The conference portion of the Syracuse football schedule was released in its entirety with dates Wednesday afternoon. There’s a lot to evaluate.¬†
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Syracuse's 2019 schedule ⤵
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The game that stands out is Clemson. We knew the defending national champions were coming but now we know they’re coming for the ACC opener on September 14th. The third week of the season.
This confirms something: College GameDay is also coming.
It’s gotta be a lock. How could it not be?
For starters, both teams will likely be 2-0. Syracuse is on the road at Maryland the week before. That’s no cake walk at all. The Terps hired former Alabama OC Mike Locksley as their new head coach. We did find out earlier in the week, quarterback Jalen Hurts is not joining his OC and is instead transferring to Oklahoma. However, this is still a decent power-five team on the road. Syracuse will likely be favored but it’s no lock.
Clemson also has a pretty tough week two game. They host Texas A&M and Jimbo Fisher. The Aggies head to South Carolina a week after the Tigers open their season on a Thursday night against Georgia Tech in Death Valley. Two pretty solid teams, but two home teams and after all they are Clemson. They should be 2-0.
Outside of the fact the game will be two ranked teams dueling for a chance to determine who gets the upper hand in the ACC Atlantic division, this game is going to draw a huge crowd. If it’s not sold out, then I don’t really know what is needed to bring a sell out.
It’s the home opener. It’s the defending national champs. It’s likely the number one team in the nation. Not to mention, Syracuse beat them at home last time, took them to the wire at their place last year and didn’t lose at home once this past year.
The dome hasn’t seen a crowd of 50,000 since 1987 when SU hosted the then-defending national champs Penn State, according to Syracuse.com. Don’t see a world where this game doesn’t reach 50K, even if SU does falter the week before at Maryland.
On top of all this, there really isn’t many other great matchups in week three. The biggest SEC games that week are Alabama at South Carolina (eh) and Florida at Kentucky. Two decent games but nothing compared to the significance of this SU/Clemson game. It’s about as big as a week three game can get.
People had been advocating for a week three duel with Clemson to maximize the hype. It feels like SU Director of Athletics John Wildhack and his former employer (ESPN) already have a deal in place. Get ready everyone because the College GameDay drought to SU should be ending in September. The only question now is who’s going to be the celebrity guest picker?
