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[QUOTE="Deuga, post: 1544588, member: 5551"]
I see two big problems with the logic of firing Shafer:

The team lacks experienced depth at key positions.  The coaching staff is responsible for recruiting players to fill that depth, but Shafer has only had two full recruiting years.  He was hired a month before signing day in 2013.  Thus, the lack of junior and senior depth is mostly not his fault.  If that were still to be true one year and especially two years from now, then it would definitely be his fault.

This is a well coached team.  I’m not seeing a team that’s quit.  I am seeing a team badly outmatched in key positions where the starters are freshman against quality opponents with experienced players who know how to exploit the mismatches.  Typically if you’re so thin of experienced, quality depth that you have to start freshmen, you’re almost always going to get bad results against quality competition until that freshmen depth develop in future years.  Yet despite that, we almost beat UVA and Pitt while starting a freshman QB.  Both teams with far greater experienced depth.  In fact we lead most of the way against both of these teams.

If the players quit on the coaches between now and the end of the year that could spell Shafer’s dismissal.  Otherwise, I think SU will keep Shafer for at least another year because the arguments for dismissal are pretty weak.  The bad coaching argument doesn’t hold water because you’re dealing with too many freshman starters who are going to make mistakes.  The ‘he can’t recruit’ argument doesn’t hold water either because he’s only had two years to recruit as HC.
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