Unfortunately, we (the Syracuse football fanbase) are a pretty small group with a very focused shared characteristic -- We root for and love Syracuse football. Sometimes we posters have different opinions on various topics and that is great, because it gives us something to talk about and debate. We aren't Alabama fans, who can debate whether our team would beat various NFL teams. We aren't FSU fans, who can debate by how much we are going to beat Auburn to win the National Championship and whether any other team out there (Baylor, Oregon, Alabama) could stay within 20 points of us. We are Syracuse fans. We have to debate things like: which QB ought to be playing, which WRs deserve minutes, why isn't Jerome Smith getting more touches, why isn't Bristly Estime returning all punts and KOs. If there was no debate, there wouldn't be much to talk about.
There was nothing wrong with the OP's original post. He was excited by Estime being featured in the game. I was, too. He pointed out that he wanted Estime to be featured earlier this season, as did I, and there is nothing wrong with that. Yes, he pointed out that many of us respond to challenges of coaching decisions with "the coach knows best". That happens often on this board and I'm glad it does. Its good to have trust and to be able to trust in your team's coaching staff. Its also good to sometimes challenge the staff's decisions, because they aren't always correct. The responses range from: "thanks for stating the obvious" to "if you express enough opinions, you are bound to be correct once in a while" to "don't challenge the coaches decisions" and to a little bit of actual debate about the opinion offered. I'm thankful for Bnoro's post of "everyone here brings something to the board", which I took to include the original post and poster.
I started what I thought was a relatively innocuous topic a few weeks ago in the dead period between the end of season and the bowl game when there otherwise wasn't much to talk about in which I went back and assessed opinions offered about Nick Montana - QB of Tulane - and his performance for the year. I poked at SUTomcat for his opinion based on Montana's performance. The responses ranged from how dare I poke at the venerable Tom to what a ridiculous topic to I have no tact and am a jerk and finally to a little bit of actual debate over Montana's performance. I, for one, love reading Tom's "My take" after each game as they are very informative since I live several states away and don't get to home games often. Tom graciously and thankfully responded and it appeared at least to me that he had not taken offense that I went back to evaluate an opinion he had offered. He then offered some additional info and debate on Montana's performance. That is the way it should be. He didn't scoff at the fact someone challenged his opinion. He didn't respond that I was a jerk.
Everyone here does bring something to the board. If you don't agree with an opinion, you counter it or you ignore it. If you don't think the topic is worth the original post, by all means, don't read it but there is no need to respond to it to say that you think its a stupid topic.
