How the Notre Dame football vs. Syracuse betting line has changed

Sunday’s Circa Sports betting line reveal for Notre Dame at Syracuse might have gotten a little too far out in front of the eight ball. Circa Sports named Notre Dame a 2-point favorite over the Orange. Most betting services have that line reversed.

Vegas Insider compiles the lines of nine prominent sports books. All of them have Syracuse (6-1) as the favorite to beat Notre Dame (4-3) this weekend in Saturday’s 12 p.m. ET kickoff (ABC) at the JMA Dome in Syracuse.

Draft Kings, for example, had Syracuse as a 1-point favorite on Sunday at 2 p.m. ET. By Monday morning at 9:05 a.m. ET, the Orange had risen to a 3-point favorite over the Irish. Most other sports books were displaying a similar point spread as of Monday afternoon/evening.

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Notre Dame has been in this position before in 2022. The Irish were a 2.5-point underdog in their last true road game at North Carolina on Sept. 24. Head coach Marcus Freeman and his team went into Chapel Hill and left with a dominant 45-32 victory over the Tar Heels. This game isn’t expected to be nearly as offensive.

Notre Dame vs. North Carolina had a listed over/under point total of 55.5. The two teams crashed over that with 77 total points. The nine sports books used by Vegas Insider had this week’s over/under somewhere between 46-47 points. That’s the result of Syracuse boasting the nation’s No. 13 total defense and Notre Dame reeling with the country’s No. 77 total offense. Syracuse isn’t much better at No. 61.

Based on the point spread and the over/under, oddsmakers are predicting a scrappy, defensive slugfest — perhaps akin to the one Syracuse just played in a 27-21 loss at No. 5 Clemson. Notre Dame has been in a few, too, including a 24-17 victory over California and a 16-14 loss to Stanford.

The Irish are 3-4 against the spread this season. Syracuse is 6-1. Notre Dame is expected to beat Syracuse 35.2-21.0 based on the Odds Shark data base’s simulations of the matchup. Odds Shark’s analytics go against what the humans have laid down on paper. But the game isn’t played on paper. Results aren’t pumped out by computers either.

The Irish and Orange will settle it inside the JMA Dome on Saturday.

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