On fourth-and-goal in overtime at UConn, Amari Odom threw a touchdown to Umari Hatcher, and then, with the two-point try the only way to end it, ran the conversion in himself. Syracuse won 42-41. It was Odom's first career start, and he finished it 27 of 37 for 335 yards and five touchdowns with two interceptions, plus a rushing score. Hatcher caught 12 passes for 152 yards and three touchdowns, which is the kind of afternoon a receiver has maybe once a career.
Here is the part that makes Saturday interesting rather than merely encouraging. Odom was told only two days before kickoff that he would start over Steve Angeli, who had opened the season as Syracuse's starter, and the staff spent that short week adding designed runs to use his legs, an idea Odom credited to Coach Fran Brown. Angeli was listed out with an undisclosed issue after Brown said he had taken a lot of hits in recent weeks, following five interceptions in his recent starts. Brown had insisted for weeks that it was "a quarterback competition from the beginning." It is no longer a competition. It is Odom's job, and postgame reporting said whether he remains the starter going forward remains to be seen.
Syracuse plays at Virginia on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. ET on ACC Network. The model gives the Orange about an 11 percent chance, and a Sports Illustrated preview forecast a 31-16 Virginia win, pointing to the Cavaliers' very experienced roster, with injury concerns among key defensive players as the only worry. Virginia got embarrassed 38-7 at Florida State and is still 3-2 overall and 1-1 in the ACC; Syracuse is 2-2 and 0-2 in conference play, still hunting its first ACC win. That gap is the whole point. UConn's defense let Odom hold the ball and throw strikes. Virginia's, even in a miserable week, will not.
So watch the first 20 passes. If Odom is still completing timing throws to Hatcher against ACC coverage, with Tylik Hill, good for 28 carries and 140 yards while dealing with the lingering effects of a quad injury, after just two carries against Pitt, keeping Syracuse out of third-and-long, this is a live underdog game on the road. If Odom is scrambling from a clean pocket by the second quarter, the UConn box score was mostly an opponent.
The two problems Syracuse has not fixed are the ones that nearly cost it the UConn game. The defense showed real teeth early, Tunmise Adeleye's second-quarter strip-sack, Nissi Ogbebor's 10 quarterback pressures and a 15-yard sack, and then gave up 302 yards and four touchdowns over the final 30 minutes plus overtime while UConn held the ball barely nine minutes in that stretch. Brown said opponent rushing yards went from 14 in the first half to 167 in the second and that his defensive backs "had rust." Odom cannot outscore that forever, and Virginia at home on a Saturday night is a worse place to try.
Then there is the kicking. Freshman Shay Barker missed a 44-yard field goal that would have won the game in regulation, the third missed kick of the game for Syracuse. Syracuse is not going to win at Virginia 42-41. If it wins, it wins 20-17, and that math requires someone to make a 38-yard field goal. Of all the things to root for this week, a clean, boring day from the kicking game is the least glamorous and maybe the most load-bearing.
None of this hinges on what happens elsewhere Saturday. At 0-2 in the league with a projected 1.4 conference wins, Syracuse's season is entirely about whether it can start taking games from teams like Virginia, and no other scoreboard changes that. Here is the honest version of this week. A loss tells you almost nothing new, and a competitive loss on the road against a team with Virginia's personnel would tell you more about Odom than the five touchdowns did. A win would be the best thing to happen to this program since last November.
More on the week in the interactive guide, and the forecasts are explained in the methodology.