Early last spring, Rob Edson found himself in a desperate situation. Edson, the associate athletic director and the person in charge of scheduling, had two slots to fill on Syracuse’s football schedule. One of the games needed to be played at home.

Few other Division I-A teams had schedule openings to fill, and even fewer would want to add a road game that late in the scheduling process.

Edson found himself needing to pull quite a coup – a maneuver that involved nine schools. Because of Edson’s crafty scheduling, Syracuse has a full 11-game schedule. The Orange begins its season with the main component of Edson’s switch – Purdue – on Sunday.

‘We initiated it because we were the ones with the problem,’ Edson said. ‘We couldn’t find anyone willing to go on the road. It wasn’t as simple as finding two different schools.’

Edson first began the discussions by contacting Cincinnati. He looked for any school with a road game that might want to pass on that road game and visit Syracuse instead. He figured the Bearcats would be willing to help because they are headed to the Big East next season.

Purdue and Cincinnati were originally scheduled to play on Sept. 11. But when Cincinnati agreed to come to the Carrier Dome, it fixed one problem because SU got its home game. SU plays the Bearcats on Sept. 18.

But Purdue had to be convinced to play Syracuse, too. Purdue was willing because it wanted to open up Sept. 11 – the original date of the Cincinnati game – to give itself a bye week before its Sept. 18 game against Notre Dame, Purdue senior business associate Glenn Tompkins said.

Purdue also wanted to play a nationally televised game on Labor Day weekend, something that became possible with the meeting of two high-profile teams. Since the game is being played Sunday, and the NFL has yet to kick off, it will be the only football game on national TV in its timeslot.

‘With the reorganization of the Big East,’ Tompkins said, ‘we wanted to try and work with a Big East team.’

Still, there was one small glitch in the plan. Syracuse was scheduled to play at Virginia on Sept. 4. Edson said Virginia agreed to change the date to Sept. 25 so it could add another game with Temple on Sept. 4. Virginia needed another non-conference game to replace its rivalry game with Virginia Tech, which became a conference game.

With that final date change, Edson had completed SU’s schedule. And it could have been worse. Last season, teams could play a maximum of 12 games, but the schedule was trimmed to 11 for this year.

All of the changes left the Orange with six road games, five home games and one of the country’s toughest non-conference schedules. Besides the games at Purdue and Virginia, SU also hosts Florida State on Oct. 9.

The changes became necessary when SU lost home games with Virginia Tech and Miami when the two schools defected to the Atlantic Coast Conference.

As far as a return visit by Purdue to the Carrier Dome, Edson said there have been talks. But it’s difficult to set a date for the near future because Big Ten schools typically schedule years in advance.

Edson said the scheduling crisis was a unique event that won’t repeat itself next year. In fact, SU has 12 scheduled opponents, meaning it must cut one. The Orange will play one more Big East game next year because Temple and Boston College are leaving, while Cincinnati, South Florida and Louisville join the conference.

Non-conference opponents for next season include Buffalo, Toledo and Virginia at home and Florida State and Notre Dame on the road. Edson said one of those games would be pushed back to a future season. He wouldn’t elaborate on which game it might be.

Certainly that scenario of pushing games back is favorable to the one Edson dealt with last spring.

‘We needed anything,’ Edson said. ‘We were fortunate both schools were willing to help us out.’

Published on August 29, 2004 at 12:00 pm