2024 Spring Practice | Page 32 | Syracusefan.com

2024 Spring Practice

These guys put an amazing amount of time in football. You have to want them to do well. We have some great young men and leaders on this team. We have a bunch on both sides of the ball. This is so much fun and exciting. It’s going to be interesting to see who might portal after spring football.
 
I think Fran was key to Justin staying. He wasn’t staying for most coaches.
100%

There are some undertones to a few people commenting along the lines that a lot of the recruting is based on relationships previously built that he is porting over and that pipeline is going to dry up.

Well we retained virually every key/impact player that we needed to on both sides of the ball, and they all identified 1 reason. OG, LQA, Dan V, Wax, JB, Cinco, all OL, most DL, most DBs... following the most emabarassing bowl game ever, follwing a third of the season we ran a pewee offense with no functional QB. The reason? Coach Fran and everything he comes with.

I think people forget that his pipeline of talent that has followed him from Temple to Baylor to Rutgers to Georgia and now to Cuse, was all culivated the same way. 1 on Fran, and he wins people over at a super sonic rate.
 
Listening to guys like Barron and Villari, you get the feeling that a lot of the talent and leaders on last years team were more invested in the program and wanted to win more than Dino did.
My guess if we did not lose OG, GS, Peña, and our other top WR, Most of the Oline and key D starters we probably win 9 games. Call it bad luck or not recruiting enough depth but not too many teams win with a TE playing QB….Like what Fran is doing and the depth we are getting. Need a strong #2 QB, my main concern right now. Like having OG, Villari, Peña, Wax, Barron, Bailey, McDonald, Deuce, Allen, Clark, Smith , Sparrow, Perry, Jaquez, Jobity, Smith, Stonehouse, etc, We have a ton of proven talent back including linemen. Throw in the elite portal adds, freshman who can play we should be loaded this year
 
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Listening to guys like Barron and Villari, you get the feeling that a lot of the talent and leaders on last years team were more invested in the program and wanted to win more than Dino did.

Yeah an alarm went off for me when he Justin said something to the effect, that Fran wanted the same things as him and that’s to win and to play on Sundays


Wondering if we were all asleep at the wheel for a few years
 
Why did he have surgery for a hairline fracture?
Any time I've had a break, it was just immobilized.
It may mean that the space between where the bone was broken was farther apart than the surgeon was comfortable with to ensure quality and timely healing. Since the foot is made up of a bunch of small bones, casting may not work as well as it would on a long bone like a humerus or femur. I wonder if a non-athlete would have been put in an orthopedic boot and told to stay off it.
 
Yeah an alarm went off for me when he Justin said something to the effect, that Fran wanted the same things as him and that’s to win and to play on Sundays


Wondering if we were all asleep at the wheel for a few years
Things change over time. Perspectives change. Priorities change sometimes, too.

I think Dino wanted to do well at SU. And did everything that HE knew how to win at the highest level he could. I think that is every single person's intention when they take a job.

How they react to circumstances that they can control and maybe more important, things they can't control, will likely make or break how they're perceived and how much sustained success they have. I think the COVID year was a huge setback. I also think the fast-paced offense that had gotten us to become unique was offset by rule changes. He wasn't quick enough to adapt.

College-age kids have changed rapidly over time. They have a ton of power in this space. The way they communicate is completely different. Certain personality types are better suited to doing well in this landscape. Just because Justin Barron wasn't a fan or was going to leave if he returned, doesn't mean everyone hated him. I'm pretty sure Dino wanted all of his players to be successful. That's Barron projecting. Not necessarily fair.

Dino won 10 games as head coach at SU. His teams also made 3 bowl games in 8 years. Not great, but not horrific. This was also at a time when college football has made it much more difficult for a school like SU's to win consistently. Pasqualoni won 10 games 3 times, just once in his final 12 years. Coach Mac did it 2 times in 10 years. Marrone (for all the love he gets) never did it in a much less difficult conference. Shafer, Robinson, please.

I get that Fran Brown is exciting - I'm right there with everyone. I'm excited too. Extremely excited. And I'm not even a Babers fan necessarily - I thought it was time, just like a lot of others. But just because the end isn't great, doesn't mean Babers was terrible.
 
Yeah an alarm went off for me when he Justin said something to the effect, that Fran wanted the same things as him and that’s to win and to play on Sundays


Wondering if we were all asleep at the wheel for a few years
Have to think players reacted the same way we did to some of the game day decisions when we essentially admitted we couldn’t win.
 
Listening to guys like Barron and Villari, you get the feeling that a lot of the talent and leaders on last years team were more invested in the program and wanted to win more than Dino did.
I think unless a coach has experienced a ton of sucess that their message can get old after a while. Even a guy like Dabo is may be experiencing this at Clemson at this point. Dino simply ran out of steam in many areas. He built momemntum after 3 years and at best stalled out and at worst should have been fired after 5 years but that was the covid year. New coach, new approach, new enthusiasm for fanbase and program. Hopefully better times ahead for all involved.
 
Listening to guys like Barron and Villari, you get the feeling that a lot of the talent and leaders on last years team were more invested in the program and wanted to win more than Dino did.
It sounds that way to me as well. I was a pro-retaining Dino guy because I was terrified of how awful the team would look like if Wax, Villari, Barron, OG, Lequint, etc. all hit the portal because we hired the damn Holy Cross coach (which I cannot believe we were minutes away from doing in the first place). But it now sounds as though those guys would have left regardless. What a gift from the football gods that HCFB decided to go out and quite literally steal this job himself. He is everything this fanbase has wanted from a coach for decades thus far.
 
Have to think players reacted the same way we did to some of the game day decisions when we essentially admitted we couldn’t win.
I was thrilled when Dino came, but very frustrated when he appeared to give up a few times late in games. I would be shocked if Fran pulls the not using his timeouts at end of potentially winnable games that Dino did a few times.
 
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I was thrilled when Dino came, but very frustrated when he appeared to give up a few times late in games. I would be shocked if Fran pulls the not using his timeouts at end of games that Dino did a few times.

One of my biggest criticisms of Babers was the “giving up” just a bit early.

It sends a message to the team and not a good one
 

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