and will surround himself with some quality people. Maybe we don't get to six wins next year, but it was a rebuilding year anyways. Time to put faith in Shafer and move on.
Believe press conference is tomorrow; here is link to his extended and very revealing 2009 introductory
press conference as DC.
SS was a QB in high school and college. His son is currently a QB at high school.
He has high level experience working as DC at Stanford with Jim Harbaugh. He also had the opportunity to work at UMichigan with RR where he came to learn a valuable lesson: its about the game and the people more than the "place". (See video) He studies college offenses for a living: he has seen the SU offense evolve these last 4 years;
there is very little doubt that he appreciates the importance of a dynamic and fast pace offense, based on player development.
My impression is that SS has a lot of intensity and smarts and solid experience and absolutely stresses character and the game; his focus is attitude and player development; most importantly, as has been repeatedly posted, players want to play for him; he runs a fast pace, aggressive, attacking system; he wants to win and isn't hung up on "statistics" or large unmanagable "playbooks that don't work.
In the video, my impression is DM comes off as a huge "stiff" compared with SS; and I'll go out on a limb and say SS has a lot more upside in recruiting talented players and developing talented players over the long run than DM.
This last year was a great success offensively for SU: however, does that make DM an offensive genius? Trying to remember his first OC who ended up being fired; as another poster mentioned, maybe a senior QB and a full roster and improved recruiting and better assistant coaches with competitive salaries had something to do with the success last year.
My guess is that Thursday, SS will reassure a lot of fans and players and recruits and that reassurance will continue with the team meeting Sunday.
