Is Syracuse Football A Lost Cause?

[GoSU96]

I don't see SU going to the Big XII. And I sure hope they don't go.

There are too many ACC teams for the Big 2 and Big XII to take all of them. Most of the current ACC schools will be stuck with each other in the long haul, and also that will be what is their best option. I'm pretty sure the first 6 listed below will be always together, and really the first 15 likely aren't going anywhere either. And with SU, that makes a 16 team league.

Teams SU football will be playing in 2036 and beyond, in order of likelihood, IMHO:

BC
Wake Forest
UConn
Duke
GaTech
WVU

Pitt
Louisville
VaTech
NC State
SMU
UVa
Cal
Stanford
Cincinnati

UCF
USF
ND
UNC
FSU
Miami
Clemson

I think you mean:

Colgate
Army
Navy
UConn
UMass
Lehigh
Holy Cross
App State
Citadel
Stony Brook
UB
Bucknell
Fordham
VMI
Gtown
Howard

 

[sufandu]

I would say it’s not fun, I personally no longer enjoy college sports. I continue to watch SU all sports men and women. Mostly out of habit and out of a misplaced loyalty. A little history. I was an usher at Archibald. Befitted that my dad brought to games. I was there for Jim Brown, foe the sizable seven and the fearsome foursome. I was there in 59 when the number one team in the country was SU starting O and D was number one and the second teams were number Two. I was on a plane coming back from a bowl game when Me Eggers said and I heard it paraphrase “ we want to hang around the top 20, and when our players get to be jr.’s and sr’s we have a shot at top 5 and if we get lucky….” That’s like a pro golfer saying I just want to make the cut. That doesn’t get it done. Simple truth is for SU to be successful the majority of the 20.5 needs to go to football an 10 million from NIL needs to go to Men’s hoops. And a significant $ for LAX and women’s hoops. In order for that to work NIL need to be in the range if 15 to 17.5 million. In addition, NCAA needs to cap NIL 20/25 Mill for ALL SSCHOOLS PERIOD. The still give the big money schools a 2,5 to 5 million advantage but at least a large number of schools could be competitive. Fat old man out.

I get what you're saying about the NCAA capping NIL, except they have no legal power to do it. At it's core, NIL is between outside entities and the athletes. It would be akin to the NBA capping what Nike can pay Lebron or the NFL telling Mahomes he can have only one sponsorship deal. Of course we know NIL is not what was intended, but it is what anyone with one working brain cell expected.

A super league where TV revenue is shared evenly amongst all schools permitting regional divisions followed by collective bargaining that places some guardrails around transfers through multi-year contracts may be the best we can hope for.

 

[sufandu]

Since all the rules have been blown up for college sports, it's time to blow up the silly rule that your football program has to be in a league with all your other sports. The P4 FB programs should be in football-only conferences. All other sports should be in regional leagues with 8 to 10 members each. It's time to stop the insanity of sending field hockey teams [and all the other sports] across the country to play their league games.

I get that logic and that may be the way to go, but I wonder, since football goes a long way toward funding the non-revenue sports, if splitting it all up would leave them hanging.

 

[JonB]

The answer requires zero thought. Yes, and they sold the basketball program to the south while they were delusional about it.

 

[JonB]

1. Bad football teams still make more money than good basketball teams
2. We are only one year removed from a football season where we won 10 games and were maybe just a couple defensive stops away from the college football playoff

That’s as good as it will ever get in Syracuse for football.

 

[JonB]

1. Bad football teams still make more money than good basketball teams
2. We are only one year removed from a football season where we won 10 games and were maybe just a couple defensive stops away from the college football playoff

Nobody cares about football in Syracuse. I don’t even think Syracuse averages more than six wins per season throughout their history. it’s a basketball school. Do you care about all the money that Syracuse is making while Gonzaga and Connecticut make the elite eight every single year? Let’s call a spade a spade, and see Syracuse cares about making a lot of money from football, and being mediocre at football and basketball in the process because they are making money.

 

[Chip]

The new landscape of college football has made me a bigger NFL fan. I used to be a huge Saturday over Sunday fan, but not anymore.

I agree with college players being paid, but hate that there's absolutely no control over it.

As for Syracuse, whether we're a lost cause really depends on your expectations. If you expect us to be a perennial top 25, competing for conference championships and playoff spots annually, then yeah I'd say it's a lost cause. But in that regard it's been a lost cause this entire century.

If you expect Syracuse to be an occasional top 25 team, occasionally battling for a conference championship and playoff spot, then no it's not a lost cause. In this scenario, the floor should really be 6 wins. What we saw this year with 3 wins and laying down against a 1 win team in the finale, should be an outlier that never ever happens again.

 

[elimunelson]

Syracuse is and always was a a 50 year storm program. Every 50 years we can challenge for a title. 1987 was really the last time we were seriously in contention to win it all.

My beef is the other years. I want consistency from our program. 7-9 win seasons should be part of the equation. For many of us, the early 90s seduced us into thinking 9-10 win seasons was normal.

I thank P and D along w having a football coach AD propel the program to real relevancy.

It can happen again but our expectations should never seriously be titles.

 

[SmilinBob]

The new landscape of college football has made me a bigger NFL fan. I used to be a huge Saturday over Sunday fan, but not anymore.

I agree with college players being paid, but hate that there's absolutely no control over it.

As for Syracuse, whether we're a lost cause really depends on your expectations. If you expect us to be a perennial top 25, competing for conference championships and playoff spots annually, then yeah I'd say it's a lost cause. But in that regard it's been a lost cause this entire century.

If you expect Syracuse to be an occasional top 25 team, occasionally battling for a conference championship and playoff spot, then no it's not a lost cause. In this scenario, the floor should really be 6 wins. What we saw this year with 3 wins and laying down against a 1 win team in the finale, should be an outlier that never ever happens again.

I agree except I just watch the red zone to be entertained.

I dispise betting and its commercials.

I'm a front runner regarding the NFL with my kind of current team but have zero passion regarding watching their games. SU is starting to go to that level for me which I never thought would happen and I'm losing interest in any college games, especially the bowls, which I have no interest in anymore.

 

[mustacheovich]

Nobody cares about football in Syracuse. I don’t even think Syracuse averages more than six wins per season throughout their history. it’s a basketball school. Do you care about all the money that Syracuse is making while Gonzaga and Connecticut make the elite eight every single year? Let’s call a spade a spade, and see Syracuse cares about making a lot of money from football, and being mediocre at football and basketball in the process because they are making money.

Judging by the recent crowds I don't think anyone cares about basketball either

 

[Ozone!]

It doesn’t have to be​

If donors step up and we use that money wisely, then we can become relevant, IMO.
Let’s all do what we can to support HCFB’s vision and mission!

 

[Archimedes]

It doesn’t have to be​

If donors step up and we use that money wisely, then we can become relevant, IMO.
Let’s all do what we can to support HCFB’s vision and mission!
View attachment 258362

All of this makes me want to back Fran even more. He's what college football is supposed to be about, at least to me. I'm all in on Fran (but if he goes...)

 

[elimunelson]

It doesn’t have to be​

If donors step up and we use that money wisely, then we can become relevant, IMO.
Let’s all do what we can to support HCFB’s vision and mission!
View attachment 258362

let's hope so. his mission from October on was to not coach.

Lost alot of respect from me for basically tanking when there's no draft.

 

[Ozone!]

All of this makes me want to back Fran even more. He's what college football is supposed to be about, at least to me. I'm all in on Fran (but if he goes...)

If he goes, do you mean leaves Cuse?

 

[LeMoyneCuse]

The Athletic Department and the University at large will keep trying to make it work and produce a consistent winner.

Whether one chooses to keep caring is a fully personal decision.

 

[Ozone!]

let's hope so. his mission from October on was to not coach.

Lost alot of respect from me for basically tanking when there's no draft.

As all professionals, we are constantly learning. He takes responsibility for his actions and makes corrections, like the recent coaching changes, in my view that is a very good trait.

 

[IHeartSUFball]

We dance around this question a lot on this forum, so I figured it was time to pose it explicitly. Here is what we know:

1. Each school may set aside $20.5 million in revenue to split among all athletes, with any additional coming from NIL.
2. They claim that NIL payments will now be regulated more strictly to ensure that it is a legitimate NIL deal.
3. These wealthy boosters are very likely able to get around increased enforcement via actually putting these kids in ads.
4. Therefore, while the $20.5 million will help us significantly, it will not bring us to parity with peer schools.
5. We will spend most, though not all, of the $20.5 million on football.

Just doing some quick googling, it appears the top 25 football programs had NIL budgets starting at around $10 million, with the top 10 and especially top 5 being way above that. With athletic departments now being allowed to infuse cash directly, NIL has become a supplementary way to pay players rather than primary. One of the major questions people have is how that will impact donor investment into NIL. This is speculation, but my belief is that NIL donor activity will increase as a result, especially at the "rich" schools. That being said, we are probably looking at having a budget anywhere from half to 75% of our top level peers, depending on our corporate support.

It doesn't seem to me that we can compete in such an environment, as our best players will always get poached. Why wouldn't a Clemson or Florida State type of program just buy our best players every year? People may point to Indiana or Vanderbilt as examples of why we can still win, but these schools have far more resources than we do and have only been able to sustain this level of football for 1 or 2 seasons so far. This seems like a situation where we have been rendered structurally incapable of competing at the highest level of college football.

That being said, if you take the $20.5 million and apply it 100% to men's basketball, suddenly you probably have about $25 million annually in player payment budget. It has been publicly reported that the "$10 million club" is the gold standard currently for college basketball program NIL spending. 9 of the 10 programs in that $10 million club play high level football, and of those only Duke will spend a bulk of those funds on basketball. If the athletic department makes a conscious decision to pivot to a basketball centric focus, the basketball program actually could sustain one of the highest NIL budgets in the nation on an annual basis. At that point you would have a program with one of the largest fanbases, one of the largest NIL budgets, in relatively close proximity to hotbeds like NYC & Philadelphia, you can see how it brings basketball back to being a potential powerhouse.

That being said, it's not so cut and dry even if the AD wanted to make the pivot I am suggesting. The ACC will insist that we maintain high level football, so doing this would functionally mean we are telling the ACC to kick us out. It may lead to a few seasons of putting a shell of a football team out there to get slaughtered every fall. We would also be banking on the Big East taking us back when an eventual ACC split happens, which I think is a fairly safe bet.

To be clear, none of this speculation is something I enjoy stating. I have been a Syracuse football fan since I went to my first game at home against Rutgers when I was 11 years old back in 2003. I was a fan through Perry Patterson, Greg Paulus, Ryan Nassib, Terrell Hunt, AJ Long, Rex Culpepper, Zack Mahoney, Eric Dungey, you name it. But at this point I am looking at two floundering programs, and on the football side I just can't convince myself that we have any hope of competing at the highest level going forward. That being said, I would rather go all in on basketball with the prayer that we can get the program back to where it was when I was a kid than keep pretending we have a chance at competing in football.

Just shut the hell up my god

 

[Archimedes]

If he goes, do you mean leaves Cuse?

Pretty much. What happens with Fran will tell me everything I need to know about college sports.

If he moves to a bigger job after success here, it'll tell me SU is just a connecting airport on the way to a better location. If he fails, I'll believe the college football deck is too stacked against the good guys. I'm really hoping he stays long term.

I admit I'm only seeing Fran's strengths. The 10-3 season got me reconnected with SU. I gave $ to NIL and the school after his intro press conference. Maybe I shouldn't see it like this. I dunno. I wanna believe.

 

[baggerbob]

The Athletic Department and the University at large will keep trying to make it work and produce a consistent winner.

Whether one chooses to keep caring is a fully personal decision.

I will continue for the rest of my life. Been following since the 50's, no reaso6 to stop at this stage of my life.

 

[GoSU96]

Nobody cares about football in Syracuse. I don’t even think Syracuse averages more than six wins per season throughout their history. it’s a basketball school. Do you care about all the money that Syracuse is making while Gonzaga and Connecticut make the elite eight every single year? Let’s call a spade a spade, and see Syracuse cares about making a lot of money from football, and being mediocre at football and basketball in the process because they are making money.

Good lord just one season ago they went 10-3 with a team centered on 4th and 5th year marginal (3rd day and udfa) nfl guys and some really good college players to add depth.

You think that’s mediocre and that a team with higher level talent can’t do the same or better?

 

[CanadianSU]

Ramrod, Whizz Bang, Huzzzzzah, this old burgh.

Random but I used to send his articles to non Cuse people so they could laugh.

 

[swish7]

The next 3 weeks will determine if we're a lost cause or not.

For this to be fun, for me at least, I want to see 8 wins, 3 out of every 5 seasons.

3-6 wins, etc, is just more of the same.

Are we a 'lost cause'? Maybe. We are teetering on the brink. 25+ years of mediocrity cannot be ignored. Hiring people like Elijah Robinson to such important roles cannot happen at schools like Syracuse. We cannot afford the kind of talent to overcome his deficiencies.

So, w some attention to these details, spending money wisely, and outperforming that investment, we can then win on a consistent basis and become more of a promising cause.

Can we compete with the top 20 big spenders? Nope. Not to my knowledge.

Does that make us a 'lost cause'? Nope.

Do 3-9 records, on top of 25 years of mediocrity? Yep. It certainly doesn't help.

 

[Chip]

I thank P and D along w having a football coach AD propel the program to real relevancy.

I think Coach Mac deserves a shout out for that as well.

 

[richmondcuse03]

Ramrod, Whizz Bang, Huzzzzzah, this old burgh.

Random but I used to send his articles to non Cuse people so they could laugh.

My favorite were the DO columns that mocked him. Sadly some of the best ones aren't available online anymore...

https://dailyorange.com/writers/w--whence/

Smacked Hacks: Substandard cardinal 10 minutes expedite formality of D.O.'s 7th straight loss to WAER in yearly Media Cup - The Daily Orange

Oh, under a crescent moon many years ago, that sage sculptor of yore, W.C. Heinz, looked upon a basket-tossing precipice and turned to his compatriot, Red Smith, and offered, ‘Ya know, Redsie, I reckon there just might a reason we don’t play this game.’ And so the two squadrons of pupil media...

dailyorange.com

 

[GHLF]

Nobody cares about football in Syracuse. I don’t even think Syracuse averages more than six wins per season throughout their history. it’s a basketball school. Do you care about all the money that Syracuse is making while Gonzaga and Connecticut make the elite eight every single year? Let’s call a spade a spade, and see Syracuse cares about making a lot of money from football, and being mediocre at football and basketball in the process because they are making money.

Completely incorrect