sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
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- Aug 15, 2011
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SU News
David Moore is a Name to Remember
What's Next at QB for SU After Anthony Brown? (sujuiceonline.com; Auger)
After landing a commitment from 4-star running back Robert Washington a little over a month ago, business has yet to pick up on the recruiting trail for Scott Shafer and his staff in the form of verbal commitments.
That trend continued as QB Anthony Brown out of St. John Vianney Regional High School in New Jersey recently pledged to Boston College over the Orange. Syracuse, specifically Coach Bobby Acosta, has made great strides over the past couple of years to re-open the New Jersey recruiting pipeline it used to enjoy before Rutgers’ ascension to mediocrity coincided with the hiring of He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named and his swift capsizing of the S.S. Orange. The loss of Brown hurts the Orange in multiple ways.
Syracuse competes not only against BC and Rutgers but also Pittsburgh for players in the Northeast corridor. Losing a recruit to one of those three schools, especially ACC conference foes BC and Pitt, strengthens a competitor while hurting its program at the same time.
The Orange had informed Brown that he was their top quarterback target for the 2016 class. Brown also trains with former Syracuse signal caller Madei Williams. Brown still picked BC despite two factors that would’ve seemed to give Syracuse an edge.
» Related: What is the significance of Syracuse football restoring 44?
The bigger question now for Syracuse is where does it go from here? Senior Terrel Hunt is firmly entrenched as the starter heading into the season. Reserves Austin Wilson and A.J. Long both struggled mightily last year after Hunt was lost for the season with a leg injury. In fairness to both, the offensive line was decimated with injuries and two players Shafer counted on to help move the chains, Ashton Broyld and Brisly Estime, missed a combined 16 games. Wilson and Long were both sitting ducks with the Orange’s anemic offense stuck in the mud. Syracuse signed two QBs with the 2015 class in Eric Dungey of Oregon and Kenterius Womack from Alabama.
...
How Have Previous Orange Head Coaches Fared in Year Three? (TNIAAM; Cassillo)
Syracuse's Scott Shafer has already started his third season as the Orange head coach, for all intents and purposes. And while SU fans are a bit mixed on how he's done to this point (10-15, one bowl win), there's still at least one more fall to rewrite the prevailing narrative.
While that third season is a complete unknown for Shafer, though, we can at least look at previous Orange head men to see how they fared in that critical year -- and whether that set them up for future success.
Doug Marrone (2011): 5-7, no postseason
Boy, did we hate this season... and for good reason. A 5-2 start for the Orange featured two awful games (Wake Forest, Toledo) that were harbingers of terrible things to come, but a monster victory over West Virginia made us think SU was bound for great things. They weren't, obviously, since they lost the rest of the games on the schedule. Marrone had some leeway after rescuing Syracuse from the depths of the GERG era, so his job was never in danger. He would proceed to bounce back in a big way in 2012.
Greg GERG Robinson (2007): 2-10, no postseason
Following a combined 5-18 record in his first two seasons, you'd think GERG was on a very short leash in year three. Not the case at all, as we (unfortunately) learned in a disaster-filled 2007 campaign. SU has recorded double-digit losses just twice in program history, and not coincidentally, twice under Robinson. Though he did nothing to earn a fourth year, DOC wanted to avoid a larger buyout and make himself look less terrible for this hire. So "hooray" on the larger buyout.
Paul Pasqualoni (1993): 6-4-1, no postseason
Two seasons of hanging around the national top 10 (sobs) were followed up by a pretty rough season of football -- by then-recent Syracuse standards. The fall from 10 wins would represent a two-year struggle before Donovan McNabb arrived on campus, but overall, this 1993 season did very little to change Coach P's legacy or trajectory. This and the subsequent 1994 squad were the only two Pasqualoni teams to miss the postseason (and both would've made a bowl under the current system).
Dick MacPherson (1983): 6-5, no postseason
This season is typically cited as the start of SU's turnaround under Coach Mac. Beyond the blowout 63-7 loss to Nebraska, the team's strong 3-0 finish (including upsets over ranked BC and WVU teams) showed a fight in this team that would last for the rest of the decade. The Orangemen stalled out a bit with an 11-11 combined record in 1984-85, but Mac and this team weathered the storm and reaped the benefits later.
Frank Maloney (1976): 3-8, no postseason
Maloney's third Syracuse team was offensively inept and barely competitive against its typical Eastern Independent schedule -- a disappointing fall for the program after what was seen as a slightly encouraging 6-5 record in 1975. As we know, SU was at a crossroads at the time, and could've briefly considered a move to I-AA before the Carrier Dome was given the go-ahead. Despite a poor third season, the Orangemen would get four more years of mediocrity... and an Independence Bowl win.
Ben Schwartzwalder (1951): 5-4, no postseason
Ben's first three teams hung around .500, but you could see the gradual uptick in quality, which was then validated by the Orange Bowl trip in 1952. Tough to create a true comparison to athletic department standards then and now, but it was clear that Syracuse was willing to give Ben the time because he showed progress. It worked out pretty well, obviously.
...
College Football News
Geography Could Help Awaken 'the Northeast Giant' (statecollege.com; Jones)
For years people have said that Penn State football is a sleeping giant. "It could be so much better" is practically a second motto at this point.
To be fair the O'Brien and Franklin eras have so far been steps in the right direction, but when it comes to winning games, there is clearly still room for improvement.
So the question is: how do you wake up a giant?
The answer is simple to say but harder to do. Recruit better than your neighbors. And that's where Penn State's geographic advantages make the Nittany Lions one of the most unique programs in all of college football. It's something that appealed to James Franklin -- one of the nation's best recruiters -- when he first got the call about coaching at Penn State.
"I think that was a big factor when this job came open and we got the call that we really felt like there was an advantage," Franklin said last week. "I've always felt like Penn State had a built in advantage because in this region of the country there are very few places like Penn State."
And Franklin isn't wrong. Travel in any direction from State College and you aren't going to run into another major college football program until you get to Columbus some 327 miles away. The next closest national title winner since 1994 is Tennessee some 586 miles from University Park.
...
David Moore is a Name to Remember
What's Next at QB for SU After Anthony Brown? (sujuiceonline.com; Auger)
After landing a commitment from 4-star running back Robert Washington a little over a month ago, business has yet to pick up on the recruiting trail for Scott Shafer and his staff in the form of verbal commitments.
That trend continued as QB Anthony Brown out of St. John Vianney Regional High School in New Jersey recently pledged to Boston College over the Orange. Syracuse, specifically Coach Bobby Acosta, has made great strides over the past couple of years to re-open the New Jersey recruiting pipeline it used to enjoy before Rutgers’ ascension to mediocrity coincided with the hiring of He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named and his swift capsizing of the S.S. Orange. The loss of Brown hurts the Orange in multiple ways.
Syracuse competes not only against BC and Rutgers but also Pittsburgh for players in the Northeast corridor. Losing a recruit to one of those three schools, especially ACC conference foes BC and Pitt, strengthens a competitor while hurting its program at the same time.
The Orange had informed Brown that he was their top quarterback target for the 2016 class. Brown also trains with former Syracuse signal caller Madei Williams. Brown still picked BC despite two factors that would’ve seemed to give Syracuse an edge.
» Related: What is the significance of Syracuse football restoring 44?
The bigger question now for Syracuse is where does it go from here? Senior Terrel Hunt is firmly entrenched as the starter heading into the season. Reserves Austin Wilson and A.J. Long both struggled mightily last year after Hunt was lost for the season with a leg injury. In fairness to both, the offensive line was decimated with injuries and two players Shafer counted on to help move the chains, Ashton Broyld and Brisly Estime, missed a combined 16 games. Wilson and Long were both sitting ducks with the Orange’s anemic offense stuck in the mud. Syracuse signed two QBs with the 2015 class in Eric Dungey of Oregon and Kenterius Womack from Alabama.
...
How Have Previous Orange Head Coaches Fared in Year Three? (TNIAAM; Cassillo)
Syracuse's Scott Shafer has already started his third season as the Orange head coach, for all intents and purposes. And while SU fans are a bit mixed on how he's done to this point (10-15, one bowl win), there's still at least one more fall to rewrite the prevailing narrative.
While that third season is a complete unknown for Shafer, though, we can at least look at previous Orange head men to see how they fared in that critical year -- and whether that set them up for future success.
Doug Marrone (2011): 5-7, no postseason
Boy, did we hate this season... and for good reason. A 5-2 start for the Orange featured two awful games (Wake Forest, Toledo) that were harbingers of terrible things to come, but a monster victory over West Virginia made us think SU was bound for great things. They weren't, obviously, since they lost the rest of the games on the schedule. Marrone had some leeway after rescuing Syracuse from the depths of the GERG era, so his job was never in danger. He would proceed to bounce back in a big way in 2012.
Following a combined 5-18 record in his first two seasons, you'd think GERG was on a very short leash in year three. Not the case at all, as we (unfortunately) learned in a disaster-filled 2007 campaign. SU has recorded double-digit losses just twice in program history, and not coincidentally, twice under Robinson. Though he did nothing to earn a fourth year, DOC wanted to avoid a larger buyout and make himself look less terrible for this hire. So "hooray" on the larger buyout.
Paul Pasqualoni (1993): 6-4-1, no postseason
Two seasons of hanging around the national top 10 (sobs) were followed up by a pretty rough season of football -- by then-recent Syracuse standards. The fall from 10 wins would represent a two-year struggle before Donovan McNabb arrived on campus, but overall, this 1993 season did very little to change Coach P's legacy or trajectory. This and the subsequent 1994 squad were the only two Pasqualoni teams to miss the postseason (and both would've made a bowl under the current system).
Dick MacPherson (1983): 6-5, no postseason
This season is typically cited as the start of SU's turnaround under Coach Mac. Beyond the blowout 63-7 loss to Nebraska, the team's strong 3-0 finish (including upsets over ranked BC and WVU teams) showed a fight in this team that would last for the rest of the decade. The Orangemen stalled out a bit with an 11-11 combined record in 1984-85, but Mac and this team weathered the storm and reaped the benefits later.
Frank Maloney (1976): 3-8, no postseason
Maloney's third Syracuse team was offensively inept and barely competitive against its typical Eastern Independent schedule -- a disappointing fall for the program after what was seen as a slightly encouraging 6-5 record in 1975. As we know, SU was at a crossroads at the time, and could've briefly considered a move to I-AA before the Carrier Dome was given the go-ahead. Despite a poor third season, the Orangemen would get four more years of mediocrity... and an Independence Bowl win.
Ben Schwartzwalder (1951): 5-4, no postseason
Ben's first three teams hung around .500, but you could see the gradual uptick in quality, which was then validated by the Orange Bowl trip in 1952. Tough to create a true comparison to athletic department standards then and now, but it was clear that Syracuse was willing to give Ben the time because he showed progress. It worked out pretty well, obviously.
...
College Football News
Geography Could Help Awaken 'the Northeast Giant' (statecollege.com; Jones)
For years people have said that Penn State football is a sleeping giant. "It could be so much better" is practically a second motto at this point.
To be fair the O'Brien and Franklin eras have so far been steps in the right direction, but when it comes to winning games, there is clearly still room for improvement.
So the question is: how do you wake up a giant?
The answer is simple to say but harder to do. Recruit better than your neighbors. And that's where Penn State's geographic advantages make the Nittany Lions one of the most unique programs in all of college football. It's something that appealed to James Franklin -- one of the nation's best recruiters -- when he first got the call about coaching at Penn State.
"I think that was a big factor when this job came open and we got the call that we really felt like there was an advantage," Franklin said last week. "I've always felt like Penn State had a built in advantage because in this region of the country there are very few places like Penn State."
And Franklin isn't wrong. Travel in any direction from State College and you aren't going to run into another major college football program until you get to Columbus some 327 miles away. The next closest national title winner since 1994 is Tennessee some 586 miles from University Park.
...
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