Is Marrone on the hot (or even warm) seat in 2012?

[GoSU96]

.500 club? SU was 1-6 in the worst BCS conference of all-time.

5-7 last year, 13-12 the last two.

.500 club.

Pretty simple.

 

[Bayside44]

Facilities are always a problem if yours always stink. IF they are on par with everyone else it's a wash.

Look at it this way, if someone was going to buy you a house, chances are since you're not paying you'd pick one with the nicest stuff. Our facilities (having seen them) are drab and dated. At least turfing and padding up Manley gave them something to hang a hat on.

As far as guys wanting the run and shoot with the talent that we had out there, well, good luck with that.

 

[JeremyCuse]

Other than clearly the OL, DL, LB, DB's.

The QB position is clearly better top to bottom. At QB Marrone was left with one kid that could play. The incumbent starter was a Pasqualoni walk on.

This year we will start seeing how recruiting has gone at TB.

How is the QB position clearly better when no one besides Nassib has played a snap? The WR position is in dire straights after Lemon and even if Sales plays he is a Senior and a Grob guy. Secondary, Oline, and Safety are much better. But WR, RB, TE, and LB are all big question marks.

 

[IthacaMatt]

My recollection was that Marrone received a five-year contract.

If that's true, he has two more years to go.

The lack of news regarding an extension at this point is meaningless and will continue to be meaningless through 2012 season.

Marrone is not on the hot seat or warm seat or however you want to raise this issue.

The issues/challenges with the program are far more fundamental than Coach Marrone - and the administration knows that.

I'm getting a little tired of blaming the facilities. The facilities have nothing to do with the fact that this will be year four, and he hasn't put together one decent offensive line yet. To me, this is a make or break year. He MUST make a bowl after last year's melt-down, or else he will do no better than .500 here, and we should start thinking about a replacement.

 

[IthacaMatt]

"Should be" and "is" aren't the same thing. Should he be on the hot seat? Eh, I don't know. I might conclude that eventually. Is he on the hot seat? No way.

Down side of taking a cellar dweller job is you get basement cellar players. Bright side of taking a cellar dweller job is you get a long leash.

if he gets 3 wins this year (that's where i think they'll be actually, 3 or 4, and I'm going to try not to freak out over it), he'll have double the wins of robinson in the same amount of time. right or wrong winning double what the previous coach did probably gets you more years than that previous coach.

If he is at 3 wins in year four, he's gotta go. A big part of the lack of depth is due to his own strictness with team rules. You make your own bed. Last year we were supposed to be young and rebuilding on defense (and we were). We played fairly well, but would have been better if we hadn't kicked a couple key performers off the team, and yes, there were injuries.

Last year, we were supposed to be experienced on offense, and we were, but we played like crap. Four returning O-line starters, and Mackey in the middle. That decision to play a Rudy-sized player is all on Doug. There was a back-up available. This is probably where we had the most defections in the past 2 or 3 years.

He has to be more flexible. The offense has to function like an average offense - be able to pass protect against average teams, and be able to gain a couple yards in short yardage situations against average teams. No more excuses.

 

[IthacaMatt]

Exactly. You can't leave a college football coach hanging in the wind by leaving him unsigned during a contract year. Those who don't believe that would be a big deal are foolish IMO.

Well, the time for that is after 2012, not now. He has to earn it, or else all they are doing is increasing his buyout if he doesn't.

 

[IthacaMatt]

fundamental issues for me means my usual obsession with facilities and recruiting. if orangepa has others, i would like to know how he see's it. i had concerns about marrone not being able to provide a cohesive team identity and being to rigid but feel better about the approach this year including the closed practices. those 5 losses were a wake up call for him, and his approach(i hope)

Yeah, but if his wake up call is to be even more strict, more controlling and more uptight, that's the wrong message to take from last year's meltdown.

 

[Ozcuse]

5-7 last year, 13-12 the last two.

.500 club.

Pretty simple.

Between 2009-2011 we were 3-5 in OOC BCS games (including the bowl win); 8-0 in OOC non-BCS games, and 6-15 in the Big East.

That's a staggering 9-20 (.31% winning percentage) against BCS caliber opponents the last 3 years. If you want to fluff your numbers with the Colgate's, Maine's, Rhode Island's, Akron's and Tulane's of the world be my guest. It's a shell game and you know it. He is graded against his peers, not the non-BCS teams.

For the record I'm not calling for Doug's head yet but his seat is getting warm and the results of this season could very well determine Marrone's fate.

 

[IthacaMatt]

My expectations are grounded in reality.

I think I understand the talent level, the infrastructure and the money available to the program.

I don't try to compare the SU Football Program to that of Nebraska or Va Tech or the SU Basketball Program - because the math just does not compare.

Even in the glory years of McNabb, the math did not compare and neither did the talent level - save for a few truly great players like Harrison, McNabb, Freeney.

I have high expectations for the future, but knowing what I think I know, I am convinced that Marrone needs at least three more years to get the program to a truly competitive level.

So, the notion that Marrone is on the hot seat or should be on the hot - or as you put it based on some source - on the warm seat, is, I think unrealistic and inaccurate.

Serious question for you - is it more profitable to the program to move all our marquee home games to NYC ? How much more do we make, compared to taking the juice out of the fan base ? Isn't there anything we can do to get more Saturday games ?

Playing on Thursday and Friday nights feels so minor league. I hope we get a lot more Saturday games in the ACC.

 

[Millhouse]

If he is at 3 wins in year four, he's gotta go. A big part of the lack of depth is due to his own strictness with team rules. You make your own bed. Last year we were supposed to be young and rebuilding on defense (and we were). We played fairly well, but would have been better if we hadn't kicked a couple key performers off the team, and yes, there were injuries.

Last year, we were supposed to be experienced on offense, and we were, but we played like crap. Four returning O-line starters, and Mackey in the middle. That decision to play a Rudy-sized player is all on Doug. There was a back-up available. This is probably where we had the most defections in the past 2 or 3 years.

He has to be more flexible. The offense has to function like an average offense - be able to pass protect against average teams, and be able to gain a couple yards in short yardage situations against average teams. No more excuses.

this is going to be a 3 or 4 win team with a below average offense. my attitude is to wait for this dreadful season to end and see he does in a year or two where nassib's not playing qb. concerns about marrone playing a qb he inherited for too long will be moot by then, he'll sink or swim on his own by then.

concerns about him sticking with bad qbs too long will be moot if he recruits good ones. and by 2014, we'll have a much better idea

 

[IthacaMatt]

You can say whatever you want - but you're dead wrong.

USF was superior at every position. Their QB was very talented - their WRs were very talented and their lines were bigger, stronger and more athletic than ours. Really not even close. That we were able to squeeze out a win at USF the year before - with seven seniors on defense - was based more on USF mistakes than anything else. And, besides we're talking about the 2011 season not the 2010 season.

And with Cincy, we were just plain beat-up by that team - one that returned all eleven starters on defense from the year before. They had a great RB and a back-up QB who is athletic and who played well. That game was not even close. The Bearcats just plain beat us up.

The UConn game came down to field position. The UConn offense started every drive at nearly mid-field because of their more talented special teams. And because we started in bad field position during every 4th quarter possession we were forced to do what we had to do all season - take 10-15 plays to score. And when a team requires that many plays to score the margin for error is great. The game ended because of an INT while SU was driving to take the lead. Yes, DeLeone is a very good offensive coach who ran a great offense that day, but once again as is usually the case, the talent on the field was the difference. In fact, the talent level on the UConn OL and the UConn defense was superior to the talent levels for SU.

So, yes, it's easy to blame the coach - that's what fans do - but the reality is that we may have been better, over all, than only one of the five teams that beat us - and UConn was a close call.

Heck, just compare the won-loss records.

You make South Florida out to be Ohio State. Whatever excuses you want to come up with, we beat them on the road the year before, and we were returning 8 starters from an offense that put up 38 points in a bowl game. We should be competitive with other Big East teams.

Louisville has 2 good years of recruiting under Charlie Strong. That's also not enough talent to say that they are Florida State or Virginia Tech.

In the UConn game, you talk about "more talented special teams". Dude, special teams is about your young players and your depth. It's coming into year four, and we are still talking about not having players at certain positions. Roster management is on the coach eventually.

Every team in the NCAA has a few "great" players - except for us apparently. But we still seem to have 1,000 yard rushers, and we have a quarterback who is putting up among the best numbers in school history.

At some point, coaches become responsible for the performance of the team they put out there. We are not freaking Maine, trying to compete in a league that's too good for us. We are Syracuse, for chrissakes, and we play in the weakest BCS conference.

 

[IthacaMatt]

One of the few things I do know about sports is that if you are more talented than the guy defending you you can indeed run the same thing over and over because the defender cannot stop it.

USF in 2010 blew a bunch of plays. We should've smoked RU last season but also those guys were a lot bigger than our guys. Strange game and 4 and a half hours we'll never get back.

Or maybe your coach just isn't smart enough or mentally agile enough to make adjustments on the fly. We've seen that before, so that's not just a criticism of Doug, but it IS a criticism of the coaching in general. P&D were guilty of this all the time in their later years here.

 

[Scooch]

Everyone here who is out for blood needs to keep something critically important in mind...

MILLHOUSE is being the voice of patience and reason.

So, you know, chew on that for a while, haters. It probably means you're wrong.

 

[IthacaMatt]

Verses UConnn their HC and OC knew that our LB coach and his unit was pretty overmatched and ran right at him all day long. Look, that game blew, we created turnovers and did nada with it, but we were also pretty bare by that point for a whole variety of reasons. Lack of depth is a killer in football.

Did you get a look at guys like Sanu and Coleman their RBs next to our position / skill players? The past two seasons against RU it came down to bounces of the ball...won one, lost one.

Lack of Depth in year 4 is no longer a valid excuse. Maybe he shouldn't kick so many damn players off the team every year.

 

[IthacaMatt]

i don't think it's silly to think marrone will have a make or break year soon.

i just don't think it's this year.

short of epic incompetence, you're not going to fire a guy for having a bad offense when he's still playing a qb he didn't recruit. he'll probably get a little bit of a pass for first year starter. but come 2015, it's going to be hard to give the guy a 7th year if the offense continues to stink, especially considering that it will have been 17 years since they had a good offense. (we think of 2002 as good but it still wasn't)

which is why i say abandon all hope this year and play for the future.

Well, why doesn't he have the balls to break in his own QB, then ? He has recruited a few of them now, and other school seem to be able to play freshmen. It's called simplifying the playbook. If our existing starters are so bad, then he should be mixing in his guys by now. They should be ready, for *cks sake.

 

[Ozcuse]

Lack of Depth in year 4 is no longer a valid excuse. Maybe he shouldn't kick so many damn players off the team every year.

Or stop recruiting guys who like to steal, assault people, or never make it here. :noidea:

 

[IthacaMatt]

its 2013 when we will see offense-the "apologists" have already written off this season -

I hate that people are writing off this year before it's even started. Why even be a fan with a crappy attitude like that ?

 

[IthacaMatt]

this is going to be a 3 or 4 win team with a below average offense. my attitude is to wait for this dreadful season to end and see he does in a year or two where nassib's not playing qb. concerns about marrone playing a qb he inherited for too long will be moot by then, he'll sink or swim on his own by then.

concerns about him sticking with bad qbs too long will be moot if he recruits good ones. and by 2014, we'll have a much better idea

You know, year 2 was supposed to be a dreadful season, and we made a bowl game. I think it's silly to write off a season, period. His recruits are RS Sophs or Juniors this year. If his guys are so much better, then they should mostly be starting.

But how many of his own guys have left the program, aside from all the GRob guys ? There was that JUCO LB that was supposed to start who quit on the first day of Fall practice a couple years ago.

 

[IthacaMatt]

extensions are just par for the course. if they need to eat it later, fine. coaches get extended and canned all the time

Wasn't the existence of a 2nd year on a buy out a huge issue with a recent coach ? (I forget if it was GRob or Pasqualoni)

 

[rosconey]

I hate that people are writing off this year before it's even started. Why even be a fan with a crappy attitude like that ?

did you bother to read the post that was a reply for?

also might want to turn the sarcasm meter on

 

[IthacaMatt]

Facilities are always a problem if yours always stink. IF they are on par with everyone else it's a wash.

Look at it this way, if someone was going to buy you a house, chances are since you're not paying you'd pick one with the nicest stuff. Our facilities (having seen them) are drab and dated. At least turfing and padding up Manley gave them something to hang a hat on.

As far as guys wanting the run and shoot with the talent that we had out there, well, good luck with that.

Well, playing possession football is not taking advantage of the asset we have in the Dome. We could throw the ball down the field once in a while if our line could hold their blocks for more than 2 seconds.

 

[Millhouse]

Well, why doesn't he have the balls to break in his own QB, then ? He has recruited a few of them now, and other school seem to be able to play freshmen. It's called simplifying the playbook. If our existing starters are so bad, then he should be mixing in his guys by now. They should be ready, for *cks sake.

i think he is breaking in his own qb this year. that's why practices are closed.

he didn't do it last year because they were coming off an 8-5 year and started out 5 and 2 (6 of 8 including the k state game from prior year). it was a mistake but not a fireable one. it's not like there were a lot of people who thought nassib should take a seat at that point. (I did, but whatever.) if he wants to keep his job long term, he has to recruit a better qb than nassib. if he doesn't we have a new coach in 2015 because he will have failed with qbs he recruited and inherited. it's only two years, it's not like you'll have to wait forever

 

[IthacaMatt]

Everyone here who is out for blood needs to keep something critically important in mind...

MILLHOUSE is being the voice of patience and reason.

So, you know, chew on that for a while, haters. It probably means you're wrong.

I'm not out for blood, but geez, this will be his fourth year. If we can't field a competent offensive line and a decent defense, why do you think we ever will ?

 

[Millhouse]

Well, playing possession football is not taking advantage of the asset we have in the Dome. We could throw the ball down the field once in a while if our line could hold their blocks for more than 2 seconds.

that's not why they struggle throwing downfield.

 

[Millhouse]

Wasn't the existence of a 2nd year on a buy out a huge issue with a recent coach ? (I forget if it was GRob or Pasqualoni)

they have more money coming with the acc.