Can Eric Dungey avoid the Syracuse Athlon cover curse?

DungI’m well aware of what much of the community here thinks of Athlon. But one of the bigger benchmarks of the offseason is the availability of their college football season preview magazine, and the team-specific covers that they sell. For those in the Central New York area, you’ll probably be able to find the Syracuse Orange-centric cover on shelves near you. For folks like myself, we have to order it online (if we so choose).

The decision around which athlete to feature may not seem like that big of a deal, and for the most part, it isn’t. Unless you’re Syracuse, of course, and you have a running string of terrible luck with these things.

So forgive me for panicking when I see Eric Dungey on the cover of the 2017 edition.

To recap SU’s “cursed” history with these:

Since 2014, no Orange player who’s been featured on the Athlon cover has completed the ensuing season. Terrel Hunt was featured in 2014, and fractured his fibula vs. Louisville (mid-way through the year). Ashton Broyld was the cover boy on 2015, only to be dismissed before the season started. Dungey was on last year’s cover and for the second straight year, failed to play in the season’s final three games.

For our sake, let’s hope this luck turns around. As we saw last year, things dropped off considerably for the Orange once Dungey went down vs. Clemson. We’d like to have him healthy and on the field for 12 games (at least) for once.