Hope I Am Wrong

[AlaskaSU]

BC, Penn St., Rutgirls and Syracuse are all no longer relevant and UCon has never been relevant. Penn St was held together by a legendary coach. SUNY Buffalo does not play big time football and neither does any other Boston or NYC area school. Name another large state school without a serious football team? NYU does not even field a team. All of this can be traced to the fact that football is not as popular in the NE as it is in every other part of the country. The rest of the country lives for football. Without an adequate local supply of talent none of the NE schools might ever become relevant again. Pitt is doing OK, but nothing great. It is no coincidence that it is closer to more fertile recruiting grounds.

We used to skim recruits from the excess talent coming out of Florida but that window is closing with the resurgence of the two late comer large Florida public schools.

The only way to turn things around for any of these schools is to recruit better talent and the only way to do that is to attract talent from outside the NE. There are only two ways to do this: win with the talent you have, or hire a legacy coach that will attract recruits. The former is not impossible but it is unlikely, and the handful of legacy coaches would have no interest in any of these schools unless they happened to be their alma mater.

Despite the best efforts of a good coach like Babers, it is possible that there will be no turn-around. Too early to throw in the towel but not too early to face the reality that the odds are against us. Neither history nor conference affiliation might be able to compensate for the fact that the NE does not produce enough talent.

 

[CuseLegacy]

Yes you are wrong. The majority of the players that the coaches have been recruiting for the past four years are not from the NE. Just check the current roster or look at the past and current commits.

 

[GoSU96]

There are plenty of D-1 quality linemen, TE's, RB's, LB's. and safeties in a six hour radius. This system should be able to attract QB's from anywhere in the country.

Cast a wide net for WR's and rush defensive ends.

Go to Florida for 3 or 4 speed guys at corner, wr, or returners.

This system is going to attract enough offensive skill position players. The key will be finding impact players on defense.

 

[AlaskaSU]

Yes you are wrong. The majority of the players that the coaches have been recruiting for the past four years are not from the NE. Just check the current roster or look at the past and current commits.

My point exactly; the locals are not competitive.

 

[OrangePA]

BC, Penn St., Rutgirls and Syracuse are all no longer relevant and UCon has never been relevant. Penn St was held together by a legendary coach. SUNY Buffalo does not play big time football and neither does any other Boston or NYC area school. Name another large state school without a serious football team? NYU does not even field a team. All of this can be traced to the fact that football is not as popular in the NE as it is in every other part of the country. The rest of the country lives for football. Without an adequate local supply of talent none of the NE schools might ever become relevant again. Pitt is doing OK, but nothing great. It is no coincidence that it is closer to more fertile recruiting grounds.

We used to skim recruits from the excess talent coming out of Florida but that window is closing with the resurgence of the two late comer large Florida public schools.

The only way to turn things around for any of these schools is to recruit better talent and the only way to do that is to attract talent from outside the NE. There are only two ways to do this: win with the talent you have, or hire a legacy coach that will attract recruits. The former is not impossible but it is unlikely, and the handful of legacy coaches would have no interest in any of these schools unless they happened to be their alma mater.

Despite the best efforts of a good coach like Babers, it is possible that there will be no turn-around. Too early to throw in the towel but not too early to face the reality that the odds are against us. Neither history nor conference affiliation might be able to compensate for the fact that the NE does not produce enough talent.

You're wrong.

 

[AlaskaSU]

There are plenty of D-1 quality linemen, TE's, RB's, LB's. and safeties in a six hour radius. This system should be able to attract QB's from anywhere in the country.

Cast a wide net for WR's and rush defensive ends.

Go to Florida for 3 or 4 speed guys at corner, wr, or returners.

This system is going to attract enough offensive skill position players. The key will be finding impact players on defense.

If it were so easy don't you think that it would have been done?

 

[chugg21]

Think the reality is that the program is never going to be a power again by any means. Just hoping to be relevant and be able to compete for a spot at the bottom of the top 25 and a decent bowl game most years. Would anyone be happy with just becoming a Texas Tech of the north? Usually end up with 7 or 8 wins, score a ton of pts, give up a ton of pts. Occasionally end up near the top 25, some years end up with 4 wins. Think thats probably our best case scenario.

 

[OrangeAl]

Think the reality is that the program is never going to be a power again by any means. Just hoping to be relevant and be able to compete for a spot at the bottom of the top 25 and a decent bowl game most years. Would anyone be happy with just becoming a Texas Tech of the north? Usually end up with 7 or 8 wins, score a ton of pts, give up a ton of pts. Occasionally end up near the top 25, some years end up with 4 wins. Think thats probably our best case scenario.

Many people thought SU would never emerge from the post-Schwartzwalder funk of the 70's and early 80's. "College football has changed and passed us by," they whined. But, lo and behold, SU became the marquee program of eastern football from the late 80's to 2001. It's time to emerge again. Believe it.

 

[IDOC]

While not quite equivalent SU basketball attracts the best of division one talent to the same crapy climate, same rust belt city, the same "out of date dome" and the same not so bad university.
So I think this is all about the right coach and facility upgrades. Got one of those and actively working on the second. Once again the fans are encouraged to "hang on". Since SU football is not the most important thing in my life I will buy in!

 

[cuse309]

BC, Penn St., Rutgirls and Syracuse are all no longer relevant and UCon has never been relevant. Penn St was held together by a legendary coach. SUNY Buffalo does not play big time football and neither does any other Boston or NYC area school. Name another large state school without a serious football team? NYU does not even field a team. All of this can be traced to the fact that football is not as popular in the NE as it is in every other part of the country. The rest of the country lives for football. Without an adequate local supply of talent none of the NE schools might ever become relevant again. Pitt is doing OK, but nothing great. It is no coincidence that it is closer to more fertile recruiting grounds.

We used to skim recruits from the excess talent coming out of Florida but that window is closing with the resurgence of the two late comer large Florida public schools.

The only way to turn things around for any of these schools is to recruit better talent and the only way to do that is to attract talent from outside the NE. There are only two ways to do this: win with the talent you have, or hire a legacy coach that will attract recruits. The former is not impossible but it is unlikely, and the handful of legacy coaches would have no interest in any of these schools unless they happened to be their alma mater.

Despite the best efforts of a good coach like Babers, it is possible that there will be no turn-around. Too early to throw in the towel but not too early to face the reality that the odds are against us. Neither history nor conference affiliation might be able to compensate for the fact that the NE does not produce enough talent.

Yeah, sorry, but I don't agree. Can you be successful with mostly NE recruits. Probably not, but that isn't who we primarily get. We can win with the level of talent we have, and I believe we will win moving forward, with similar talent. I don't see us ever landing a top 25 recruiting class, but that's ok. There are plenty of teams every year, that finish in the top 25 and play in big bowl games with talent similar to, or worse than ours, if you go by the ranking services. If you think the goal is to get Syracuse to be a NC contender, then you picked the wrong team in the wrong sport. It's pretty simple, but it requires patience. Let the staff bring in their own talent, selected to fit the scheme offensively, and defensively. Let the coaches mold the players. For Pete sake, it's week 6 of Babers first year. These kids literally have had 6 games in this new system on offense and defense, and some people seem to think that this is our finished product. HUH??? It's going to be a bumpy ride this year, and in all likelihood next year. If someone honestly believed we would win 6 or 7 games this year, they were drinking orange kool-aid. I was guilty of it too. I thought 6 or 7 with my heart, but my head told me 3-5 wins, so the way I see it, is we're right were we should be.
Would you rather have Dino come in here and in year 1 win 8 games, and in year 2 win 10, and then he gone, and we're left scraping the barrel again? I would rather see slow steady growth and improvements from year to year. 3 or 4 this year, 5-6 wins next year, maybe 7-8 year 3, now we're building something maintainable.

 

[AlaskaSU]

While not quite equivalent SU basketball attracts the best of division one talent to the same crapy climate, same rust belt city, the same "out of date dome" and the same not so bad university.
So I think this is all about the right coach and facility upgrades. Got one of those and actively working on the second. Once again the fans are encouraged to "hang on". Since SU football is not the most important thing in my life I will buy in!

My point is that the NE produces basketball players instead of football players. S. Florida has no history and plays in a lesser conf. yet we eat their dust.

 

[AlaskaSU]

Many people thought SU would never emerge from the post-Schwartzwalder funk of the 70's and early 80's. "College football has changed and passed us by," they whined. But, lo and behold, SU became the marquee program of eastern football from the late 80's to 2001. It's time to emerge again. Believe it.

^T^Y^Y^YI remember the Ben Schwartzwalder years and those people that thought that we would never really recover have turned out to be mostly right. Given our lousy location in terms of football talent we need a legacy coach that can attract top talent from afar. Short of that we need to win in order to attract talent. I have my fingers crossed but I am not betting the ranch. We are a 3 star roster team and half of our games are against 4 star roster teams.

 

[GoSU96]

My point is that the NE produces basketball players instead of football players. S. Florida has no history and plays in a lesser conf. yet we eat their dust.

What exactly is the "NE"?

Because there are never any players that come out of NY, NJ, PA or NE. Nope, none at all.

 

[AlaskaSU]

What exactly is the "NE"?

Because there are never any players that come out of NY, NJ, PA or NE. Nope, none at all.

There are some 4 and 5 stars, but at a lower percentage than other population centers. NE is northeast.

 

[GoSU96]

There are some 4 and 5 stars, but at a lower percentage than other population centers. NE is northeast.

It's the most densely populated section of the country, it might have a lower percentage of game ready contributors but basic demographics say that the distribution of athletes isn't going to be any different.

And there's a much lower percentage of programs within that distribution than other sections of the country.

I hate going back to this well, but Marrone was able to build the 17th ranked offense using 2 and 3 star player recruited almost entirely from the putrid NE.

The OL was from NY, NJ, and PA, the RB's from Ohio and Delaware, the QB from Pa, the WR from NY, Md, and Pa. The one player from Fl was the TE.

Nope can never happen.

 

[MadNY3]

There are some 4 and 5 stars, but at a lower percentage than other population centers. NE is northeast.

Old-school thinking.

There's this thing called the Internet and another thing called ESPN, that has like 140 channels via an "app." This means kids - like the NCAA's top WR through the first four weeks - can discover this uptempo offense/program and decide to come play here...and maybe study at the #1 journalism/communications school, #1 IT school, etc.

We've had one decent QB here from the NE in the past 20 years. Nassib. The rest stunk or were from Illinois (McNabb) or Oregon (Dungey).

We need a good base of NE kids, like the Erv Phillips'. But if you want declare this whole thing dead and moot, then cool. Move off the board, too. I mean, why bother?

 

[Deuga]

I thought it might be useful to compare the NE to the Pacific Northwest. Neither area produces a ton of star quality players. According to one of the recruiting websites there are currently the following numbers of athletes in the NE and Pacific NW for 2017:

5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars Power 5 Schools​

NE 0 4 26 2
Pac NW 1 7 29 4

I'm excluding NJ and PA from NE. Pac NW includes Washington, Oregon and Idaho.

The Pac NW has always seemed to be able to produce one powerhouse team/year and no more than one. Lately it's been Oregon but this year it's UW. The NE can do the same because we've got only slightly less potential recruits locally than the Pac NW but half the number of local Power 5 schools. Plus Pac NW has Boise State to contend with, the NE presently has nothing like a Boise State.

It seems if we ought to be able to recruit 25% of every class from the NE and have an inside track on the occasional 4 star that comes along locally. However, others are right, we recruit everywhere. As others have said, you don't need the recruits in your backyard, you simply need compelling reasons for recruits to want to come to SU. There's no question in my mind the compelling reasons already exist, we just need patience.

 

[AlaskaSU]

Using your figures, the NW has twice as many impact, 4/5 star players, as the NE (8 compared to 4). The combined population of NY, NJ, Conn and Mass is 40 million. The combined pop. of Wa, ID and Or is 13 million. The NE has 3 times more population, yet half the number of impact players. Football is less important in the NE while basketball has become more important. This is the trend and it works against our football prospects. In addition to having less talent in our backyard, the most talented have incentive to play with their peers and that means leaving the NE. There are exceptions, but these trends weigh against our chances of becoming a consistent winning program.

Doing the math, the NW is 6 times more productive of impact players per capita than the NE. It is no surprise that the NW has three strong teams while the NE has none. Football is even more important in the SE, Texas and OK than it is in the NW. The area of the country where football is least important is the NE. We are a victim of demographic trends rather than bad coaching.

 

[cuse309]

Old-school thinking.

There's this thing called the Internet and another thing called ESPN, that has like 140 channels via an "app." This means kids - like the NCAA's top WR through the first four weeks - can discover this uptempo offense/program and decide to come play here...and maybe study at the #1 journalism/communications school, #1 IT school, etc.

We've had one decent QB here from the NE in the past 20 years. Nassib. The rest stunk or were from Illinois (McNabb) or Oregon (Dungey).

We need a good base of NE kids, like the Erv Phillips'. But if you want declare this whole thing dead and moot, then cool. Move off the board, too. I mean, why bother?

He isn't wrong. It's just facts. NY is 3rd in population, and ranks 25th in the amount of D1 players.
Where do college football players come from? - Football Study Hall

 

[GoSU96]

He isn't wrong. It's just facts. NY is 3rd in population, and ranks 25th in the amount of D1 players.
Where do college football players come from? - Football Study Hall

Since when has the school ever relied predominantly on NYS players?

What's the point?

 

[longislandcuse]

The problem with NE football is that the mentality of all these teams has been what we label as "NE Football".

The B1G had problems competing against faster SEC teams and Michigan/ OSU adapted.

Will we ever be at that level? Certainly seems like a longshot right now but as frustrating as its been, Dino Babers type coaches are the ones who can get us there or somewhat close. We have to take a chance and let him do his thing because we can't just go out and get an Urban Meyer or Jim Harbaugh.

Anything but "NE Football".

 

[MadNY3]

He isn't wrong. It's just facts. NY is 3rd in population, and ranks 25th in the amount of D1 players.
Where do college football players come from? - Football Study Hall

Not questioning the lack of overall talent comping out of the state. The original post stated the program may not turn around purely because of the "local" numbers game of prized recruits.

No argue of the fact. Big argue on the solo-reason theory.

 

[tipphill]

we need 4 star western ny, nyc,li,jersey and pa guys,with some md, and florida guys sprinkeled in. just my wish list. i do have a bias for players from metro areas, as well, such as chicago and detroit, and dc

 

[AlaskaSU]

Trends in regional preferences are not our only difficulty. Florida traditionally produced a surplus of talent that was to our benefit as FL. was for the most part within the footprint of the leagues that we played in. USF and perhaps UCF are new players that are soaking up much of this excess talent. I have no idea what our future will be and I support Babers but I am of the opinion that our hoped for rebound will be difficult and far from guaranteed. I have mixed feelings about even bringing all this up and perhaps I should not have. I also admit to becoming less of a football fan over the years. One further admission is that I was perhaps crushed by what happened last weekend at Wake Forest. The weather worked against our passing game but I can't seem to let it pass at that.

 

[chugg21]

Many people thought SU would never emerge from the post-Schwartzwalder funk of the 70's and early 80's. "College football has changed and passed us by," they whined. But, lo and behold, SU became the marquee program of eastern football from the late 80's to 2001. It's time to emerge again. Believe it.

I'd say that the word marquee and Syracuse in regards to football is a stretch and definitely became mutually exclusive after McNabb took off the #5. If eastern football only contains NY, NJ & New England that statement might be accurate but regardless, we're at 17 years and counting, which happens to be the age of most of the kids that we are recruiting.