A stroll around Syracuse

Published 2:20 pm Friday, August 31, 2007

We’re now three hours from kickoff, but the party has been going on all day around campus.

One thing I’ve noticed is that the Syracuse fans seem to be a hospitable bunch, as I’ve seen many purple-clad Husky fans partying with the locals. And speaking of Husky fans, I notices quite a bit of purple as I walked down Marshall St., which is the street just off campus that seems to be the hot spot for restaurants and bars.

For those who haven’t seen it, the Syracuse campus is pretty nice. Lots of old brick buildings with ivy on them—I guess what I should expect from an east-coast school. There is some sort of party being set up in the campus’ main quad, which, I overheard while walking past a tour, was once home to the world’s largest snowball.

See, one day back on a college campus and I’m learning new things already.

One concern expressed by Tyrone Willingham heading into tonight’s game was the temperature inside the dome, which is not air conditioned. Two things should help keep the temperature down a little bit in the Carrier Dome on this night. For one, the game doesn’t look like it’s going to get very close to selling out. This is probably due to the combination of some bad football in recent years at Syracuse, an opponent that isn’t exactly a marquee draw (sorry Husky fans) and the state fair that’s going on this week in Syracuse (Kenny Chesney is performing tonight). The other factor is that the weather here is very Seattle-like today, with temperatures are in the mid 70s with pretty low humidity.

One last thing, here are links to our last couple of days of Huskies coverage in case you missed it in the paper.

Well, off to the dome. I’ll check back in before and during the game.