Dowayne Davis’ neighborhood in the Bronx doesn’t exactly catch football fever every Friday night, but Davis cherished those nights more than anything during his high school playing days.

‘Friday night lights – there’s nothing better than that,’ the Syracuse strong safety said. ‘I definitely have fond memories playing under the lights.’

Those memories have been pouring back to Davis as he and his Orange teammates prepare for their season opener against Washington at 8 p.m. Friday at the Carrier Dome. The game marks the first time in Dome history Syracuse is playing a Friday night home date.

It took a unique set of circumstances for SU officials to agree to ESPN’s request for the weeknight home game. The Orange football staff doesn’t mind playing on a weeknight, but Syracuse traditionally has opposed that arrangement because of the logistical challenges it presents to other university officials, as well as academic ones to players.

‘As far as being a member of the Big East, this was one of those times where we said, ‘OK, everyone else has done their Wednesday, Thursday, Friday games,’ SU director of athletics Daryl Gross said. ‘If we were ever going to do it, this was the time to do it.’

ESPN’s contract with the Big East allows the network to request that schools bump their home games from a Saturday to a weekday, but Syracuse has turned down many of these requests over the years, Gross said.

Syracuse last played on a weekday when it traveled to Connecticut on a Friday night during the 2005 season, a 26-7 loss. The Orange hasn’t suited up for a weekday home game since it lost to West Virginia on Thanksgiving Day in 1989. Pro football Hall of Famer Jim Brown hadn’t even joined the Orange the last time it played a Friday home game – an October 1953 clash against Boston University at the old Archbold Stadium.

SU’s opposition to weekday home games doesn’t come from the football team.

‘I don’t know that teams struggle much with playing on Friday night,’ said Syracuse head coach Greg Robinson. ‘I think it’s part of the game. It’s no different than in pro football – you’ve got Monday night games, and periodically you’ve got a Thursday night game. You adjust to it and make it work.’

Instead, it is SU’s athletics department that has shied away from weekday home games because of its long-standing philosophy that athletes should have their academic careers disrupted by sports as seldom as possible.

Davis said many of his teammates try not to schedule classes on Fridays, since the team usually leaves a day early for Saturday games. But players who do miss classes due to football commitments usually scramble to catch up on what they’ve missed.

‘You might think, ‘Yeah, you get to miss classes,” Davis said. ‘You’ve got to go meet your professor. You’ve got to meet with your group. You’ve got to go make up that work that you missed. You’ve got to get the notes that you missed – things like that. Sometimes, it might be more annoying than it is good.’

Gross said his department agreed to make an exception this time around because playing a Friday contest during the first week of school wouldn’t wreak much havoc on the players’ academics. They also have the Labor Day holiday on Monday to catch up on missed work, if needed.

University officials ultimately decided those potential setbacks paled in comparison to a chance for the Orange to appear in a nationally televised game, with an accompanying boost to its athletics budget.

‘I love this Friday thing,’ running back Curtis Brinkley said. ‘Syracuse gets a chance to introduce itself to everybody nationally.’

SU’s stiffest challenge in hosting the game Friday will come in the form of parking and traffic issues.

Before each athletic event at the Dome, director of parking and transit services Al Sauer and his staff usually hold an informal briefing with other university officials and confirm that, ‘Yup, we’re good to go,’ Sauer said. This time, though, Sauer has met with other officials at least five times to make sure things go smoothly Friday.

The problem is that fans usually start trickling into the SU campus around five hours before kickoff on Saturday games, but the university business day ends only at 5 p.m. or later Friday.

This means ushers will have to direct fans to parking lots around the Dome at the same time cars are clearing out. This is a process Sauer’s department has no way of truly preparing for, even if it is bolstering its 47-strong staff by hiring 30 to 40 temporary ushers and stationing them around the various parking lots Friday.

‘That will certainly put a little twist in the traffic and cause delays,’ Sauer said. ‘Traffic will be a little slow, and there will congestion in several areas because we’ll have a lot of people coming to the campus when folks are leaving.’

To make things a little more complicated, Sauer will also have fewer Centro buses than the usual 55 to 65 at his disposal to ferry fans from the Manley Field House parking lots to the Dome. SU could get only 45 buses for Friday’s game because Centro already had committed other buses to ferry passengers from downtown Syracuse to the New York State Fair.

‘That will add a few minutes to a normal wait time, but on a nice night with good weather, it will be probably unnoticeable to most people,’ Sauer said. ‘We would have taken more if we could have to reduce the postgame weight, but we have what we have to work with.’

With these additional dynamics involved in hosting a weekday football game, Gross said he doesn’t foresee SU agreeing to another one in the near future.

As much as Davis and his teammates may love Friday night football, Saturday afternoons remain the most feasible option for the Orange.

Said Gross: ‘Saturday football still works.’

Published on August 29, 2007 at 12:00 pm