History Repeating

[sufandu]

History could be repeating itself. I've never looked at the numbers, but I bet there are more coaching changes that don't work out than coaching changes that do. In this case, however, it was time for a change. And I was someone that really liked Dino. I still do. I just don't think we were going to get better staying with him. I'm not confident we're ever going to get someone that will get us where we want to be again. I just think the landscape has changed too much to our disadvantage. But that doesn't mean we aren't supposed to try. And if the next one doesn't work out, we'll have to try again.

 

[ClkWrkOrange]

“The stars aren’t aligned or the gods are malign”

Blame is better to give than receive

I think it was time to move on from Dino regardless. He had his shot. Time for another to give it a ride. I think his critique of NIL may be valid, but it comes across as an excuse if you don’t do the other things well.

Love for the Freewill reference.

 

[anomander]

I hope I’m wrong about this, but I’m old enough to remember when P was fired people wanted him out, trashed him on the way out the door (as a coach, not a person) and faulted the program’s fall on him.

When Doug left - his decision - people acted like he was easily replaceable.

people ignored seemingly real issues that were developing under P and have continued since. In both cases, the next guy was way worse.

Hope history isn’t repeating itself here with Dino, considering when he raised alarm bells on NIL, people said it’s just the excuse machine. Maybe it gets better, maybe it doesn’t. But maybe we should listen to the guy and fix it instead of just churning the coaching carousel to the next guy.

i’m in agreement as far as NIL but it was time to move on from Dino.

 

[anomander]

At HOLY CROSS

They lost by 3 to BC and Army this year.

 

[tep624]

At HOLY CROSS

Really? I didn’t realize that. I thought he was the HC at Georgia.

 

[kingtidge]

We've never had first mover advantage on tangibles... Jake sat on his hands when the facilities races started and doing anything satisfactory in that regard was outside TGD's skill set... The board had their heads in the sand for way too long, convincing themselves we didn't need to do anything and it was just big schools wasting big dollars on nonsense (was a seriously flawed perspective, of course.)... The result - it's taken us forever to catch up... But with the dome renovations and new Lally complex, we should at least be more competitive in that space. Wildhack deserves a lot of credit for that part of his job. NIL is going to be tough. As a northeast private school with relatively small undergrad footprint, it's impossible to generate close to the same coffers of the big state schools and SEC powerhouses can... but the good news is, players love playing time and many don't want to sit 2 or 3 deep on the depth chart at a powerhouse school when they could be starting on a competitive team elsewhere .. The portal and NIL helps facilitate that dynamic now and we need to leverage it and leverage it well... it's not easy (as we saw with Dino, he had a real hard time keeping the cupboards stocked/depth), but that's the new dynamic...

 

[elimunelson]

We've never had first mover advantage on tangibles... Jake sat on his hands when the facilities races started, doing anything tangible in that regard was outside TGD's skill set, and the board had there head in the sand for way too long... The result - it's taken us forever to catch up... But with the dome renovations and new Lally complex, we should at least be more competitive in that space. Wildhack deserves a lot of credit for that part of his job. NIL is going to be tough. As a northeast private school with relatively small undergrad footprint, it's impossible to generate close to the same coffers of the big state schools and SEC powerhouses can... but the good news is, players love playing time and many don't want to sit 2 or 3 deep on the depth chart at a powerhouse school when they could be starting on a competitive team elsewhere .. The portal and NIL helps facilitate that dynamic now and we need to leverage it and leverage it well... it's not easy (as we saw with Dino, he had a real hard time keeping the cupboards stocked/depth), but that's the new dynamic...

We tend to demonize what Jake didn’t do but what he did do was as impressive as any ad in SU history record wise

The facility arm race did spiral out of control but as of October 1993 we touted our facilities. How do I know?

I reread Fall River dreams the book about Chris herren. Last chapter is his recruitment and Syracuse came in late to try and steal him from bc. Boeheim is quoted in the book explaining that our facilities were better than anyone in the northeast. Herren agreed when he visited Manley in 93.

Not saying this is a case closed argument but Jake probably wasn’t being harassed by boeheim and pasqualoni about an absolute need to upgrade. By 2000 things certainly changed but these things happen slowly then suddenly.

It’s hard to look at things in a vacuum

 

[HRE Otto IV]

You need to separate the two. Investment and poor coaching. If anything SU needs good coaching given the lack of money. Having both makes a bad situation worse.

If coaching doesn't matter like you seem to imply, why give the HC $4M a year vs getting a guy for $2M a year if the results are going to be the same anyway? Heck with that extra money you can improve facilitates and/or not have to hit up donors, who then have more money for NIL. So you solve the facility/NIL problem, no?

If coaching does matter, you do not keep a guy who has proven to not be a good HC.

 

[NKR1978]

At HOLY CROSS

Holy Cross gave BC a better game @ BC than we did at home.

 

[Offthedome]

They did indeed. I remember talking to scott freeny, dana cottrells parents in late 90s, he was loved. I have a good friend I work with ev day who was a senior captain in mid 90s (i dont work in fb, never have, to be sure, but he now runs the fb at the high school I teach at )..p was very liked by his players, very. He needed to go, I wanted him out at the end too badly, but from my links he was well liked

I think the person who responded to you was confused and thought that you were referring to Dino in your original comment.

 

[Capt. Tuttle]

Coach P went 39-33 in his last six years (post-McNabb) with 3 bowl bids.

Replacement #1 went 10-37
Replacement #2 went 25-25
Replacement #3 went 14-23
Replacement #4 went 41-55.

Now we're on Replacement #5.

In 4-5 years we'll be discussing Replacement #6.

P had lost the team. If there was a transfer portal, the roster would have been decimated. It was time.

 

[elimunelson]

P had lost the team. If there was a transfer portal, the roster would have been decimated. It was time.

That’s foolish. He went into chestnut hill against a bc team w everting to play for (their first bcs bowl in the balance) and got them to beat them convincingly that day.

It was a flawed team but the coach wasn’t flawed. He needed fresh eyes on the staff but Paul has proven to be a fanrafvuc football coach. He’s been in the college and nfl ranks for 15 years since pretty much . Total respect among his peers

 

[Dinkyspond]

I watched. Thought his examples sucked to be honest. Don’t care that JaHad isn’t playing at Ohio State. He would have helped us.

Head in the sand.

We know all the transfer guys would be starters and major factors. JW was alluding that the grass isn't always greener and they probably made mistakes by leaving. Sure they made $ but they forfeited the chance to play as starters and showcase their skills for possible NFL careers. With the exception of Jordan, the rest of Carter, Geer and Linton are role players and Duce isnt even part of LSU anymore.

 

[richmondcuse03]

We've never had first mover advantage on tangibles... Jake sat on his hands when the facilities races started, doing anything tangible in that regard was outside TGD's skill set, and the board had there head in the sand for way too long... The result - it's taken us forever to catch up... But with the dome renovations and new Lally complex, we should at least be more competitive in that space. Wildhack deserves a lot of credit for that part of his job. NIL is going to be tough. As a northeast private school with relatively small undergrad footprint, it's impossible to generate close to the same coffers of the big state schools and SEC powerhouses can... but the good news is, players love playing time and many don't want to sit 2 or 3 deep on the depth chart at a powerhouse school when they could be starting on a competitive team elsewhere .. The portal and NIL helps facilitate that dynamic now and we need to leverage it and leverage it well... it's not easy (as we saw with Dino, he had a real hard time keeping the cupboards stocked/depth), but that's the new dynamic...

Agree. The one part I’d note is our alumni base compared to other private peer schools is actually quite large and supportive. We need to leverage it better. Obviously compared to public schools - no way. But we don’t need to beat out big southern schools. We need to routinely beat peer schools like Wake BC and Duke to start.

 

[Dinkyspond]

Did the kids love him. I haven't seen much in the way of support from the current players since he was let go. Now i don't follow that stuff so maybe it's out there but i haven't seen or heard anything. What is your relationship with the team to know that he was loved?

There really hasn’t been much in the way of tweets towards that, I am surprised since supposedly he was revered so much. I think he lost the team due to his lack of confidence in them, afraid to go for 4th and short in good field position, impossibly long FG attempts, bungled clock management and not using TOs to stop the clock and try something at least.

 

[orangenauburn]

That’s foolish. He went into chestnut hill against a bc team w everting to play for (their first bcs bowl in the balance) and got them to beat them convincingly that day.

It was a flawed team but the coach wasn’t flawed. He needed fresh eyes on the staff but Paul has proven to be a fanrafvuc football coach. He’s been in the college and nfl ranks for 15 years since pretty much . Total respect among his peers

I agree with both you and Tuttle

There certainly was a subset of players. The LB name escapes me at the moment, from NJ, who was disgruntled and in retrospect should have been kicked off the team, that was an energy vampire.

The small group was disruptive enough and were more focused on extracurricular activities than football and it had an impact

We lost out on some good recruits because of some of the BS they encountered on their recruiting trips.

At the same time, there were some really good players and kids who ran through a wall for Paul and still to this day would. It's just that the negative subset of players did have an impact on the programs swoons late in Paul's run.

 

[tep624]

I agree with both you and Tuttle

There certainly was a subset of players. The LB name escapes me at the moment, from NJ, who was disgruntled and in retrospect should have been kicked off the team, that was an energy vampire.

The small group was disruptive enough and were more focused on extracurricular activities than football and it had an impact

We lost out on some good recruits because of some of the BS they encountered on their recruiting trips.

At the same time, there were some really good players and kids who ran through a wall for Paul and still to this day would. It's just that the negative subset of players did have an impact on the programs swoons late in Paul's run.

We lost Joe Dailey in part because of Jameel Dumas. It was a real thing and anyone trying to spin something to the contrary is mistaken.

Also the quality of recruiting overall declined dramatically the last 2-3 classes for P. His last class may have been our worst of the last 20 years.

 

[GoSU96]

Dont get me started. I was probably the only one back in the day screaming from the hills we hired a complete moron to replace P and got crucified.

Only?

I don’t think so

 

[SUDadx2]

We need to routinely beat peer schools like Wake BC and Duke to start.

When people mention "peer schools" for Syracuse, are Wake, BC and Duke the schools people are referring to?

• “It’s 2023, This is college athletics and if you’re gonna compete at the highest level, which is what we want to do, you need to have a good NIL program.” JW, 9-12-2023.

• Wildhack said he’s “comfortable” with Syracuse’s place in the NIL landscape and believes “we’re probably in the same boat as 80% of our peers.” JW, 9-12-2023.

• “Do we have the NIL pool that some schools have? No. Can we be competitive with our peers? Yes,” John Wildhack, 11-20-2023.

Neither "we are probably in the same boat" or "we can be competitive" are indicators that Syracuse is competitive NOW.

And are we probably in the same boat as the top 80% or the bottom 80% of our peers?


What metric is used to determine which schools are "peer schools" for Syracuse?


Private universities in the ACC - tuition &fees - undergrad enrollment

• Syracuse - $60,135 - 15,421
• Boston College - $64,176 - 9,982
• Duke - $62,688 - 6,640
• Wake Forest - $62,128 - 5,447
• Miami - $57,194 - 12,504
• SMU - $61,980 - 5,477
• Stanford - $58,414 - 8,049

 

[GoSU96]

We know all the transfer guys would be starters and major factors. JW was alluding that the grass isn't always greener and they probably made mistakes by leaving. Sure they made $ but they forfeited the chance to play as starters and showcase their skills for possible NFL careers. With the exception of Jordan, the rest of Carter, Geer and Linton are role players and Duce isnt even part of LSU anymore.

And he tied it to the NIL having to be better

 

[David332]

Are we really not competitive NIL wise? I keep hearing that, but Wildhack says otherwise. The numbers do not seem transparent and I have no reason to believe he is a liar.

If the numbers are transparent, I honestly don’t know how to look them up.

 

[NJCuse97]

“The stars aren’t aligned or the gods are malign”

Blame is better to give than receive

I think it was time to move on from Dino regardless. He had his shot. Time for another to give it a ride. I think his critique of NIL may be valid, but it comes across as an excuse if you don’t do the other things well.

Like for the Rush lyrics. Your point is correct too

 

[sufandu]

That’s foolish. He went into chestnut hill against a bc team w everting to play for (their first bcs bowl in the balance) and got them to beat them convincingly that day.

It was a flawed team but the coach wasn’t flawed. He needed fresh eyes on the staff but Paul has proven to be a fanrafvuc football coach. He’s been in the college and nfl ranks for 15 years since pretty much . Total respect among his peers

Well, every coach is flawed, so you can't say P wasn't. He did a lot of things right and was respected in the fraternity. And the university did not give him the support he deserved to keep things going. But if the single only issue had been lack of investment, other schools would have been drooling to snatch him up to run their program. All of those AD's and other coaches were aware of how we had fallen behind and understood how good P was.

 

[richmondcuse03]

Are we really not competitive NIL wise? I keep hearing that, but Wildhack says otherwise. The numbers do not seem transparent and I have no reason to believe he is a liar.

If the numbers are transparent, I honestly don’t know how to look them up.

Numbers aren’t transparent. Lot of the rumors are inflated. Then again Florida state has spent a ton the last two years and you see the talent infusion.

Reality is we have made up a lot of ground in the past year. We were in a bad spot last year. The last few months have been a marked improvement. The key is sustaining it year after year.

We’ve had some donors step up. Now we need local businesses to up their game and we need a grassroots effort to pile on (the new collective in an ideal world adds 5-10M on its own but we’re a long way away from that). 6-10M gets you in a very good spot for football and basketball.

Basketball is easy in that 2M is probably a base case for us and say 4M a year puts you in a very good spot. That’s very attainable. It’s football that’s harder. But not every player chooses a college originally for money. You have to be able to retain guys. We weren’t able to do that as well with football last year. I don’t think it’ll be an issue this year. Guys will leave for other reasons though.

 

[richmondcuse03]

When people mention "peer schools" for Syracuse, are Wake, BC and Duke the schools people are referring to?

• “It’s 2023, This is college athletics and if you’re gonna compete at the highest level, which is what we want to do, you need to have a good NIL program.” JW, 9-12-2023.

• Wildhack said he’s “comfortable” with Syracuse’s place in the NIL landscape and believes “we’re probably in the same boat as 80% of our peers.” JW, 9-12-2023.

• “Do we have the NIL pool that some schools have? No. Can we be competitive with our peers? Yes,” John Wildhack, 11-20-2023.

Neither "we are probably in the same boat" or "we can be competitive" are indicators that Syracuse is competitive NOW.

And are we probably in the same boat as the top 80% or the bottom 80% of our peers?


What metric is used to determine which schools are "peer schools" for Syracuse?


Private universities in the ACC - tuition &fees - undergrad enrollment

• Syracuse - $60,135 - 15,421
• Boston College - $64,176 - 9,982
• Duke - $62,688 - 6,640
• Wake Forest - $62,128 - 5,447
• Miami - $57,194 - 12,504
• SMU - $61,980 - 5,477
• Stanford - $58,414 - 8,049

We’re in same boat or better than the peers cited. But the top boys in football are in a different stratosphere. We’re not going to be able to spend 10m a year on just football.