When Syracuse football coach Dino Babers runs out of the Carrier Dome tunnel before each game, he often turns his head and looks into the crowd.
Coaches must weigh all sorts of things. The direction the wind is going. The possibility of rain or snow. Where the sun is located. And how much any of that will change as the game goes on.
In these moments it often seems like Babers is calculating how big an edge the building is about to provide him. Will it be one of those memorable days when 45,000 fans under a Dome roof raise their voices and resemble 90,000? Or will it be a normal day when 20,000 simply sounds like 20,000?
This year, after playing last year’s home schedule with no fans in the stands thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, the Orange will be especially appreciative of everything its home field provides.
“I came here because of the Dome,” Babers said. “You’re looking for advantages and the home experience is an advantage. We had no advantage last year. You can say everybody else didn’t have an advantage either and that’s great. We love our advantage. We play to our advantage. It’s going to be exciting to get them back in the stands and for these young men – the major majority of whom are freshmen and redshirt freshmen -- to have an opportunity to play in front of Syracuse fans for the very first time.”
During last year’s pandemic season, no team in the ACC benefitted fully from its full home-field advantage. Every school had limitations in crowd size. Most games were played in a subdued environment.
The lack of a home crowd isn’t the reason Syracuse delivered a miserable season, the only team in the ACC with a single victory and one of two to win a solitary league game.
Still, there is reason to think Syracuse missed its crowd more than most.
The Orange debuted millions of dollars of renovations to an empty arena. They were one of three programs, along with Duke and Boston College, where restrictions meant a full year without a single family member or small group of students in attendance.
And by the time the season was four weeks old it was clear that all the Orange had left to play for was pride, and that they were in desperate need of a pick-me-up, the type that can sometimes come from banding together in front of a small group of loyal supporters.
“Every game we played it was a weird feeling,” Black said. “You’re trying to get ready for game day. You know you’re playing in front of zero fans. It’s, ‘How do I make this not feel like a glorified scrimmage?
“That’s something we thrive off, being in the Loud House and all this. We don’t have a dome for no reason. Just having the fans and running out the tunnel is something that gives me chills. You don’t realize it until it’s game day, the smoke is in front of the tunnel and the fans are roaring. It gets you pumped up to play and it makes you play better. You can’t let down your fans.”
It’s not hard to sympathize with a struggling team trying to stay motivated in that environment.
Defensive back Garrett Williams said a good crowd can impact a game early or late. A roaring crowd can help players wake up for the first quarter of a noon kickoff against a non-descript opponent. It can help exhausted players find a little extra energy late in the fourth or make a young opponent anxious.
Linebacker Mikel Jones is looking to the chaos that will come on third downs, a frenzied opponent trying to change plays against a wall of noise, keys clanging and voices screaming.
“Hearing the fans get fired on third down, then we make a stop and they get more fired up,” Jones said, when asked what he’s looking forward to most. “That brings energy and juice to the team. Keep the momentum going.”
Syracuse fans know the power the building has had to contribute to the program’s special moments, frequently boosting a roster unlikely to win on talent alone to surprising performances.
Most of the team’s major upsets in recent years have showcases an electric atmosphere, including home wins over ranked teams in three consecutive years from 2016 to 2018, some of the milestone moments of Babers’ tenure, something the Orange needs to capture once again.
“Sometimes in games, you need your adrenaline to start kicking,” Williams said. “When there’s no noise and you can hear every single coach on your team and the other team yelling, it’s hard to get your energy going. I can’t wait to have fans behind us at every game so the adrenaline is pumping and the environment goes back to the natural college football that everybody enjoys.”
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