Apparently this is supposed to be the best time of the year in sports.

The college football season is in full swing, the NFL is thriving and the baseball playoffs are underway.

Great time to be a sports fan.

Well, not for some in New York – including me.

Saturday’s game against Pittsburgh wasn’t ‘Turn Back the Clock Night’ at the Dome, but it might as well have been, as the Orange reverted to last year’s 1-10 form. The New York Yankees were eliminated from the playoffs after routs by the Detroit Tigers on Friday and Saturday. And the surprising Jets were embarrassed, 41-0, by Jacksonville.

A sports fan’s dream time? More like a nightmare – unless you like the Mets.

Coming into this weekend of demise, the Orange had won three straight games. It looked as if the program had turned the corner. But while the team has made slight progress, the winning streak was fool’s gold. It was all setting up a perfect heartbreak for the SU faithful.

The offense was sloppy and turnover-prone on Saturday. Yellow flags rained down on the Dome turf – SU picked up eight penalties and a bunch more that the Panthers declined.

Orange fans had selectively forgotten how painful some of the games last year were. Since shellackings at the hands of South Florida and Rutgers in 2005, performances this year against Miami (Ohio) and Wyoming inspired some locals to think football in Syracuse could be fun once again.

I, too, believed. I’m not giving up. Saturday was just an all too painful flashback to last year. It culminated when Perry Patterson’s fumble was recovered by Pitt with a little more than six minutes left and the game standing at 21-3.

Fans rushed for the exits as if the Dome was on fire.

Forget the fact that there were six minutes left and that the Orange would score two minutes later. The recurring nightmare was just too much.

And there were plenty of sports to watch with the day still early. Well, maybe I should have just slept in.

The Yankees faced the Tigers in Game 4 of the Division Series at 4 p.m. Down 2-1, this was the time for the Bronx Bombers to turn it around. But then, as the Yanks have seemed to do the past few years, they stalled and Detroit won.

New York scored three runs in the last two games of the series, two coming on a ninth inning home run to bring the last game within 8-3. This all came with arguably one of the best statistical lineups of all-time. It seems when October rolls around for some in that lineup, many Yankees look more like Devil Rays.

I should have paid attention to the omens of an unfortunate weekend that occurred on Thursday afternoon. A rainout on Wednesday forced me to miss Thursday afternoon’s rescheduled Yankee game. I decided to use my DVR to record the game. My three classes and quiz were perfectly set up to take up the whole entire game. I hoped to cut off all contact with the outside world so I could watch the recording as if it were live.

I turned off my phone at 1 p.m. (first pitch). I even recharged batteries for my mp3 player so I could block out noise. I made it through my first two classes with only overhearing someone saying that the Tigers were up 1-0. I walked to my third class, staying away from crowds as if I had some communicable disease. After class I popped my headphones in, only to hear Eminem cut out – my batteries apparently had been recharged one time too many. Yeah, maybe I should have been like everyone else and bought an iPod.

Miraculously, I found the bus to Drumlins and took it home. As soon as I stepped in the door to my apartment, I saw my roommate watching the next game on ESPN. And the exact second I step foot in the living room, a SportsCenter ’30 at 30 Update’ popped on, blaring that the Yankees had lost 4-3.

Such an unlucky occurrence should have told me the forecast for the weekend was bleak. Saturday, for Syracuse and Yankees fans, was not the time of the year in sports. Sunday didn’t turn out to be much better for Jets loyalists – and it might keep getting worse for each team.

It’s on painful weekends like this that I’m thankful I’m a New York Knicks fan.