Item: Determination of the final home game opponent is dependent on the ACC schedule.
Prior to the Syracuse loss at Villanova Saturday at the Wells Fargo Center, Orange Watch caught up with Syracuse senior associate athletic director Herm Frazier, himself a Philadelphia native making one of his many annual returns home, to inquire about the release of the complete 2013 football schedule which is missing one non-conference home game.
Obviously, the ACC will dictate the dates and times of league games with TV partners ESPN and Raycom, expected the second week of February, and it’s because of the unknown conference schedule in September that Frazier is playing a balancing game.
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“We’re away from the Dome the first two games (Penn State at MetLife Stadium on Aug. 31 and at Northwestern the next Saturday, Sept. 7), so we have to be careful (in negotiations) and see what the ACC does,” Frazier said in explaining that he doesn’t want new coach Scott Shafer and company to start three straight weeks away from home.
“We don’t want a road game (from the ACC) that third week (Sept. 14), and that has effected who we’ve spoken with about getting a home game.”
Syracuse already has Tulane set for a home game on Sept. 21, week four, and the sense that we got speaking with Frazier is that in order to secure a sixth Dome home game, the university will schedule a FCS opponent if necessary to fill the week three slot if the ACC does not schedule the Orange to play that week.
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