Syracuse, N.Y. -- Syracuse University has been planning for months as if the school will be able to allow full attendance in the Carrier Dome during this coming football season.
Two recent announcements from New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo make that result appear very likely.
Cuomo announced on Monday that he will allow the New York State Fair to operate at 100 percent capacity. On Tuesday, he announced that 70 percent of adults in the state had received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine, a threshold that resulted in a number of restrictions on businesses being removed.
The state is currently maintaining some restrictions on large-scale indoor event venues, defined as spaces that hold more than 5,000 people and even those spaces can reach 100 percent capacity with certain procedures in place. Those spaces must be able to ensure fans are either vaccinated or, if not, require a negative test result and enforce masking for those individuals.
All of that, Syracuse athletic director John Wildhack said during a press conference on Tuesday that, means that with just under months to go until the year’s first home football game things are trending in an optimistic direction for a football season without substantial attendance restrictions.
“It’s obviously great news, right?,” Wildhack said. “It’s great news for our community, great in terms of the economic impact to our area. ... We don’t know yet whether, and we’ll take guidance from the state department of health and Onondaga County, whether we’re in the clear to have 100 percent attendance in the Dome. But when you see those two announcements on consecutive days, that’s nothing but positive, positive news in terms of full capacity in the fall.”
A number of schools have announced in recent weeks that they will have no capacity restrictions for the coming season including Virginia Tech, Illinois and Arizona, while others like Connecticut and South Carolina have indicated they are planning for full capacity seasons.
Wildhack suggested that one things fans could do to try to ensure a full capacity season was continue to get vaccinated and help the local community hit the 70 percent threshold.
“The way people can control their own destiny and ensure we have full capacity is to get vaccinated,” Wildhack said. “The county gave us numbers today. Sixty-five percent of residents in Onondaga County have received at least one dose of the vaccine. If we can get that over 70 percent, that will help our cause.”
The athletic director said he expects to have conversations about what Syracuse will do regarding proof of vaccination and testing requirements but that no determination has been made at this point.
During the lacrosse season, the school opened the Carrier Dome to a limited number of fans and required proof of a negative test in order to attend.
“We haven’t had those conversations yet,” Wildhack said. “I think ultimately we will. That’s why I said in the beginning the best way to have a full Dome is to get vaccinated. For lacrosse we had fans show proof of a negative COVID test within 24 hours. We may, I want to stress may, utilize that again. I don’t want to commit to a policy now since we have almost 90 days to our first home game.
“Let’s see how COVID continues to evolve and let’s see what continued progress we make in the fight against COVID. Then we’ll be in better position to define a comprehensive policy.”
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