2017 Football Schedule (Part III): Syracuse through Duke

The past two days we have looked at the first set and middle set of games for the Wake Forest football schedule, today we will take a look at the final three games. In all likelihood whether or not the Deacs make a bowl game will come down to these three games.

Sat, Nov 11 - @ Syracuse (O/U - 4)

Sat, Nov 18 - N.C. State (O/U - 6.5)

Sat, Nov 25 - Duke (O/U - 4.5)

Based on the assessment of the past two days, Wake Forest will likely be somewhere around 3-4 wins after 9 games, which means it will need to win either two out of three, or all three of these games to go bowling. While all three aren’t undoable by any stretch of the imagination, it is statistically unlikely that it can pull of that feat.

Here's a quick look at my win expectancy for each game:

@ Cuse - .45

N.C. State - .50

Duke - .60

That comes out to an expected win total of 1.5 games, which would likely not be enough to get the Deacs to its second bowl game. Winning all three games with these odds would be around a 14% likelihood. My numbers may be off a little bit, but I think this is a fair range for each game.

The look at the schedule over the past three days has shown that the Vegas over/under of 5.5 wins for Wake Forest is likely spot on. Last year I predicted that Wake would go bowling, but the schedule this year is a lot harder than last year, and unfortunately I think the Deacs come up just short of the 6 win total needed to play in the postseason. My guess is Wake gets 5 wins on the year.

We will have a more in-depth look at each team as the year gets closer, but this was a fun exercise to break down the schedule into chunks to see how it looked,