Needing a win to clinch a share of the Big East title in 2004, Syracuse was left with one final opportunity. The Orange traveled east to face its arch-nemesis, Boston College.

Both schools knew it would be the last time they would oppose one another as members of the same conference. BC was preparing to move to the ACC, something once considered at Syracuse. Four other Big East schools besides SU had filed a lawsuit against BC a month earlier.

Starting running back Damien Rhodes was injured in the first quarter and senior defensive back Diamond Ferri famously replaced him. Ferri rushed for two touchdowns, returned another on an interception and spoiled BC’s chance at the Big East’s BCS bid. SU routed the Eagles, 43-17, in another chapter in the storied series.

After that game, the Orange did not have a football rival for the first time in the modern era after similar traditions with Penn State, West Virginia, Miami (Fla.) and Boston College.

Oddly enough, two years later, SU is looking back at the Eagles for a series that could start by the end of the decade.

‘We’ll have an announcement about it very soon,’ SU Director of Athletics Daryl Gross said. ‘We’re talking about it.

‘I want to have a rival. Now I just gotta get a name for it.’

After Miami, Virginia Tech and BC left the Big East, which started football play in 1991, SU was stripped of two of its latest prestigious opponents.

The series with BC dates back to 1924, including a 1944 game at Fenway Park in Boston. Syracuse and Miami played nine times in a span of 19 years in the 1960s and 70s and then again as nationally ranked conference foes from 1991-2004.

West Virginia is still around in the Big East. The two have played each other every season but one since 1955.

But arguably Syracuse’s chief historic rival is Penn State. From 1922-1990, the two schools played every season but one- 68 games in 69 years – in the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference or as an independent. The only exception was in 1943 when SU football was suspended due to the war.

Now that’s a rivalry.

‘Anything in the East was a big game,’ former SU head coach and current radio color man Dick MacPherson said. ‘Then they traveled to prove that Eastern football could play with anyone.’

The former adversaries will renew for a one-time series in 2008-09. PSU will visit the Carrier Dome sometime during the 2008 season and the following year will host SU in the cavernous Beaver Stadium.

‘It isn’t going to be the same,’ MacPherson said. ‘When we were playing Penn State regularly they were not in the Big Ten conference. So now Syracuse will not be a big game for them and it will not be a big game for us.’

The long run of consecutive games played ended when Penn State and Syracuse began affiliations with the Big Ten and Big East respectively, in 1990-1991.

However, the other rivalries between Miami, West Virginia and Boston College were further facilitated because of conference affiliations. As members of the Big East, the three schools were near the top of the yearly conference standings.

In the new Big East, Syracuse is still looking to find its niche within the ever-changing landscape of rivalries. West Virginia and Pittsburgh have the Backyard Brawl, but with the addition of three new teams just a year ago, everything else is still to be decided.

‘We’re seeing the development stages of these rivalries,’ Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese said. ‘As I said a year ago, we’re going to need some time to develop these rivalries because they can only be developed by playing.’

In 1993, the Ben Schwartzwalder Trophy was introduced to the winner of the Syracuse-West Virginia game. The great Schwartzwalder coached from 1949-73 at SU – winning the school’s only national title in 1959 – but attended college at West Virginia. The Mountaineers have won the last four meetings, causing many around Syracuse football to forget about the trophy.

‘It runs in cycles,’ MacPherson said. ‘West Virginia will never replace Pitt and I don’t think Pitt will ever replace West Virginia. We just have to make sure we can compete with them.’

If the old rivalry with West Virginia isn’t at the forefront of people’s minds any longer, SU may turn to geographical rivals rather than historical. Most think either Connecticut or Rutgers could fill the role.

‘I think Connecticut is going to become a big rival with us,’ SU punter Brendan Carney said. ‘Because of recruiting territory, I think in the Northeast, most schools are going at it, trying to get the best players.’

Syracuse and UConn are bitter rivals in basketball, but to say a football rivalry exists is a stretch. UConn’s Division I-A football program is only five years old and the Huskies have been a member of the Big East for merely two seasons.

‘I think there’s a potential rivalry to have with Syracuse and with Rutgers,’ said UConn head coach Randy Edsall, a former SU assistant from 1980-90. ‘With those two teams I would think that because of a proximity standpoint and some of the things that have already happened through the basketball end of it.’

Tranghese admits the basis for a rival requires two winning teams and important games. Syracuse has never played in a meaningful game against neither UConn nor Rutgers.

‘I go back to Syracuse and Georgetown in basketball,’ Tranghese said. ‘They didn’t have a rivalry. All of a sudden they were both very good and they were playing in big games. I think what it’s going to take for rivalries to flourish, whether it’s Syracuse or not, they have to be involved in big, meaningful games.’

Syracuse has played in its share of important games against Boston College, Penn State, Miami and West Virginia. Whether the Orange can replicate its winning ways will go a long way in determining who will become Syracuse’s Big East rival and how long it will take.

Syracuse and BC appear to be a natural fit for a rivalry series.

With both schools lacking natural rivals in the future (BC associate athletic director Chris Cameron said the series with Notre Dame, considered to be BC’s largest rival, will end after 2010), both programs will come together again, not as Big East powerhouses, but this time as regional rivals.

Administrators at both schools are negotiating a series which would begin no earlier than 2008 and pit the former bitter conference foes in an annual end-of-the-year rivalry game, much like Syracuse’s contests of the past against Penn State, West Virginia and Miami.

‘We desire to have a rivalry game,’ Cameron said. ‘Geographically speaking and the fact we have a long, storied history with Syracuse, it would be very attractive.’

The impending agreement with Boston College assures the Orange of at least one rival, but with the challenges of conference scheduling, the non-conference series is anything but a certainty beyond the initial agreement.

Another solution for SU is to find a rival within the new Big East, perhaps based on geography.

But for one of the powers that be, SU head coach Greg Robinson could care less about with who Syracuse develops a nasty relationship.

‘When you are where we are, they’re all rivals to me,’ he said. ‘We’re ready to go right now.’

Published on August 31, 2006 at 12:00 pm