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Message: [QUOTE="leftytg, post: 1164543, member: 2651"] This section is spot on and well said. I find all the Baylor discussion interesting, and I, too, would love to see Syracuse follow a similar route and think there is something to learn from Baylor's example. That being said, there are a few things that are specific to Briles/Baylor that I believe are underappreciated. For one, Briles had been a head coach at the high school level in Texas for about 20 years, shaping and honing his system. That's a ton of reps and a ton of tinkering, and he's been better for it. For another, Briles was the president of the Texas High School Coaches Association and basically a legend among Texas high school coaches. While he certainly had to gradually build Baylor up, he had open doors to recruits and connections to find pieces to fit his system all throughout the talent rich state. What Baylor has done, and what Texas Tech has done now and then, is to be crystal clear on who they are, what they want to be, and the pieces they need to pull it off. Texas, Texas A&M, and OU get nearly all the elite recruits in Texas. If you are big AND fast you most likely are not going to Baylor or Tech. So you need to know what positive attributes you are looking for and what negative ones you can scheme around. That takes having a well thought out scheme, it takes doggedly recruiting for that scheme, it takes having a keen eye for talent, and it takes being a great teacher/developer of talent. Briles is/was all those things. Syracuse could hire a Briles and not have quite the same success, given the disparity between Texas and New York (or the whole northeast really) in high school talent. But Syracuse does have the Carrier Dome and a history of success. Finding and executing that system is paramount. I had high hopes for McDonald. For what it's worth, Briles went from high school coach to running backs coach at Texas Tech to head coach at Houston in the span of 3 years. I don't think Syracuse should be shy about finding someone who has identified and tested their football ideology at a low level of play. [/QUOTE]

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