may lessen the adjustment period for a program coming off an 8-5 season.

2013 Syracuse schedule


Date	Opponent	Conf.	Projected ranking
8/31/2013	Penn State (MetLife Stadium)	B1G	22
9/7/2013	at Northwestern	B1G	35
9/14/2013	Wagner	FCS
9/21/2013	Tulane	CUSA	119
9/28/2013	Open date
10/5/2013	Clemson	ACC	21
10/12/2013	at N.C. State	ACC	61
10/19/2013	at Georgia Tech	ACC	32
10/26/2013	Open date
11/2/2013	Wake Forest	ACC	80
11/9/2013	at Maryland	ACC	82
11/16/2013	at Florida State	ACC	19
11/23/2013	Pittsburgh	ACC	34
11/30/2013	Boston College	ACC	69
12/7/2013	ACC Championship (Charlotte)
Date	Opponent	Conf.	Projected ranking

Projections from Football Outsiders’ 2013 college football almanac.

More: Visit Nunes Magician for complete coverage of Syracuse's 2013 season.

As far as the league slate goes, Syracuse is getting tossed right into the fire -- its first-ever ACC game is against Clemson. The Orange have a road trip to Georgia Tech two weeks after that, as well as a road game at Florida State in November. Most of the Atlantic Division -- Syracuse’s new home -- isn’t much to be frightened about, though, so plenty of games are there for the taking.

The Orange aren’t wasting any time getting into the tough part of their non-conference schedule, either; they open the season with a neutral-site game against Penn State, then follow that up with a road trip to Northwestern. They could easily be sitting at 0-2 after those first two games, but on the bright side, the two non-conference games that follow should prove to be suspense-free tuneups to conference play.

And they have the potential to finish strong. Setting the daunting visit to Tallahassee aside, the Orange have four winnable contests in November, three of them at home. If they capitalize there, they should have an ACC debut they can feel good about.