Football Friday - Pittsburgh

The Syracuse football team flows down one of the three rivers into Pittsburgh on Saturday. A game is the best thing for this troubled squad.

This road trip, ironically also to western Pennsylvania, is just the second away game for the Orange (3-5, 0-3 Big East). The Pittsburgh Panthers are tied for first place in the Conference at 4-0, with a 7-1 overall mark and No. 14 ranking.

MIKE WILLIAMS: He left. Halftime Snack has a replacement.

1959: For the eighth game of the season, the Syracuse football team celebrated its new No. 1 ranking by taking on in-state rival Colgate. A long football tradition existed between the two schools, with the Red Raiders spoiling perfect Orange seasons at least five times. The atmosphere leading up to the game filled with pomp and splendor. Co-eds on both sides engaged in various traditions, including scalping. (see below)

The SU football team, ranked tops in the nation for scoring (33.9 points per game), offensive (420.3) and defensive yardage (101.4), showed no mercy toward Colgate, winning 71-0. It was the ninth-largest margin of victory in school history. And get this: the Monday edition of The Daily Orange had no recap of the slaughter. OK, poor word choice, just jump to the SCALPING SCARE, two topics down.

The school paper cut the issue, saving the money for the impending Cotton Bowl issue. Check out the 2009-10 basketball guide that “just dropped” with photography by Mitchell Franz.

DEPTH PERCEPTION: Five more players (one quitter, three suspensions and an injury) will be unavailable for Sunday’s game in Pittsburgh. Coach Doug Marrone started the season with a speedy roster, but the suspensions  will bring slower players onto a field full of Panthers. As I’ve heard, though, what’s better than one Will Dugan?

SCALPING SCARE: Marv Albert ’64, the longtime voice of the New York Knicks (and most of professional basketball, for that matter), got a handful of bylines in his first semester on campus (fall of 1959). Here’s Marvelous covering the scalpings: “For some reason, though, the students who are in the process of taking an involuntary haircut don’t seem to be enjoying themselves—not even a crack of a smile is evident. Oh well—they’re just sore losers…” (The Daily Orange, Nov. 13, 1959, pg. 3)

SLICES:

            Game: Pitt 37, Syracuse 6 – Unless Delone Carter gets 30 carries or Mike Jones runs back a kick, the Orange won’t find paydirt. Potent running games run time off the clock. “Fact of the matter is, your chances of going up against that mob, and coming back, is as slim as a garter snake,” Butch, from HBO’s “The Wire,” said to Omar, sitting on a bench discussing how to jump Avon Barksdale in the third season. Halftime Snack is hooked.

            Heisman Trophy: Let’s look at a freshman running back that made the home fans forget about the last guy who was drafted in the NFL. Pitt fireplug Dion Lewis just got named a semifinalist for the Maxwell Award, given to the College Player of Year. Read about the history of this “other” award.

              The Year of the Woman: Congratulations to SU graduate Stephanie Miner, who was the first female elected mayor of Syracuse on Tuesday night, joining Susan B. Anthony, SU Chancellor Nancy Cantor, former N.Y. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Harleigh Chwastyk as pioneering local women. OK, the last one is a bit of nepotism, but who cares: congratulations on the first playoff win in Swarthmore volleyball history, Big Sister, a 3-1 win over Muhlenberg on Wednesday night!

               They Said It:

                            “You can never know enough smart people,” Christie Hefner, former president of Playboy in Newhouse III on Wednesday night

                             “All of my friends come to see me last night,” Jerry Garcia, Black Peter.”

 

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