Syracuse at Pitt winner needs to be taken seriously as an ACC championship contender

The battle for supremacy in the ACC could take a drastic turn this weekend when Pitt and Syracuse do battle in Pittsburgh on Thursday night. Pitt enters this game as perhaps the least talked about undefeated team in the country. Granted, none of the Panthers wins have been monumentally impressive, but they've all been wins nonetheless. This is probably Pitt's biggest test yet— until next week anyway, when it travels to SMU.

Syracuse comes into this game getting hot, on a three-game win streak after absurdly losing to Stanford, hoping to enter the AP Top 25 for the first time since 2022. That loss to Stanford is a blemish on an otherwise splendid season in Fran Brown's first season as head coach.

Clemson and Miami have a stiff-arm on the rest of this conference right now, but the winner of this game should probably be mentioned in the "elite ACC teams" conversation next week.

What's on the line in this game?

For Pitt, a win wouldn't secure a place in the College Football Playoff — it's still too early to be talking about CFP "locks" — but it would give the Panthers a lot of room for error in their remaining schedule. A win against Syracuse would basically grant Pitt the ability to lose twice the remainder of the season and still feel confident about making the playoff, even if it doesn't win the ACC Championship.

Syracuse has a giant mountain to climb to be considered for the CFP, but a win against Pitt would at least bring the Orange back in shouting distance of the ACC and regain the respect it tried to lose by dropping a game against Stanford.

Pitt and Syracuse could be an offensive explosion

Both teams excel through the air, ranking second and third in the conference in passing yards per game behind just Heisman candidate Cam Ward and Miami. Pitt is 12th in the country in passing yards per game and that's including a slog against Cal last week in which the Panthers managed just 133 yards through the air. Freshman quarterback Eli Holstein might be poised for a bounceback game against the Orange on Thursday.