CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – There was a time at the University of Virginia when the football team didn’t really matter. Of course, the fans would hoot and holler every time the Cavaliers came away losers. But Virginia still packed Scott Stadium.

Fans came for an all-day party and a football game broke out. They’d bring wine, cheese and a vegetable platter, and then soak in the Charlottesville sun. It didn’t matter that the Cavaliers went a combined 11-13 in 2000 and 2001 – almost exactly Syracuse’s record its past two seasons.

Saturday, Scott Stadium was brimming with more PANTONE 1655 orange than at any Carrier Dome function. The local football team, significantly better than two seasons ago, may have had something to do with that. But not much. Fans came for the atmosphere, to imbibe and indulge, to promenade around a stadium that looked more like The Coliseum than a football playpen. Syracuse doesn’t have that.

Virginia packed 59,000 fans into Scott Stadium against Syracuse, and thousands, who were without seats, poured onto the grass beyond the north end zone. Grass? Syracuse can’t even get fans to fill the bleachers.

Syracuse has its football. Fans come, go, then rant. There are some new traditions (the Orange Grove) and some old ones (the band playing on the steps of Hendricks Chapel), but they don’t match Virginia. Granted, a bust of Thomas Jefferson is supplanted on almost every academic building in Charlottesville. It has history. But so does Syracuse.

Want to fix dwindling attendance despite a struggling team? Make the game fun. Make the atmosphere enjoyable. If a Saturday afternoon in Syracuse becomes more about the experience than the outcome, the Carrier Dome will draw fans.

Saturdays in Charlottesville start hours before any kickoff, with young co-eds lining the streets. As is tradition at many southern schools, the gentlemen wear shirts and ties and the ladies wear sundresses and pearl necklaces. They come to be seen, to eat and drink and flirt.

Inside the stadium they are energized by a swashbuckling cavalier on horseback. The fans sway to the fight song after every U.Va. touchdown. They tend to stay for four quarters, not two, not three, not whenever Syracuse is losing by double-digits. And the pageantry extends to after the game, when the lads and lasses take to the streets, their shoulders burnt from three hours in the hot sun, to celebrate the victory.

And they do this every game, not just the big ones against ranked opponents. Saturday, Virginia sold out against a 27-point underdog. SU will be lucky to fill the Dome against No. 9 Florida State in two weeks.

If Syracuse wants to attract more fans, give them a reason to come. The fans in Syracuse desperately want a winning team. Devoid of that, give them the next best thing: a wild party.