How to Fix SU Football?

[Bayside44]

Don’t have to hit on almost every kid. But have to do better than 3 out of 25 the last 4 years. Now imagine a coach able to get 20/25.

I agree that we need to be better. My issue is that the talent pool is really limited.

 

[OrgTruckPat]

The money isn't there. I had this conversation weeks ago with a very trusted source. SU does not have that resource to tap into. There are people who do not want to hear that.

This is accurate. Been accurate for decades. That is why we have been so far behind in the facilities arms race all along. Sigh

 

[Deleted member 8116]

This is accurate. Been accurate for decades. That is why we have been so far behind in the facilities arms race all along. Sigh

What’s the point of staying in ACC then or even D1 in football. So they can be the door mate in football?

 

[HRE Otto IV]

I think a fair evaluation of a HC at SU should be..

Record vs the Top 25% of FBS (this year that is Top 33)
-These are your good teams. I think expecting 1 out of 8 (.125) is fair. On top of that maybe 2 out of 3 that are semi competitive.

vs Top 26-50% of FBS (this year Top 34-66)
-These are your decent teams. I think .500 is fair but let's be generous and say 7 out of 16 (.4375)

vs Top 51-75% (this year Top 67-99)
-These teams are not good. I think .750 is fair but let's be generous again and say 2 out of 3 (.667)

vs Bottom 25% (this year 100-132)
-These are your really bad teams. Upsets happen so let's be generous and say we should win only 7 out of 8 (.875)


I don't think overall record should be the main metric as there will be times where we have a loaded schedule (see 2025). And just getting 6 against an easy schedule (like this year) should not be a good thing.

When I have time later I will do the above for Dino. Oh and 2020 happened folks. The situation SHOULD be taken into account, but 1-10 was unacceptable. Going 3-8 is one thing to accept, but not what we saw.

Using the season ending Sagarin from 2016-2022...

Top 25% of FBS
5-25 .167 W%
12 blowout Ls (just about half)
1 OT L

We have played a lot of Top 25% teams. The record is not bad. If only the blowouts were cut in half.

Top 26-50%
8-17 .320 W%
9 blowout Ls (over half)
1 OT W and 1 OT L

That is a horrendous record. The blowouts make it very very bad. So in our Ls vs the Top 60 or so FBS teams we have been beaten badly in 21 out of 42, exactly half.

Top 51-75%
11-4 .733 W%
2 blowout Ls (half)
1 OT W

That is a decent record, but how the heck are we losing easily twice in this range? Those are your Top 60ish to 90ish teams.

Bottom 25%
7-2 .778 W%

These are your really bad teams, and one of these Ls was at home. You can forgive one, but not 2.


What sticks out IMO is that when we lose, half the time we are not competitive at all. Even when we lose to teams outside of the Top 40. Happened this year too (one out of two). That kills interest in the program. Fans stop buying in. Recruits don't want to come. The media doesn't take you seriously when we have good starts to a season.

The other thing that sticks out is how bad we perform against decent teams. We should be striving for those types of teams to be our peers. Yet we win less than 1/3 of those games, and when we lose it isn't close half the time. Unacceptable.

 

[BillSU]

First, your assessment about Coach Prime, I am not sure you get the point I am making here. Colorado, took a gamble on Coach Prime, he completely revamped the roster with better players, that is why they are winning. He didn't even want the players from the 1-11 team he inherited. He is able to get better players , because they have the money to pay them. His Son just bought a Maybeck SUV, on NIL money! The Colorado reference just emphasizes how money plays a huge role in success. As far as the Cuse and weather, get real, when these 18 year olds go on tours at Clemson, and Miami, what they see is half dressed coeds all over campus. At the Cuse, the only time you might see a half dressed coed...is in your room, if you are lucky...LOL. You are kiddung yourself, if you don't think that plays a role in recruiting. Before we were in the ACC, most of our recruiting rivals shared the same geography and weather. Money, what should we do with the money? We need it to pay players, and hire better assistant coaches and a better head coach, if we decide to go in that direction. Facility upgrade that is going on now, is a great start, but it will not go far enough relative to recruiting top tier players and retaining your own best players and preventing from defecting to the highest bidders. So, again, I stand behind " Show mw he money"!

Dr. Bill,

I know all about Deon and what he did to get a program of winners. Read all about what happened at Colorado when it did, letting players go and replacing them with better players. Deon has a net worth of 50 million so he could be a collective all by himself.

Right now, as in the past, LIFE is all about the money only the NIL in college football is going to make a hell of a difference and if you have cash you should use it to get better players. So I agree with you. I was asking what you would do going forward and you replied truthfully.

All we have to do now is convince the AD and Administration that if you want a better program change your attitude and pay your players like the big boys. Whether they will be receptive to that idea is a great question. But, they better be or we'll be stuck where we are for a long time and that sucks. Coaching is another topic but its not as big as paying for talent. College football has become a mini NFL.

I think if you have had some success with your program, the talent will get even better. Going back to 2015 Utah is 73 - 32 so I think they thought that they had a good base before they decided to by the trucks.

College Football Team Gets Nearly 100 Free Pickup Trucks​

Yep, you read that correctly. Every scholarship player on the Utah Utes football team will be cruising around Salt Lake City in a 2024 Ram 1500 Big Horn.

FTW360

• Every scholarship athlete on the University of Utah football team will be given a pickup truck as part of a sweeping NIL deal between the team and For the Win 360 (FTW360).
• The deal is part of the NCAA's new NIL (Name Image Likeness) rules that allow athletes to be compensated for outside brands using their name, image, or likeness (or otherwise profiting off the athlete's fame).
• Each scholarship athlete will receive a 2024 Ram 1500 Big Horn pickup truck with the Night Edition package.

The NCAA's new NIL rules are only a couple of years old, but the concept of college athletes getting gifted new cars is much, much older. All the way back in 1979, Eric Dickerson was considered one of the best football recruits in the country—and Texas A&M wanted him.
The story goes that after Dickerson turned down a suitcase filled with $50,000 of cash, A&M found out he wanted a Pontiac Firebird Trans Am. So A&M procured one for him (painted gold, no less).

 

[Cuse181]

Interesting. What does that say about Dino? A "situational back at best." Wasn't Sean Tucker discovered by accident so to speak? If I recall correctly, he was buried as the number 3 guy on the depth chart until injury and deflections happened, no?

Well tucker was a true freshman who had gotten on campus in August before the season. He didn't really have a whole lot of time to be "found" before the injuries. Pair that with the other two guys (who had played well previously) sitting out the season and that's why you had Jordan as the starter in 2020

 

[GoSU96]

Interesting. What does that say about Dino? A "situational back at best." Wasn't Sean Tucker discovered by accident so to speak? If I recall correctly, he was buried as the number 3 guy on the depth chart until injury and deflections happened, no?

Unreal. You’re crushing the guy based on the fact that he didn’t start the guy he did and the guy that eventually did start didn’t start day one as a true freshman over the guy you crushed him for not starting when he actually did.

 

[IthacaMatt]

Maybe it is a matter of degree, or your qualifier about genuine hope, but I don’t sense “plenty of enthusiasm” in CNY. Not many, on this board or in the general population, were expecting wins against Clemson, NC, or FSU. Apart from 2018, and the little run in the first half of last season, we have not been a contender.

But I believe the real question is what would it take, and can it be done, to be a “serious program”?

As you said the first half of last season, the crowd was there, and it was electric.
Then we completely fell apart. The early pick 6 vs. ND killed the home crowd, and were mostly gone by halftime.

 

[JrodCuse]

Fun fact:

what difference does it make?

I’m not sure what you mean. Are you accepting defeat? Are you cool being a doormat to “superior” teams? The fact some of the more prominent members of the board are cool with being below average in conference is kinda strange.

It makes a big difference being waaaaaay below .500 in conference vs simply .500 or better.

 

[Cuse181]

As LVille climbs the rankings he will shoot up the board.

going to need to shoot up quite a bit, starting UDFA at the moment. Also going to need to put on about 20 pounds, 185 will get you killed in the NFL

 

[IthacaMatt]

got it, two feet grounded in reality

We have been a very good to elite program twice in the modern era, from the mid-50s to the mid-60s, and then again from the mid 80s to the Millenium, a couple stretches exceeding a decade each time.

Yes, television has changed the economics of football enormously, but I just posted a link full of teams like Minnesota, Cincinnati, Louisville, Maryland, Purdue, Utah, Ole Miss, Arizona State, Kansas State and another handful of teams that should be roughly peers.

And in the last 10 years, those teams have badly over-achieved us, and the decade before that, was the low point in our 120 year football history.

Just like basketball has been a 70% winning team for 100 years. Football is not so far off of those numbers, historically speaking. Why should we aspire to any less success than West Virginia, Pitt, BC, Maryland, Pitt, Rutgers, Va Tech, NC State, Georgia Tech or any non-Top 20 programs?

 

[JrodCuse]

going to need to shoot up quite a bit, starting UDFA at the moment. Also going to need to put on about 20 pounds, 185 will get you killed in the NFL

Have you seen Devon Achane for the dolphins? these smaller sized, ultra fast RB’s are the new wave to compliment the bigger guys.

 

[IthacaMatt]

We need to be realistic about SU’s place in the football world. Competing for championships won’t be the goal.

It's about 2 things - (1) being generally competitive, and (2) playing entertaining football, with effort and heart.

Syracuse is a lot like English football; we appreciate hard-working, over-achieving teams. We love being underdogs. But we want that shot to punch a "big team" in the nose, so to speak.

That, to me, is the Syracuse fan of my generation.

 

[Deleted member 8116]

It's about 2 things - (1) being generally competitive, and (2) playing entertaining football, with effort and heart.

Syracuse is a lot like English football; we appreciate hard-working, over-achieving teams. We love being underdogs. But we want that shot to punch a "big team" in the nose, so to speak.

That, to me, is the Syracuse fan of my generation.

You mean USA soccer?

 

[IthacaMatt]

Well, UNC isn't a Top 10 team, technically. Additionally, it wasn't that long ago that many folks, even the "brainiacs" you refer to, considered UNC a peer type school. Furthermore, I'm not so sure we are even an average team, considering 3 of our wins are against incredible inferior non P5 schools.

Moreover, Dino has had only one season to date where he finished above .500 in conference, a conference mind you, that other than Clemson has been pretty average at best.

Wake Forest, or UVa, too. NC State struck me as a team we should have beaten more often than we actually did.

 

[IthacaMatt]

You mean USA soccer?

USMNT is a bit soft, and tactically over-matched.

English football, played in the rain, in front of thousands of screaming fans like an SEC game, is proper football.

 

[IthacaMatt]

What sticks out IMO is that when we lose, half the time we are not competitive at all. Even when we lose to teams outside of the Top 40. Happened this year too (one out of two). That kills interest in the program. Fans stop buying in. Recruits don't want to come. The media doesn't take you seriously when we have good starts to a season.

This is right on, and a terrible problem. Our team just lays down and dies sometimes in "big games".

 

[ChrisCourt]

My take: and I am sure that this has been said over & over & over... is to fix the O-Line. If SU has a solid O-Line, that can actually protect our QB, then we wouldn't need the Shraders and Dungeys of the world. We would have a QB, that has talent (DeVito) enough to get the ball down the field, and hopefully we would also get talented WR's that have great hands! Fix the O-Line, recruit big kids from the South, that the problem will work itself out. HOWEVER, therein lies the issue; recruiting kids from the south to come up to Cuse and play. It's a vicious cycle... Settling for basic football around here, seems to be the standard as of late. I don't like it one bit.

 

[djcon57]

I can live with losing games based on talent in the current climate

I can't deal with losing games due to clock mgmt, play calling, scheme, undisciplined play, etc

And I can appreciate that lack of talent can lead to some of that, but it can't be year after year after year

 

[phil77]

Fix the WR
Fix the OL
Fix the QB
Fix the DL
Fix the ?????

You guys are all avoiding the problem...We are never going to get elite WR talent we are never going to get elite OL talent we are never going to get elite QB talent etc...

What we need to fix is the COACHING ! A coaching staff at Syracuse has to be able to identify underrated talent, talent that fits its scheme, and most importantly be able to COACH up said talent. We just had a talent at QB that is currently on an NFL roster and our COACHING STAFF couldn't figure out a way to get anything out of him. THAT ISN'T A TALENT problem that is a COACHING problem.

If you can't block for normal 5-7 step drops then adjust to a quick passing game AND THAT DOESN'T MEAN JUST WR SCREENs. 3 step slants over the middle. Short option routes for WRs. Use the Tight End over the middle. ETC... Doing the same thing over and over again is idiotic. Once you establish the short passing game the deep shots will open up and the rush will slow down as they are expecting quick passes...

And please stop throwing 40 yard fade routes all game long ...

When you are at a talent disadvantage you have to play a clean game as far as penalties and in-game coaching decisions and our current coaching staff doesn't make great in-game decisions and hasn't developed any type of discipline within our team. AGAIN ALL ON THE COACHING

 

[GoSU96]

I’m not sure what you mean. Are you accepting defeat? Are you cool being a doormat to “superior” teams? The fact some of the more prominent members of the board are cool with being below average in conference is kinda strange.

It makes a big difference being waaaaaay below .500 in conference vs simply .500 or better.

Past is past, fact is the program was better last year than the year before, and this year better than last. If they were stringing together 1, 2, 3, 4 win seasons, it might mean something, but they aren’t.

Last two seasons if you count UNC as a peer team SU is 6-4, so far. Wins vs Lviile, Purdue, UVA, NCSt, @ BC, @ Purdue.

They‘ve lost 8 games over the last two years, 5 of 8 to teams ranked or finished ranked @ Clemson 13, ND 18, @ Pitt 22, FSU 11, @ UNC 12. The other three Wake on the road, Minnesota in the bowl, Clemson this year.

 

[Chip]

Past is past, fact is the program was better last year than the year before, and this year better than last. If they were stringing together 1, 2, 3, 4 win seasons, it might mean something, but they aren’t.

Last two seasons if you count UNC as a peer team SU is 6-4, so far. Wins vs Lviile, Purdue, UVA, NCSt, @ BC, @ Purdue.

They‘ve lost 8 games over the last two years, 5 of 8 to teams ranked or finished ranked @ Clemson 13, ND 18, @ Pitt 22, FSU 11, @ UNC 12. The other three Wake on the road, Minnesota in the bowl, Clemson this year.

It's a tough week for people to have these conversations, after a loss like that. Likely about to face the same thing, as we know.

Key to everything is how they do in the last 5. All winnable, all lose-able.

 

[Cuse181]

Have you seen Devon Achane for the dolphins? these smaller sized, ultra fast RB’s are the new wave to compliment the bigger guys.

Maybe, but as I look through the top rushers from the last two years, not seeing a whole lot of sub 200lbs guys.

 

[IthacaMatt]

Past is past, fact is the program was better last year than the year before, and this year better than last. If they were stringing together 1, 2, 3, 4 win seasons, it might mean something, but they aren’t.

Last two seasons if you count UNC as a peer team SU is 6-4, so far. Wins vs Lviile, Purdue, UVA, NCSt, @ BC, @ Purdue.

They‘ve lost 8 games over the last two years, 5 of 8 to teams ranked or finished ranked @ Clemson 13, ND 18, @ Pitt 22, FSU 11, @ UNC 12. The other three Wake on the road, Minnesota in the bowl, Clemson this year.

We're pretty close, these last 15 games or so, but we totally have to avoid a collapse against a very kind final 5 games of the season.

 

[GoSU96]

We're pretty close, these last 15 games or so, but we totally have to avoid a collapse against a very kind final 5 games of the season.

That 5 game losing streak was four ranked teams and at Wake. The last five games aren’t close to that.