There has been some talk on these boards about the carrier dome and how some people think thay should play football outdoors. What everyones take.
I think they should keep the dome. There are no weather conditions to deal with for the players and the fans. Which improtant late in the season when there is 3 1/2 ft of snow on the ground, at least. Also if we got rid of the carrier dome we would need to build a new basketball arena (attendance #'s would Plummit) as well as a Football stadium. The carrier dome is only 27 years old. Archbold was almost 80. The dome will and should be around for a long time.
The dome needs more updates. They do not have enough screens to show replays and information from other games. Most of the seating is uncomfortable. I agree keep the dome and give it a facelift.
They need to find some way to enclose the basketball games more, it could get a lot louder there if they do. And I agree with JBig, the dome needs more facelifts. They've made some, but they need more.
I've always thought they should put the court in the middle of the field, and put seats all around the court, and close the upper level for basketball except for the big games when they could shatter all the records.
As for the Dome itself, I haven't been there in a few years so correct me if I'm wrong, but the outside is quite bland. I'm not sure what good changing that would do, but it's a thought anyway. On the inside, there is that whole climate control thing. If it's called Carrier, shouldn't it have A/C? Give every seat a cup holder. That'll probably require the seats to be redone, but if the seating is uncomfortable, that should happen anyway.
They should just put that blue curtain back up. They should only take it down when they know that they're going to set an attendance record or if they know that they sold enough tickets for those seats to be filled, they don't ever fill the "long range" seating anyways. I don't know who would want to watch a game from that angle. I agree that they should add chair back seating, I think Daryll Gross was thinking about putting in orange chair back seats. I read it in the paper a couple of years ago. And what about that student section ? It's like one huge blob of orange in one section. They should cut it in half and put it behind both baskets.
Since I am old enough to remember attending SU games a Archbold Stadium, I do have a basis for comparison. Archbold was a great place to watch a game. There is something to be said for playing on natural grass. I remember that stadium being a cold place to watch a game. Even when it was warmer outside, your arse always seemed to feel like you were sitting on a block of ice. The dome is a better venue. It clearly needs to be updated. Seating is uncomfortable and you always feel like you are sitting right on top of the guy next to you. They also need to improve the scoreboards.
Syracuse does not need a basketball only building. All they need to do is re-position the court, and bring additional seating closer to the action. They don't need an updated Manley Field House.
Somehow I feel that Syracuse isn’t getting the most out of their home court advantage by seating 20-30,000 in a 50,000 seat stadium. They need to do something, put up a big folding wall that encloses it more during the games.
Syracuse needs the Carrier Dome, especially when it comes to football. It's hard enough to recruit five-star athletes to cold weather colleges. When you look at USC and Pete Carroll, Urban Meyer at Florida, and Les Miles at LSU, not only are they great coaches, but they play in warm venues.
Syracuse should, however, upgrade the Carrier Dome and its facilities. Renovations would not be that difficult, especially to a school like Syracuse. The problem is not the Dome, it's the football team that plays in it.
Syracuse fans wanted Pasqualoni out, and boy did they get a change. Greg Robinson was supposed to take over for Pasqualoni and restore Syracuse football to prominance. No coach in Orange history had ever lost ten games in a season - Robinson has done it twice in three years. Robinson's career winning percentage at Syracuse is .200 - no Syracuse coach with more than two years on the job has compilied a losing record.
Syracuse fans were disgruntled with Pasqualoni in his last six years with the team posting a record of 39-33. I say that is looking pretty good right now.
