Crank back the La-Z Boy and get ready for some football. Saturday’s the day all Syracuse football fans have been waiting for – it’s time for opening day. Fire up the Toshiba and pop open the cheese doodles. Your backside should be firmly planted in seat for at least three hours. Ohh yeaahhh, it’s football time.

Click. Click. Click. What’s this? Where’s the game?

Come Saturday, if you’re expecting to watch Syracuse’s first game of the season, think again. You’ll be treated to back-to-back reruns of ‘Growing Pains’ and ‘Step by Step.’

The game won’t be shown in the entire Syracuse area. Don’t even try the TVs in the lounge. It ain’t happening. Goldstein? Most likely not. There’s even a big chance that local sports television mecca, Tully’s, won’t be showing the game.

About 350,000 Time Warner Cable customers in the Syracuse area won’t be seeing it. From Buffalo to Ithaca to the Canadian border, don’t hold your breath. There’s a better chance you’ll be watching ‘Polar Bears: Uncovered’ on Animal Planet by the 1:30 p.m. kickoff.

‘That sucks,’ SU sophomore Nick Meyer said. ‘I would think that all the games in Syracuse are on TV. I’ll probably just go to Marshall Street and watch the game. Oh wait, it’s not on TV. God, that sucks.’

At the Tully’s in North Syracuse, all the hostesses have been instructed to tell callers that the game’s not being showed. Pry a little more and they’ll tell you to call back Saturday morning. There’s a slim chance.

‘As of now it’s not being picked up,’ Judy, a hostess, said. ‘I don’t have the slightest idea why.’

Neither do the students, many of whom have shelled $81 to see all of the home games.

‘I’m very frustrated,’ sophomore Matt Blitz said. ‘I want to see my heroes. I waited all summer to see my team in action.’

Blitz, a member of the Craig Nasties – the unofficial fan club of SU basketball center Craig Forth – during basketball season, said he learned that the game wasn’t going to be shown yesterday in history class.

‘I let out a yell,’ Blitz said. ‘I was visibly upset. It was on my mind the whole day.’

We all know that Syracuse had a bad season last year. But is a botched triple option really that bad for our viewing health?

Time Warner Cable recently announced the inception of a college-sports network set to premier Sept. 20. The network will air Big East and SU football and basketball games. The game against Central Florida on Sept. 20 will be SU’s first locally-televised game.

Perhaps they didn’t get the Orangemen’s schedule. Notoriously missing from coverage are this week’s UNC game and the Sept. 13 home game against Louisville. The college sports network will run on channel 26. Flip to that Saturday and you’ll see an informercial. Let’s hope it’s the ‘Set it and forget it’ rotisserie oven one.

Not everyone’s upset, of course. Venture to Carnegie Library on any gameday and you’re bound to see the studious, disinterested and plain oblivious.

Though she does have season tickets, freshman Kristin Collins doesn’t mind that she’ll miss the first game of her SU career.

‘The stars of this college are basketball, anyway,’ she said. ‘It’s more of a social aspect, a way to meet people.’

She added. ‘I’m more of a basketball fan, anyway.’

Freshman Cara King didn’t see the big fuss about missing the game. Though an SU football poster adorned her Dellplain split double, she offered an explanation as to why she won’t miss out on anything.

‘Aren’t they really bad? I’ll probably just hang around the dorm.’

Come to think of it, maybe Time Warner isn’t to blame. Maybe, they’re doing us all a favor.

Published on September 4, 2003 at 12:00 pm