On Saturday, the Syracuse Orange football team upended No. 19 SMU, beating them 30-27 inside the JMA Wireless Dome.

The win moved the Orange to 4-4 on the season and keeps them in a position to earn a possible bowl game invitation.

While Syracuse beating SMU was certainly a surprise, it wasn't that surprising to those who have been following the program closely for the last few years. Beating ranked teams at home has become a staple for the Orange.

As noted by Chris Hummer of CBS Sports, Syracuse has now won four of its last five home games against ranked teams.

Syracuse defeated SMU on Saturday, but it also beat No. 8 Miami (42-38) in 2024, No. 23 Georgia Tech (31-28) in 2024, and No. 15 North Carolina State (24-9) in 2022.

The only loss in that time was a 38-3 drubbing at the hands of Florida State in 2022.

Syracuse will get another crack at a ranked team later this year when it hosts No. 4 Notre Dame in the final regular season game of the season (Nov. 28).

That game time has not been set yet, but SU needs to get through Clemson, Boston College and North Carolina State first anyways.

The Orange led SMU 20-10 at the half but ended up trailing 27-23 deep in the fourth quarter. 

Quarterback Steve Angeli engineered a game-winning drive, capping it off with a two-yard touchdown pass to tight end Noah Meyers. Angeli has now won two consecutive games since getting his starting job back. He missed three games (UConn, Virginia, Louisville) in the middle of the season after getting a PRP injection in his surgically-repaired Achilles.

In addition to Angeli, Syracuse's defense stepped up, recording six sacks and recovering two fumbles.

Multiple of Syracuse's rivals are now in coaching flux, which will have a roundabout impact on the Orange: North Carolina State and Florida State have now both fired their head coaches. It's possible that former NFL quarterback Philip Rivers takes the NC State job, and Florida State will have a bevy of candidates to choose from.

Anything that makes those programs better will hurt Syracuse, so fans should be paying attention to who those programs hire.

The men's basketball team opens up the season on Monday night at 7 p.m. ET against New Haven. It's the first game as head coach for Gerry McNamara, who is expected to coach despite losing his father on Saturday.