It’s not too much of a stretch to say that the Syracuse football team is playing for its season. After all, one more embarrassing loss could ruin any bowl chances, which after Sunday’s debacle in West Lafayette, Ind., seem fleeting.

Really, no one east of Buffalo expects Syracuse to lose on Saturday. Buffalo has only been a Division I-A team since 1999. And even in Syracuse’s sad state, a loss would be equivalent to a bunch of talented NBA millionaires losing to a bunch of Lithuanians.

Oh wait.

Syracuse is in trouble Saturday. You think the Orange is playing for its season? This game (italics) is (italics) the season for Buffalo. Saturday’s game is the biggest home game in Buffalo football history, and that’s why the Bulls stand a chance at winning. The game is expected to be sold out. It will be played under the lights, meaning droves of young and very inebriated co-eds will be raising hell in UB’s bandbox of a stadium.

To accommodate this madness, two large video boards, similar to the ones SU installed at home last year, will be used. To make room, Buffalo is actually (italics) reducing (italics) the seating capacity in UB Stadium from 31,000 to 29,000. Still, it’s expected to be the highest attended Buffalo football game in UB history.

‘This is certainly the biggest game we’ve had on our campus to date,’ Buffalo interim athletic director Bill Maher said. ‘It’s an exciting time in our program.’

It will be loud and obnoxious and Buffalo’s equivalent of Cameron Indoor Stadium. The game will be the first locally televised contest since 1970.

Syracuse will come in limping, setting itself up for another devastating embarrassment. And don’t think for a minute that it can’t happen.

‘We are a Division I football team at a great university with a great tradition,’ said SU wide receiver Jared Jones, one day after SU’s loss at Purdue. ‘I think it’s about time we start acting like that.’

Surely, Bulls players huddled around the television screens Sunday and watched SU’s massacre at the hands of Purdue. It was as much a funeral wake for Syracuse fans as it was an all-day block party for Buffalo. In three hours, Syracuse – as silly as this sounds – proved mortal, especially for a team like Buffalo that feasted on the likes of Lock Haven, Lafayette and Canisius as recently as 1998.

This in-state rivalry is as big as it gets for Buffalo, which played Big East member Rutgers at home in 2001. But no game has ever created so much excitement as SU’s.

‘It would make their season to beat Syracuse,’ SU running back Walter Reyes said. ‘We’re going to their place. They’re going to be energized and pumped up to play us. They’re going to try to smack us in the face.’

Forget little jabs to the face. Buffalo can afford to land a haymaker. With this game, the Bulls have everything to gain. Syracuse has everything to lose.

Michael Becker is an assistant sports editor at The Daily Orange, where his columns appear regularly. E-mail him at mibecker@syr.edu.

Published on September 8, 2004 at 12:00 pm