Just let Syracuse football fans wear plenty of 'Orange'

The university wants what it terms a "WHITE OUT" in the Dome for Friday night's meeting against FCS foe Colgate. SU is encouraging fans to wear anything white. We say, no need. With blue Dome seats any color BUT white fits in better aesthetically, especially orange, when watching in person or the game broadcast.

September 7, 2024; Syracuse, New York, USA; Spectators enter the JMA Wireless Dome prior to Syracuse's ACC opener against Georgia Tech. Mandatory Credit: Brad Bierman, The Juice Online-On SI / | Brad Bierman, The Juice Online-On SI

On Wednesday, the university's athletics promotional arm let everyone know that Friday night's game against longtime upstate New York opponent Colgate (68 meetings since 1871) will be a "WHITE OUT." There were even suggestions of various attire to choose from, and where to shop online.

With such short notice to get word out, it will be hard to gain a lot of momentum, but is it even a great promotion to begin with?

Blue seats contrast with too much white

Notice we did not even mention the color orange yet?

While we certainly applaud the folks behind the scenes with athletics promotion, after all they have a hard job to do even with winning teams, coming up with fun and creative ideas for six home football games and a ton more basketball and lacrosse contests.

But a "WHITE OUT" is not the way to go in the Dome.

With permanent blue seats, a white roof and plenty of orange trim everywhere, the only "OUT" that makes sense in the building is an "ORANGE OUT." For example, we have been advocating to both Jim Boeheim and Adrian Autry since SU joined the ACC to one season have an "ORANGE OUT" when either Duke or North Carolina came to town.

That would include wearing the team's orange road jerseys at home, against contrasting road shades of blue from Duke/North Carolina to not only create a pleasant-looking color-on-color matchup, but most importantly match the same color that the large Dome crowd would have been told to wear to the game - orange - weeks in advance, not days prior to the contest.

But Coach Boeheim was always old-school about uniforms (white at home, orange on the road), and Coach Red has had more to worry about than what color uniforms his team wears for a specific home game.

Coach Fran is old-school about uniforms, too

It is one of those small details we admire with the head coach, sticking to traditional home and away uniforms a la Dick MacPherson and Paul Pasqualoni (for the most part).

So, as usual the 'Cuse will come out Friday night in its blue home jerseys with orange helmets and pants, the jerseys not matching the white (Does 'Cuse Nation even own a lot of white SU merch?) the crowd will be encouraged to don

But we do have an idea that maybe even Coach Fran would approve. For the North Carolina game on October 31 with a 7:30 p.m. kickoff on Halloween evening, the Orange should come out in all-orange for this one game, and encourage Bill Belichick to bring his UNC team into the building in all-Carolina blue.

That would be a striking contrast in front of a souped-up, large Dome crowd.

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