The central question to file away: If every Power 5 job came open tomorrow, which would be the most desirable? On the other side, which would be least appealing? (And everything in between.)
Though each coach sees things differently -- that's why it's such a subjective, hot-button topic for debate -- the criteria is roughly the same.
The list includes location, administrative stability, support from those bosses, facilities, recruiting base, path to conference titles/playoff, sense of tradition, fervor of fan base, too much fervor from a fan base ...
We hope and believe we have provided an intelligent and accurate overview of the jobs in college football, from worst to best.
While these would be the factors I would use at assessing the strength of the HC job (I would also factor in salary), I don't see how they were used properly in our case. Who cares if it's cold in Syracuse? The whole northern part of the country is cold. Plus we play inside a Dome, and now have the ability to practice inside. So while I don't really argue against the ranking, their reasoning was an epic fail.
Just for fun i'm going to take these factors and give us a ranking on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being worst, 10 best, and 5 national average. I will also add in max salary all things considered.
3 - Location - While Syracuse, NY isn't Tempe Arizona, Los Angelas California, or Austin Texas, it's neither Stillwater, Oklahoma, Starksville, Mississippi, or Waco Texas. Sure we get a bad rep because of the cold and snowy winters, but at least it's a 10 minute drive from the airport. Some of these campuses in the middle of no where are a 2 hour drive from the closest airport. Not to mention Syracuse isn't some college town where the best place to eat out is the local pizza pad.
4 - Administrative stability - This could be higher, but I think we are going to be seeing a shake up very soon. Ironically, this may effect Syracuse in the near future, but I still don't see this as a major factor in determining strength of the job.
3 - Support from the bosses - I'm also factoring in effectiveness of AD. During TGD's time this has been hit or miss. What TGD can hang his hat on is bringing our facilities back to respectability. I admit that was huge, but basically everything else has been sub-par. Everything from ticket pricing structure to assistants salary pool is handled poorly.
4 - Facilities - This is up from a 1 before Gross took over. With the completion of the IPF i'd say we are now on par, or middle of the pack in the ACC, but still below average nationally. We have the meat and potatoes, but lack the bells and whistles. I'm not saying that having a waterfall in the middle of your locker room will make you a better player, but recruits like that stuff. And no, i'm not saying we need that. I'm just showing an example of the bells and whistles.
2 - Recruiting base - Our biggest weakness is probably the most important. While we do have surrounding states with very fertile recruiting grounds, it's not our state, and multiple other programs lay claim to the territory. NJ, PA, and OH are 4 hours from campus, which isn't really an easy drive.
2 - Path to conference title/national title - This is so far out of our grasp that it's hard to even conceive. Just to win our division in any given year we have to be prepared to win at either Clemson or FSU, as well as beating Louisville. And with the way FSU, and Clemson have been recruiting recently (along with huge facility upgrades) neither program should be falling off anytime soon.
8 - Sense of tradition - This is probably our biggest strength, and something we do a great job of portraying. Despite having an up and down past we have a lot of history to sell. First African-American Heisman, legend of #44 (please un-retire), NFL HOF'ers, etc. Eventually we are going to have to create some more recent success, but for now we do a great job of displaying the Syracuse tradition.
3 - Fervor of fanbase/too much fervor - While we don't have to worry about the latter, we do need some work on the former. It's amazing what a 4 year reign of terror could do to a fanbase, but the brand was getting a bit stale before that. There is a solid core of 25k fans that aren't going anywhere, but recently our gameday atmosphere absolutely sucks. It's too bad too because we could create a huge home field advantage with the Dome. I would rank this lower, but you don't have to look further than our own conference to see some fanbases that are even worse.
2 - HC salary/assistant salary pool - Not basing this one Shafer's current salary, but what we would be willing to pay if it came down to it. This is mainly a guess, but I don't see us going over $3m, and that's probably a mil too steep. It's tough when coordinators in our own division are making a decent amount more than our own HC.
