John Wildhack | Page 14 | Syracusefan.com

John Wildhack

You can’t keep firing coaches every four or five years.

You have to recognize the inherent limitations with our program.

And, you have to the coach you have selected some time - just as Jake gave Coach Mac time.

This year is obviously an unusual year.

You just can’t make judgements off of what has occurred in the context of COVID
Pretty much every NE Football program sucks this year.

A weird year. Pitt and BC are decent and that is about it. Army is Army and solid too. PSU, Temple, UConn, Cuse, Navy and Rutgers are all pretty crappy this year. Maryland is TBD.

The talent left in the NE is playing other sports now.
 
I've been dipping in and out of this thread. Two things:

1) Personally, I think Dino should have at least two more years. We don't have the luxury to re-load, ever, and need to build with consistency on top of the upside down year this is.

2) Tabling my personal preference, who are we getting if we fire Dino now and how are we paying for it and what will that new coach's salary be / assistant coaches budget be?

To me, everything else is just venting until someone can tell me, for certain, what the answers are to the second point. And I get it, this stinks, but the program people want us to be and the program that we are, in terms of resources, seems to be seriously out of whack.
Dino will be back next year-Wildhack has said it publicly and I'm fine with it and hope he turns it around. He has always come across as very classy and I would love to see him succeed. The problem with Dino staying 2 more years if he has another bad year next year is we'll have 2 years of recruiting under a cloud. If you thought it was hard to recruit before, imagine the class we get if everyone knows the staff is hanging on for dear life. Now imagine having 2 consecutive classes of that. The roster will be a total mess and would make the job much less attractive. We were lucky with recruiting this year due to the early commits related to Covid, so it hasn't hurt this class much (at least not yet) and I believe this is a pretty good class. But you don't want to have empty classes afterwards.
In regards to who would take the job in a year, it's way too early, but there'll be plenty of people wanting to get paid million of dollars to be a Head Coach in the ACC. If the D looks really good next year, I wouldn't even rule out a guy like Tony White, who brings a unique Defense that's looked good considering the injuries and how much they're on the field and has a much better recruiting reputation than Dino had. It's hard to know who will be the hot guys in over a year from now. Maybe the Coastal Carolina coach.
 
If we were making a change I would call Marshall HC Doc Holliday.
He was at WVU and can recruit South Florida.

He is older and wouldn’t be here that long.
I believe he can recruit.

I can scout and find other candidates. I like Dino Babers a lot and I feel he is getting next year even though I don’t see it changing that much without a dramatic shift but if we don’t go 6-6 he can’t get a 7th year.
1 bowl is 6 seasons isn’t acceptable.

I haven't seen this mentioned at all but we should go triple option. Someone give Brian Bohannon a call! :confused:
 
Were not coming up with $15M to buy out Dino. And I don't think I would if we had the money. We're not a powerhouse; we'll go into every season with vulnerabilities. And the college football gods hit on our vulnerabilities as hard as you can this year.

On defense, we came into the season with a top defensive backfield, some interesting linebackers, and a line that we knew might struggle to replace Robinson and Coleman. We've had some bad luck -- Cisco got hurt, Trill bailed once the season was lost and is training for the draft. But the defense has been FINE. It's just under constant pressure because our offense is historically bad.

Turning to the offense, we had a group of interesting backs and receivers who seemed pedestrian as a group. But our three big vulnerabilities were : (1) our OL might not be any good; (2) it wasn't clear Devito was a P5-level starting QB, and it certainly wasn't clear if he could perform as a P5 starting QB if the line stunk; and (3) if Devito went down, we didn't have another QB on the roster ready to play at even a FCS level, much less a P5 level.

What happened? One of our presumptive starting linemen didn't get his waiver, and the line has stunk. Our top two RBs opted out, putting extra pressure on our QB. Devito showed (as expected) that he can't succeed behind an epically bad OL. And, worst of all, Devito went down and we had no even marginally competent backup. I'm not saying these vulnerabilities aren't the coaching staff's fault, but they're fixable.

We need to fix the OL, and it seems that might require a coaching change. I imagine it killed our QB recruiting that Devito was so clearly the anointed one, and what little depth we had died when Chance Amie left. If we can't recruit decent QBs out of high school, maybe we need to spend some time in the "second-chance market," when kids we couldn't recruit out of high school transfer from top 20 programs after it becomes clear that they're behind someone either in their class or younger than them. If the OL is going to be a work in progress, then a QB with mobility should be a priority. Fix the OL and put a decent QB behind it, and this is a decent team.

This is a long-winded way of saying that every vulnerability we had this year got magnified by events. It's like an MLB team that plays Adam Dunn in left field to get his bat in the lineup. That's great most of the time, but the baseball gods ensure that at some crucial time he's gonna screw something up in the field. This year, we had ten line drives in a row hit to Adam Dunn.
We dont need to replace Dino. We need a few more coaches.
1: OL
2: WR
3 : Dave Boller
Hire a great OL coach and Boller or another stud at identifying talent coupled with the 25M new facilities and Stadium upgrades and we are a 7-8 win program. Let Dino continue to play CEO and focus on recruiting.
 
We dont need to replace Dino. We need a few more coaches.
1: OL
2: WR
3 : Dave Boller
Hire a great OL coach and Boller or another stud at identifying talent coupled with the 25M new facilities and Stadium upgrades and we are a 7-8 win program. Let Dino continue to play CEO and focus on recruiting.

There are a lot of hidden gems in the Northeast. We need a coach who can find these kids. Marrone was able to do it. Addazio was another guy who could do it. If we could find the next Addazio out there it would be perfect. He would fix the OL, give the guys some Northeast edge, a good kick in the pants when needed plus have the ability to go find those overlooked Northeast kids. There has to be a guy like that out there somewhere that we can add to the staff.
 
Again, that's not my POV, but I get it, for sure. Lot of issues, no doubt.

But who do we get? If someone can give me a legitimate pool of candidates' names, happy to say if I feel one is better than Dino. I just don't think it's realistic.
Joe Morehead, Lance Leopold, Paul Johnson, Jeff Monken, Brian Bohannon, Brent Davis, Don Brown
 
Last edited:
We dont need to replace Dino. We need a few more coaches.
1: OL
2: WR
3 : Dave Boller
Hire a great OL coach and Boller or another stud at identifying talent coupled with the 25M new facilities and Stadium upgrades and we are a 7-8 win program. Let Dino continue to play CEO and focus on recruiting.
I was told one of the bigger recruiting issues are the players dorms. That needs to be addressed. Don’t need to go Minnesota big but something has to be done
 
Pretty much every NE Football program sucks this year.

A weird year. Pitt and BC are decent and that is about it. Army is Army and solid too. PSU, Temple, UConn, Cuse, Navy and Rutgers are all pretty crappy this year. Maryland is TBD.

The talent left in the NE is playing other sports now.

UCONN is undefeated this year.
 
We dont need to replace Dino. We need a few more coaches.
1: OL
2: WR
3 : Dave Boller
Hire a great OL coach and Boller or another stud at identifying talent coupled with the 25M new facilities and Stadium upgrades and we are a 7-8 win program. Let Dino continue to play CEO and focus on recruiting.
Unless he changes his scheme it won't matter if Nick Saban is the OC calling the plays. Dungey bailed out Dino and his bad plays by running out of the pocket and doing some magic with his legs.
 
What is your deal attacking anyone you don’t agree with.

Yeah right? You would expect a staff member/board moderator to set a better/higher example rather than lowering the bar for this place, let alone making an impersonal post, personal. Interesting.
 
I’m sure but she’s a mod. She gave me a day off for quoting the Statue of Liberty scroll.
I didn't give you a day off. You must have earned that from another mod.
 
Robinson, Cisco, DeVito, Szymt, Neal, Harris, Martin, and Trill were all recruited by Dino and all played significant roles in that 10 win season.
If you want to get into specifics neal committed to shafer. The top babers guys were 2 DB's, a serviceable OLman, contributing WR, backup QB, kicker, and stud DE. Babers added some pieces but the key guys on offense were all from shafer in years 1-3 besides amba. Offense has been awful these last two seasons when its been all DB guys.
 
Again, that's not my POV, but I get it, for sure. Lot of issues, no doubt.

But who do we get? If someone can give me a legitimate pool of candidates' names, happy to say if I feel one is better than Dino. I just don't think it's realistic.
Here would be my partial list of guys I think he'd have a chance at. Chadwell and harsin would probably be the two reaches. With the buyout I don't see how dino is let go after this season but I certainly think these guys would be better than dino.
Jim leonhard

Graham Harrell, before people kill me for this one, he interviewed and wanted the new mexico job which pays less than 2 milion and is not P5

Bryan Harsin

Blake Anderson

Clark Lea

Bret Bielema

Will Healy

Jamie chadwell
 
A staff that contributed greatly to him being let go.

Obviously, George McDonald did not work as OC, but he did have Clark Lea at LB coach, who is now doing very well as ND DC, and Tim Lester, the WMU HC, who is pretty solid.

And, he had other assistants who were pretty decent.

Shafer had horrible luck with QBs and that was really his downfall.
 
Obviously, George McDonald did not work as OC, but he did have Clark Lea at LB coach, who is now doing very well as ND DC, and Tim Lester, the WMU HC, who is pretty solid.

And, he had other assistants who were pretty decent.

Shafer had horrible luck with QBs and that was really his downfall.

Some of that horrible luck was his own doing...leaving Dungey in there to get lit up against Louisville.
 
Obviously, George McDonald did not work as OC, but he did have Clark Lea at LB coach, who is now doing very well as ND DC, and Tim Lester, the WMU HC, who is pretty solid.

And, he had other assistants who were pretty decent.

Shafer had horrible luck with QBs and that was really his downfall.
I wonder how history unfolds if the Texas kid didn't decommit to go to TCU oblivion...
 
Obviously, George McDonald did not work as OC, but he did have Clark Lea at LB coach, who is now doing very well as ND DC, and Tim Lester, the WMU HC, who is pretty solid.

And, he had other assistants who were pretty decent.

Shafer had horrible luck with QBs and that was really his downfall.
His pressers, ability to maintain his composure, and his in game decision making lead to that downfall as well. There is a reason he is not a HC.
 
Obviously, George McDonald did not work as OC, but he did have Clark Lea at LB coach, who is now doing very well as ND DC, and Tim Lester, the WMU HC, who is pretty solid.

And, he had other assistants who were pretty decent.

Shafer had horrible luck with QBs and that was really his downfall.
One extremely bad hire who is a cancer to your program is all it takes.
 
Obviously, George McDonald did not work as OC, but he did have Clark Lea at LB coach, who is now doing very well as ND DC, and Tim Lester, the WMU HC, who is pretty solid.

And, he had other assistants who were pretty decent.

Shafer had horrible luck with QBs and that was really his downfall.
Shafers major mistake was not naming Lester OC from day 1
 

Forum statistics

Threads
167,131
Messages
4,681,953
Members
5,900
Latest member
DizzyNY

Online statistics

Members online
314
Guests online
2,380
Total visitors
2,694


Top Bottom