Steve and Lynn Clark have made the 70-mile trip from their home in Remsen, N.Y. to see Syracuse football for the past 15 years. They saw every one of Paul Pasqualoni’s winning seasons – including 11 in a row from 1991 to 2001. They marveled at such talents as Donovan McNabb, Dwight Freeney and Marvin Harrison.

And they witnessed 1-10 firsthand.

So when quizzed about the chances the Orange has of recovering from the worst season in school history, the Clarks are a bit hesitant to proclaim progress in the current Orange. At least half of the tandem is.

‘Whaddya expect for this season?’ Lynn asked her husband.

‘I think they’ll be better,’ Steve said.

‘Well, you hope, but what are your expectations?’

‘They could win five or six this season.’

‘Yeah, but do you feel it? I think after all the years that we’ve been going, it just keeps getting worse and worse and my expectations get lower and lower,’ said Mrs. Clark.

The Clarks may eventually agree on a prediction for Orange football in 2006, but they aren’t alone in their indecisiveness. Expectations are set at the lowest bar ever and just about the only thing fans can see eye to eye on is that SU football can only get better.

‘Can’t do any worse, right?’ asked Pete Tamurian of East Syracuse.

True. An 0-12 campaign in 2006 seems far out of the realm of possibility. Yet coming off of the disaster that was 2005, many attending Wednesday’s practice – which was open to the public and held at night – shared a sense of cautious optimism.

‘Robinson’s got another year under his belt,’ said Tamurian. ‘The players have another year in the system, he knows his players by now. Given that, I think they’re good for three or four wins. So there’s reason to be excited.’

But unfortunately for Greg Robinson and the rest of the Orange, three to four wins probably won’t satisfy the majority of the fan base. Robinson may not use wins as the current scale to count improvement, but his message to the fans before practice was clear.

‘This is a better football team than a year ago at this time,’ Robinson said to members of the media before practice with fans gathering around to listen.

‘There’s people who are skeptical because they don’t want their hearts broken. That’s understandable. But at the same time, they want to buy in.’

Chase Morgan of Manlius is one of those fans. He goes to three home games a year, but considers himself a passionate supporter of the Orange. On the other hand, he’s upset about the rest of his brethren.

Morgan is content with SU taking baby steps toward improvement and said a few more wins in 2006 would please him – but not most of the faithful.

‘I’m a little critical of the fans,’ Morgan said. ‘I don’t think the fans here are very enthusiastic. They’re fair-weather.’

Tom Frost, an undeclared freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences, has modest expectations for the coming season because he’s yet to see a game live. But he knows plenty about what transpired in 2005, despite not being on campus.

‘They’ve got to be better than last season,’ said Frost. ‘Even if they only win three or four games, it’s progress. There are still reasons to be excited.’

Fair-weathered, leery, pessimistic or first-timers, SU Director of Athletics Daryl Gross could care less what type of fans cheer for the Orange. He just wants to see them in the bleachers at the Carrier Dome – especially for the home opener against Iowa, on Sept. 9.

‘Iowa is a great football team,’ Gross said. ‘It’s one of those things. They are as good as Notre Dame when they came in here (in 2003), if not better. And Syracuse beat the heck out of them.

‘It’s a great opportunity to get your program up and running. I think people need to be there.’

Gross would not detail specifics in terms of the amount of tickets sold for the Iowa game, or season ticket sales for that matter. Last year’s home opener against West Virginia was the largest to see a SU home opener since 1999 with 45,418 fans.

‘We understand we were 1-10 last year so we’re not going to try to feel that we can sell out every game,’ Gross said. ‘It’s slow growth. We start a week later at home than we did last year so it’s hard to compare this year to last year. I understand people want to wait and see.’

Of course, SU also raised ticket prices during the off season, which could influence how many people actually see the Orange live.

Student season tickets increased by $17 and will cost $97 in 2006. Adult season tickets went up from $168 to $180 and single-game tickets increased to $35, three more expensive than last season.

For the Iowa game, adult tickets will cost $40.

‘After 1-10, that was a little surprising for them to raise tickets,’ said Morgan.

Actually, it isn’t the first time SU has raised ticket prices after a disappointing season. Following a 4-8 season in 2002, the first sub-.500 season since 1986, ticket prices per game increased $3.44 on average. Back then, students paid $11.43 per game.

Lynn Clark is peeved by this year’s hike, but she’s glad the money is going to a noticeable area. ‘I thought that was kind of nervy,’ said Clark. ‘But they fixed the place up so that didn’t bother me that much.’

In addition to the aesthetic improvements implemented last year to the Dome, Gross replaced the old championship banners with new, colored billboards at the top of the stadium.

New banners, new uniforms (again), new players and coaches have incited small pockets of optimism among the fan base, but Robinson thinks everything is premature until the first kickoff.

‘They want to see the product,’ he said. ‘That’s what we have to do. We have to provide that. And when we do, it’s going to be an exciting thing around here.’

The Clarks have asked ‘when’ and ‘if’ countless times over the past 15 seasons.

‘I’m a pessimist because it’s been so long,’ Lynn Clark said. ‘It’s very depressing.’

The couple renewed their season tickets and they will be in the bleachers for every game – the 16th season in a row. Lynn may be a pessimist, but she likes Perry Patterson and she jumped at the chance to offer advice on the X’s and O’s.

‘They just have to give him some receivers and he’ll be fine,’ she said.

Hope springs eternal, and even the most extreme pessimists can shed some doubt.

After all, they did make the hour and a half drive to see a preseason practice.

Published on August 27, 2006 at 12:00 pm