College GameDay has yet to enable Syracuse football to host the widely popular ESPN pre-game show, and 2020 looks bleak at best.
Barring an unprecedented circumstance, don’t count on ESPN’s College GameDay paying a visit to Syracuse football in 2020.
The Orange had a legit chance to welcome the immensely popular pre-game show to the Hill in 2019 when the ‘Cuse played Clemson, but unfortunately Syracuse football got absolutely crushed by Maryland the week before. That instead led College GameDay to Ames, Iowa, for a match-up between Iowa State and Iowa.
Looking ahead to the fall stanza, even though two of the Power Five conferences, the Big Ten and the Pac-12, aren’t suiting up, it’s still a virtual lock that the Orange will remain on the sidelines as far as College GameDay goes until at least 2021.
Brad Crawford of 247Sports notes that nine Power Five teams have never hosted College GameDay for football, and they are California, Duke, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, Rutgers, Syracuse football, Virginia and Wake Forest. You’ll notice that four of these nine groups are Atlantic Coast Conference members.
Crawford, in a separate article, projects where College GameDay will reside during every week of the upcoming term, assuming a fall campaign happens amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Unsurprisingly, the ‘Cuse isn’t featured in Crawford’s predictions. He does have several ACC clashes, though, including Miami at Louisville on Sept. 19, Notre Dame at Pittsburgh on Oct. 24, and Clemson at Notre Dame on Nov. 7.
Syracuse football will eventually host College GameDay, but it likely won’t occur this fall.
The dilemma for Syracuse football in landing College GameDay is two-fold. First and foremost, the Orange isn’t forecast by national and ACC pundits to put forth a particularly impressive 2020 season.
Some experts are thinking that the ‘Cuse will only win four, maybe five contests this fall. Reaching a bowl is a possibility, but far from certain.
Secondly, even if Syracuse football stuns the college football world and performs admirably this stanza, its home schedule is soft. All of its toughest foes come on the road – Clemson, Notre Dame, North Carolina, Louisville and Pittsburgh.
The Orange, meanwhile, will have Georgia Tech, Duke, Liberty, Wake Forest, Boston College and N.C. State come to the Carrier Dome. No disrespect to any of them, but I can’t imagine that College GameDay will feel super pumped about those encounters for Syracuse football in Central New York.
Oh well. There’s always 2021.