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Message: [QUOTE="Orangeyes, post: 123427, member: 34"] There is and was a systemic problem on this team from the spring throughout the summer and through the season. The problems were many fold and extended to all positions on the field. It has been well documented that there was no one true leader on this team, period. The people who are normally leaders, the QB on offense, and possibly a guy like Chandler Jones, who arguably is our best defensive player when healthy, were not comfortable with those responsibilities. I harken to the NY football Giants, Super Bowl champs in 1987 & 1991, clearly Phil Simms the QB and Lawrence Taylor LB were the leaders. Look at any successful team you need leaders on both sides of the ball. When there are no leaders that is a [U]recipe for disaster[/U]. The 2011 Syracuse football team, as pointed out many times by HCDM, was very young, 55 freshmen & sophomores. Combine youth & no leaders and it's that [U]recipe for disaster[/U]. Back before spring practices I was getting reports from inside the program that too many players were living large. By that I mean acting like BMOC's, living off the glory of the bowl win and not focusing on the task at hand. They didn't have the eye of the tiger and were too much into partying and girls. I was hoping against hope that those observations were off base. The way the season ended with five straight losses points to the way you prepare is the way you play. Right after we beat West Virginia the reports started coming to me that the preseason pattern had returned. That there was dissension, I didn't want to believe it. I read a post on the board that said I don't see another win on the schedule, I thought that was ridiculous and I was almost right the next week. We were absolutely handling Rutgers all over the field, at one point I calculated the score should have been 26-3 in our favor. When Antwan Bailey fumbled the ball in the red zone little did we know that that one play would be our last great chance of becoming bowl eligible. Pittsburgh was our last chance and so what happens, we learn that Mikhail Marinovich and Adonis Ameen-Moore are out with injuries, Phillip Thomas has been suspended for a year, Keon Lyn has been sent home for an undisclosed team violation. We were already without Tyson Gulley who had two injuries sustained, non-football related earlier in the season. We get behind 10-0 before our seats were warm. We go on to have 10, count em 10 freaking penalties and commit 6 ghastly turnovers in the biggest game of the season. I'm a firm believer that you will only finish as strong as you start. I'm not talking about the Wake Forest game I go all the way back to the attitude this team started with post Pinstripe which continued throughout the season. If you want to blame all of this on the two dismissed coaches that is your prerogative, I feel the blame should be shared equally by all parties involved. [/QUOTE]

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