Staff

Freshman move-in day at Syracuse: arguably one of the most monumental days you’ll ever live.  Given the chance, most people would gladly go back in a time machine to this very day.  It’s the day you meet your roommates, your floormates, and for most, the people who you will talk Syracuse football with for the rest of your lives.

Move-in day is a day for optimism.  On this day, the birds are out, the quad is bustling, the coeds are plentiful, and the beer is being sold to students of all ages.  

Move-in day also marks a collegiate rite of passage:  the right to your first on-campus college football experience.  So in honor of the class of 2014 moving into dorm rooms across the Hill, Otto’s Army looks back at their freshman year, pondering the following question:

What was your first memory of Syracuse football as a freshman?

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Steve Schaefer, Otto’s Army

I was full of hope for the Syracuse football team when I moved into Brewster Hall in August 2002, and why wouldn’t I be? Sure the program had lost some of its luster – and more importantly Dwight Freeney – but the Orangemen were coming off a 10-3 season and a bowl victory.

The first Thursday of classes a group of us gathered in the basement of Brewster-Boland, which may or may not still exist but at the time featured the laundry room, a small food court, a convenience store and a recreation area with a few exercise machines, a wall-mounted TV (not a flat-screen, don’t be silly) and space for a few people to sit. For reasons that escape me, a group of us watched the game down there instead of in our rooms. Syracuse hung tough with BYU in Provo for three quarters, but early in the fourth a long TD pass stretched the deficit to 33-21 and things have gone mostly downhill in the 8 years since.

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Tim Schlittner, Otto’s Army

It was the Thursday night before Labor Day 1999. Dave Cooperman, his roommate (Syracuse Dilf), and I picked up Natural Lights from the corner store. We brought them back into Brewster-Boland in duffel bags. Dave’s split double was the venue for our first football game as students. It was an impressive 35-12 road win over a lousy Toledo team. Optimism was generally high.

The Syracuse program had just beaten Michigan in the Big House, slaughtered Miami at the Carrier Dome, and made the Orange Bowl a year earlier. Troy Nunes’ first game at quarterback was impressive, and it looked like we had a decent successor to Dononvan McNabb. That night, everyone began looking ahead to the rematch with Michigan where Nunes would make the most memorable play of his career, one that lives in infamy. We celebrated the win down at the Bo-1 suite with Bash, Joey Q, Bathmat, Bennett, BGM, Scott Anchin, Beefy Noodles, Mookie, and the trolls.

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Dave Cooperman, Otto’s Army

When I arrived at Syracuse in the fall of 1999, I had visions of football glory and Saturdays spent in the Carrier Dome enjoying the successes of my new football team.  Obviously things didn’t quite go according to plan.

My first memory was not the opener or even the first game I attended in the Carrier Dome, but the morning that the #6 Michigan Wolverines came to town.  I got up early that Saturday, pretty much because I wasn’t yet sure where I was supposed to be going on Friday nights and the Euclid party I was at probably ran out of beer.  I walked through campus and down to Marshall St. and there was a feeling in the air that I have not been able to replicate for a football game at Syracuse since then.  Every possible parking lot was packed with tailgaters.  The RV’s with their Michigan flags were everywhere. 

As I made my way to Brueggers, it would have been impossible to convince me that I was not standing in the epicenter of the college football world.  For anyone who partly chose a college for their athletics, this felt like the payoff (of course the real payoff came four years later in 2003). 

Syracuse lost that day 18-13.  Shockingly Troy Nunes just wasn’t able to outperform some dude named Tom Brady.  What felt like the beginning of the beginning was actually the beginning of the end.

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Brandon Matthews, Otto’s Army

The first thing I remember about Syracuse football is that Leon Washington is really fast. Packed into the Carrier Dome, I watched the 2005 Orange take a close game into the second half with Florida State. In one burst, tens of thousands of Syracuse fans watched Leon Washington rumble for a game winning score. That’s when I realized we just weren’t at that level. Oh yeah, and the seven tries from Iowa’s one yard line. Boy that freshman year was rough.

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Tom Sullivan, Otto’s Army

Without a doubt it was the site of the University of Michigan team equipment 18-wheel truck sitting perched atop the knoll against the west side of the Carrier Dome (the side that faces toward I-81) the week leading up to the showdown with the Wolverines. If I remember correctly it was the second home game for Syracuse in 1999, my freshman year. The vibe on campus all week was amazing, especially for a wide-eyed freshman who had been on a college campus for all but three weeks at that point. And nothing embodied the major college football atmosphere that permeated the campus and town more than that 80 foot semi painted in maize and blue in the same pattern as the Wolverines wear on their helmets. I’d love to say it was sickening but really it was just awe inspiring.

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Euclid 419er, Otto’s Army

September 18, 1999. TLC topped the charts by feeling so damn Unpretty.  Martin Lawrence tickled audiences as a con-posing-as-cop in the hit film “Blue Streak.”  The Dow Jones was hovering above 11,100.  And a young and innocent boy, enjoying his first weeks on the Syracuse campus, was ready for his Orangeman to kick a little Maize ‘n Blue ass.  One of the amazing things about those first few weeks of college is that you get to create a whole new identity.  Nobody knows a thing about you. In those first few weeks, there is a leadership vacuum and those brave enough to fill it will likely be followed until the fruits of their judgment determine otherwise.
 
I made the suggestion to several of my fellow Brew 5 hall-mates that it would be a good idea to paint our chests in an homage to Syracuse’s current running back du jour, Dee Brown.  Being none the wiser, everyone thought it was a swell idea.  Having been elected to a leadership post in the BB residence hall government entity “Pride Rock”, I had unfettered access to the supply closet.  I pilfered some blue and orange paint and headed up to my room where my cohorts awaited.  With my Rage Against the Machine posters smiling down on us, the six of us removed our shirts and had a corresponding “D-B-R-O-W-N” painted on our chests.  We were proud of our work and decided to immortalize the moment with a picture.  There we were – six freshman guys, shirtless, chests-painted, each with an average weight of 120 lbs soaking wet, in the middle of the BB plaza convinced we were embodying the pinnacle of Syracuse fandom. 
 
Suffice it to say, September 18th, 1999 was the both the first and last example of my Syracuse football gameday leadership

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