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Message: [QUOTE="SWC75, post: 1473768, member: 289"] I started following SU in Ernie Davis' senior year, (1961). They were two years from winning the national championship, Jim Brown was the NFL's greatest player and Ernie Davis won the Heisman Trophy so we were riding pretty high. I turned 8 that season and through 1967, when I was 14, we remained very good with great players such as John Mackey, Jim Nance, Floyd Little and Larry Csonka. Then things declined as went went 6-4, 5-5, 6-4, 5-5-1, 5-6 and then 2-9 in Ben's last year. Really, what he accomplished here was amazing. He never had as much money or scholarship as his primary opposition. At the end Archbold Stadium was a rockpile reduced to about half it's normal capacity. Our first weight room was a converted office with some barbells in it. it was a Division I program with Division III support, if that. (People complain about our facilities today but back then our facilities were not inadequate.: They were basically non-existent.) The demands of two platoon football, which required recruiting many more players from many more places caused many respected football programs, including Syracuse to fade into irrelevance while the big state schools took over the sport. I spent the years from 1968-86, (ages 15-33), believing that great success in football at Syracuse was part of our history but not of our future because it was just not possible for a mid-sized private school in an glamorous location in a state that doesn't emphasize the sport to have a respected big-time football program. Then came 1987 and 15 straight winning seasons, 9 bowl victories and superstars like Donovan McNabb,. Marvin Harrison and Dwight Freeney and I came to believe that great success was possible at a place like Syracuse. The things I listed above didn't have to hold us back. Then things declined again. Coach P. went 7-5, 6-5, 10-3, 4-8, 6-6 and 6-6. Greg Robinson was brought in to halt the slide but accelerated it. Doug Marrone was asked to build us back up and he started the process but then left. Scott Shafer was left to pick up the pieces and he's trying to do that. Our talent level seems to be noticeably increasing and some sort of success seems possible in the near future. I think being the ACC may put a ceiling on our ambitions: it's clearly the toughest conference we'd been in, top to bottom. Florida State has returned to national power status. Miami probably will join them at some point. Clemson and Louisville are very good. There's nobody as bad as Rutgers and Temple used to be in the old Big East. The BE represented a golden opportunity for a school like SU: a winnable BCS conference but we picked that time to have a downturn and couldn't take advantage of it. But the ACC also gives us opportunities with increased revenue, better facilities and visibility in prime recruiting areas. I think we can get as good as we were in the 1987-2001 period and become a respected member of the conference. But it's going to be hard to win the dang thing and being respected may be the limit of our achievements. That's OK because I've been an SU football every year since 1961, no matter how good or bad things got and I'll remain so as long as my heart keeps ticking and my brain still works. [/QUOTE]

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