Greatness knows greatness...

[sufandu]

i'm team P for #2 all time. Mac certainly was the heart and soul of SU Football but him leaving for the Patriots was a total head scratcher move that knocks him down for me. It wasn't some massive pay raise if I recall. This wasn't the Bob Kraft Patriots either. This was the most incompetent operation in professional sports at the time run by the nefarious Victor Kiam. Mac would have been better served coaching SU until the mid 90s and then handing the ship over to whomever at that point (maybe P sticks around or they turn to someone else like Rodgers)

I was disappointed he left but I don't think it was a head scratcher move. He was a New England guy that got the chance to coach New England's pro team. They had two consecutive losing seasons before hiring him but a number of winning years prior to that along with the SB appearance. In retrospect, he would've been better off staying here, but that wasn't as obvious at the time.

 

[sufandu]

P was a linebacker coach. The big reasons for the turnaround were Donnie McPherson and the Cherry Bowl recruiting class. Then Mac recruited the guys who went 10-2 in '91 and '92.

Mac-P was really one era, with no rebuilding job in between.

The single era comment couldn't be more accurate. It was the definition of continuity. Everyone on that 1990 aloha bowl team was young and primed to mature into the teams we saw the next couple years.