SWC75
Bored Historian
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(I'm going to post my annual preview in sections because it's so long- 30 pages. I've prepared this not only for this board but for the friends and relatives I send it to, many of whom don't live in this area and are not board regulars.)
Four years ago, Doug Marrone who had been an All-East offensive tackle for Dick MacPherson arrived on campus and told Syracuse fans that this was his “dream job”, that his whole career had been preparation for when he could become the head coach at Syracuse. He said that SU had turned his life around, (he’d been a poorly conditioned and undisciplined youth), and he wanted to pay the university back. He wanted to make a difference in the lives of young people by giving them some discipline and direction in their own lives through a “leadership program”. He’d been on the staff of the Saints and their coach, Sean Payton, said that Doug had been on the short list for NFL head coaching jobs but he wanted this one. He was selected for the job, in part because he had come prepared with notebooks describing the plan he had for building the Syracuse program into a strong one- where to recruit and who to contact there, lists of assistants he was familiar with who could help him, etc. etc. He was introduced at halftime of an SU basketball game and really got the crowd going with this speech:
Everyone was all excited. We were coming off the worst four year stretch, (or stench) in school history, Greg Robinson’s horrible 10-37 run. In Marrone we had an alum who seemed dedicated to rebuilding the program into something we could be proud of and who could have the kind of tenure our basketball coach Jim Boeheim, (37 years at this point), and our lacrosse coach, John Desko, (15 years), have had, both alums who obviously viewed this as their “destination” jobs.
Doug’s first team only improved from 3-9 to 4-8 but they were much more competitive, (being out-scored by 81 points rather than 175). His second team won four conference road games on the way to an 8-5 record and a win in the first ever Pinstripe Bowl in the new Yankee Stadium, 36-34 over Kansas State. Doug was very upbeat in those days. He delighted in talking about his job and his ideas for the various aspects of it. He attributed every success to his “leadership program”. Things seemed to be going pretty much as he had envisioned in all those years he was dreaming of having this job.
Then came 2011. The team was very shaky while building a 5-2 start. They had to come from way behind to beat Wake Forest at home, 36-29 in overtime. They struggled to beat FCS Rhode Island, 21-14. They actually played pretty well in a 17-38 loss to USC. The beat Toledo 33-30 in another OT game with some help from the refs, then lost third OT game, 16-19 to a Rutgers team they thought they had whipped, (as they had done the previous two years). A sure-fire pick six was dropped with the score 13-3 and it was all Rutgers after that. They barely beat a horrible Tulane team 37-34. But then they played a nearly perfect game in crushing naito0nall ranked West Virginia 49-23, (a team that would later beat ACC champion Clemson, 70-33 in the Orange Bowl). It appeared the ship had been righted and that we now had a chance to run the table, win the conference and go to the Orange Bowl ourselves.
But it all fell apart. We lost our last 5 games. We were competitive in those games, but always found a way to lose them. In three of them the other team got a score almost immediately, twice because of turnovers and once because of a long kick-off return. It was like being decked in the first round of a boxing match. (There were a lot of games in the Marrone era that began with almost immediate turnovers, for some reason.) We seemed on rubbery legs the whole afternoon, in fact the whole rest of the season. We wound up 5-7.
Of greater concern was what was going on behind the scenes. Recruiting is the lifeblood of a college football program and it’s vital that the recruits know that the head coach and the assistants, (who do most of the recruiting), are going to be there when they get there. If the recruit isn’t sure of that, he’s likely to go elsewhere. For that reason, schools often extend coaches contracts before they are up. If you don’t, your coach will be known to be on the “hot seat” and he can’t recruit. Marrone had a five year contract but we couldn’t afford to wait five years to extend it. If the 2011 season had had a successful conclusion it’s likely he would have gotten an extension at that point. But the opposite happened and Dr. Daryl Gross didn’t give him an extension- yet.
It was obvious the 2012 season would be hugely important. We were moving to the ACC and we needed to have a solid situation going in so we could compete in the new conference immediately. We would be trying to open up new recruiting territories in the talent-rich south and competing with schools that had been recruiting in those areas for years. You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression and if we had a bad first year we might get typecast as a bottom feeder in the minds of the teenaged recruits we wanted to go after. It might take years to recover. We couldn’t afford to fire the coach for the third time in a decade and start over with somebody else, (and a whole new staff under him), just as we were introducing ourselves to our new rivals.
But there were other things which caused concern. There were indications Doug was “losing the team” behind the scenes. Some players apparently didn’t like his strict discipline and didn’t buy into his “leadership” program. There were stories of locker-room confrontations, even fights. A player got sent home from Pittsburgh the morning of the game for unspecified reasons. There was a rumor that some players did things to ensure a loss at Pittsburgh in the final 2011 game because they didn’t even want to go to a bowl game. Marrone’s demeanor became more sullen. He was less inclined to discuss the various aspects of his job. He even became apologetic, repeating “I have to do a better job” in answer to almost every question so often that I came to abbreviate it as “IHTDABJ” when I reported on his radio show for Syracusefan.com. One fan on his show praised him and he commented “Thanks, that helps make up for all the bad letters.” He didn’t describe the bad letters beyond that. There were reports he didn’t get along with Dr. Gross, that he was dissatisfied with the progress on upgrading facilities and that he was disappointed with the size and enthusiasm of the crowds at the Dome. One Syracusefan.com poster noted, accurately, that he no longer seemed to be enjoying the job. The dream was replaced by reality.
But no one thought any of that was something that would cause Marrone to leave us. The big issue seemed to be getting Dr. Gross to extend his contract and the key to that was that 2012 had to be a successful season.
We seemed off to a great start, rolling up an incredible 596 yards on northwestern in the opener while giving up only 337. But we somehow found a way to lose the game, 41-42 with 3 turnovers, (one a dropped lateral pass that our man didn’t fall on that was returned for a score) and a couple of long kick returns by the Wildcat’s Venric Mark. For all that, the critical thing was that we twice settled for field goals in the red zone to open the game, (we were up 6-0 but it could have been 14) and, after scoring four unanswered touchdowns to take a 41-35 lead, we gave up a 75 yard drive for the winning score at the end. Marrone: “IHTDABJ”
Then we took on USC again, this time in the Meadowlands. They were ranked #2 behind Alabama at the time but we gave ‘em what for, outgaining them 455-445, out first-downing them 27-17 and closing to within 5 after being down 3-21 before losing 29-42. “IHTDABJ”
We played FCS Stony Brook, (yes, Stony Brook) back in the Dome, gave up a 63 yard pass and a 71 yard run for scores, fell behind 14-17 at the half but rallied to win 28-17. ”IHTDABJ” Then we went out to Minnesota, had the first of four turnovers, (to none), on the first play and lost 10-17. “IHTDABJ”. We struggled past a mediocre Pittsburgh team at home, 14-13. “IHTDABJ”. We lost to Rutgers again, 15-23, (despite out-gaining them 418-237), largely due to a 75 yard return of a blocked field goal. “IHTDABJ”. A 40-10 win over a bad Connecticut team was a pretty good job. The team then fell behind at South Florida, 3-23 at the half. We were looking 2-5 squarely in the face and the likely end of an unsuccessful Marrone tenure. But he did a better job and the team rallied to take a 24-23 lead, fell behind 24-33 but came back to win 37-36. Then came a fumble of the opening kick-off vs. Cincinnati, the first of two turnovers that set up scores, a blocked field goal, another one missed and a dozen penalties vs. Cincinnati in a 24-35 loss. “IHTDABJ”.
At 4-5, he might not have to do it for long. But this season ended the opposite way 2011 had ended: with four straight impressive wins. In a repeat of the previous year’s West Virginia game, they blew the conference champ, Louisville this time, out of the Dome 45-26, (and the Cardinals would alter handle mighty Florida, 33-23 in the Sugar Bowl). Then we traveled to Missouri to take on an SEC team. They were a newly minted SEC team but had had considerable success in recent years in the Big 12. We won that one, 31-27 in another come from behind performance. We rolled over Temple, a much improved program from their Big East days, (they have been invited back in), 38-20. Then we took on West Virginia, now a Big 12 team in the kaleidoscope that is college football these days in another Pinstripe Bowl and plowed right through them in the snow, 38-12 to get back to 8-5 again.
Happy ending. Mission accomplished. Surely this would be enough to get Marrone his extension and the program the continuity it required moving into the new era in the ACC.
Rumors started floating around that Marrone was inquiring about NFL jobs, then that he was interviewing with NFL teams. I had a feeling that he might someday go back to the NFL but I assumed it would be when we were all the way back to the level of success we’d had from 1987-2001, (when we were one of four FBS teams to have a winning record in every one of those years: the others being Michigan, Nebraska and Florida State),and be solidly established as annual ACC contenders. I never imagined he’s leave voluntarily at this juncture. He must have been thinking “I have to get a better job”. All of a sudden, there was a news conference with our coach – Doug Marrone- being introduced as the new head coach of the Buffalo Bills.
Everyone was in shock. What did Marrone have to say to the fans to whom he had described this as his “dream job”? Nothing. Not a word. How was he going to teach leadership to a bunch of veteran NFL players? Don’t you have to be in college to do that? Why did the Bills want a coach who kept saying he needed to do a better job? Why did he leave? Was it Dr. Gross? Was it the facilities? Was it the empty seats? The bad letters? Did he simply see this job as a stepping stone to the NFL? Was that opening speech just B. S.? I have a feeling that he felt this would be like a movie where the coach whips his kids into shape and teaches them values and they win because he did that. That may have come apart in 2011 and maybe he never recovered from that. We’ll never know what happened because he said nothing to us.
Seeking to hold things together, the University appointed defensive coordinator Scott Shafer head coach. Hopefully he could keep the coaching staff together. But then came a succession of announcements that coaches from the Syracuse staff had signed to be on Marrone’s Bills staff, eventually 7 of them, (despite Doug’s statement that eh wanted coaches with NFL experience, which few of these guys had). Doug had totally blown up the SU staff. He probably just wanted to work with the people he’d been working with, (many of whom he’d already had relationships before he came to Syracuse, which is why their names were in his famous notebooks). But it seemed to some almost punative, as if he was trying to screw his old school.
So, after fighting to get the coach’s contract extended so we wouldn’t have to start over again with a new coaching staff our first year in the ACC, it turns out that we will do exactly that. Putting resentments aside, Marrone deserves credit for getting us up off the canvas and making us into a respectable program again. I think we have the talent on the team to compete in the ACC and will be OK in the long run. But there’s still the tremendous feeling he left this job in the middle of it, as well as disappointment that he didn’t say something to the fans he courted so hard in the beginning when he left us. There’s no point in being bitter about it. I wish no ill fortune upon Doug Marrone. I’ll be watching his tenure in Buffalo with interest and if they are successful, I’ probably even wind up rooting for the Bills. Only one other SU coach has gone on to coach in the NFL, (Coach Mac had a brief misadventure with the Patriots), and it would be cool to have an SU coach have a good NFL run. But if, in 3-4 years he’s looking for another “Dream Job” and watching Scott Shafer coach us in the ACC title game, the irony of the situation will not be lost on me.
Four years ago, Doug Marrone who had been an All-East offensive tackle for Dick MacPherson arrived on campus and told Syracuse fans that this was his “dream job”, that his whole career had been preparation for when he could become the head coach at Syracuse. He said that SU had turned his life around, (he’d been a poorly conditioned and undisciplined youth), and he wanted to pay the university back. He wanted to make a difference in the lives of young people by giving them some discipline and direction in their own lives through a “leadership program”. He’d been on the staff of the Saints and their coach, Sean Payton, said that Doug had been on the short list for NFL head coaching jobs but he wanted this one. He was selected for the job, in part because he had come prepared with notebooks describing the plan he had for building the Syracuse program into a strong one- where to recruit and who to contact there, lists of assistants he was familiar with who could help him, etc. etc. He was introduced at halftime of an SU basketball game and really got the crowd going with this speech:
Everyone was all excited. We were coming off the worst four year stretch, (or stench) in school history, Greg Robinson’s horrible 10-37 run. In Marrone we had an alum who seemed dedicated to rebuilding the program into something we could be proud of and who could have the kind of tenure our basketball coach Jim Boeheim, (37 years at this point), and our lacrosse coach, John Desko, (15 years), have had, both alums who obviously viewed this as their “destination” jobs.
Doug’s first team only improved from 3-9 to 4-8 but they were much more competitive, (being out-scored by 81 points rather than 175). His second team won four conference road games on the way to an 8-5 record and a win in the first ever Pinstripe Bowl in the new Yankee Stadium, 36-34 over Kansas State. Doug was very upbeat in those days. He delighted in talking about his job and his ideas for the various aspects of it. He attributed every success to his “leadership program”. Things seemed to be going pretty much as he had envisioned in all those years he was dreaming of having this job.
Then came 2011. The team was very shaky while building a 5-2 start. They had to come from way behind to beat Wake Forest at home, 36-29 in overtime. They struggled to beat FCS Rhode Island, 21-14. They actually played pretty well in a 17-38 loss to USC. The beat Toledo 33-30 in another OT game with some help from the refs, then lost third OT game, 16-19 to a Rutgers team they thought they had whipped, (as they had done the previous two years). A sure-fire pick six was dropped with the score 13-3 and it was all Rutgers after that. They barely beat a horrible Tulane team 37-34. But then they played a nearly perfect game in crushing naito0nall ranked West Virginia 49-23, (a team that would later beat ACC champion Clemson, 70-33 in the Orange Bowl). It appeared the ship had been righted and that we now had a chance to run the table, win the conference and go to the Orange Bowl ourselves.
But it all fell apart. We lost our last 5 games. We were competitive in those games, but always found a way to lose them. In three of them the other team got a score almost immediately, twice because of turnovers and once because of a long kick-off return. It was like being decked in the first round of a boxing match. (There were a lot of games in the Marrone era that began with almost immediate turnovers, for some reason.) We seemed on rubbery legs the whole afternoon, in fact the whole rest of the season. We wound up 5-7.
Of greater concern was what was going on behind the scenes. Recruiting is the lifeblood of a college football program and it’s vital that the recruits know that the head coach and the assistants, (who do most of the recruiting), are going to be there when they get there. If the recruit isn’t sure of that, he’s likely to go elsewhere. For that reason, schools often extend coaches contracts before they are up. If you don’t, your coach will be known to be on the “hot seat” and he can’t recruit. Marrone had a five year contract but we couldn’t afford to wait five years to extend it. If the 2011 season had had a successful conclusion it’s likely he would have gotten an extension at that point. But the opposite happened and Dr. Daryl Gross didn’t give him an extension- yet.
It was obvious the 2012 season would be hugely important. We were moving to the ACC and we needed to have a solid situation going in so we could compete in the new conference immediately. We would be trying to open up new recruiting territories in the talent-rich south and competing with schools that had been recruiting in those areas for years. You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression and if we had a bad first year we might get typecast as a bottom feeder in the minds of the teenaged recruits we wanted to go after. It might take years to recover. We couldn’t afford to fire the coach for the third time in a decade and start over with somebody else, (and a whole new staff under him), just as we were introducing ourselves to our new rivals.
But there were other things which caused concern. There were indications Doug was “losing the team” behind the scenes. Some players apparently didn’t like his strict discipline and didn’t buy into his “leadership” program. There were stories of locker-room confrontations, even fights. A player got sent home from Pittsburgh the morning of the game for unspecified reasons. There was a rumor that some players did things to ensure a loss at Pittsburgh in the final 2011 game because they didn’t even want to go to a bowl game. Marrone’s demeanor became more sullen. He was less inclined to discuss the various aspects of his job. He even became apologetic, repeating “I have to do a better job” in answer to almost every question so often that I came to abbreviate it as “IHTDABJ” when I reported on his radio show for Syracusefan.com. One fan on his show praised him and he commented “Thanks, that helps make up for all the bad letters.” He didn’t describe the bad letters beyond that. There were reports he didn’t get along with Dr. Gross, that he was dissatisfied with the progress on upgrading facilities and that he was disappointed with the size and enthusiasm of the crowds at the Dome. One Syracusefan.com poster noted, accurately, that he no longer seemed to be enjoying the job. The dream was replaced by reality.
But no one thought any of that was something that would cause Marrone to leave us. The big issue seemed to be getting Dr. Gross to extend his contract and the key to that was that 2012 had to be a successful season.
We seemed off to a great start, rolling up an incredible 596 yards on northwestern in the opener while giving up only 337. But we somehow found a way to lose the game, 41-42 with 3 turnovers, (one a dropped lateral pass that our man didn’t fall on that was returned for a score) and a couple of long kick returns by the Wildcat’s Venric Mark. For all that, the critical thing was that we twice settled for field goals in the red zone to open the game, (we were up 6-0 but it could have been 14) and, after scoring four unanswered touchdowns to take a 41-35 lead, we gave up a 75 yard drive for the winning score at the end. Marrone: “IHTDABJ”
Then we took on USC again, this time in the Meadowlands. They were ranked #2 behind Alabama at the time but we gave ‘em what for, outgaining them 455-445, out first-downing them 27-17 and closing to within 5 after being down 3-21 before losing 29-42. “IHTDABJ”
We played FCS Stony Brook, (yes, Stony Brook) back in the Dome, gave up a 63 yard pass and a 71 yard run for scores, fell behind 14-17 at the half but rallied to win 28-17. ”IHTDABJ” Then we went out to Minnesota, had the first of four turnovers, (to none), on the first play and lost 10-17. “IHTDABJ”. We struggled past a mediocre Pittsburgh team at home, 14-13. “IHTDABJ”. We lost to Rutgers again, 15-23, (despite out-gaining them 418-237), largely due to a 75 yard return of a blocked field goal. “IHTDABJ”. A 40-10 win over a bad Connecticut team was a pretty good job. The team then fell behind at South Florida, 3-23 at the half. We were looking 2-5 squarely in the face and the likely end of an unsuccessful Marrone tenure. But he did a better job and the team rallied to take a 24-23 lead, fell behind 24-33 but came back to win 37-36. Then came a fumble of the opening kick-off vs. Cincinnati, the first of two turnovers that set up scores, a blocked field goal, another one missed and a dozen penalties vs. Cincinnati in a 24-35 loss. “IHTDABJ”.
At 4-5, he might not have to do it for long. But this season ended the opposite way 2011 had ended: with four straight impressive wins. In a repeat of the previous year’s West Virginia game, they blew the conference champ, Louisville this time, out of the Dome 45-26, (and the Cardinals would alter handle mighty Florida, 33-23 in the Sugar Bowl). Then we traveled to Missouri to take on an SEC team. They were a newly minted SEC team but had had considerable success in recent years in the Big 12. We won that one, 31-27 in another come from behind performance. We rolled over Temple, a much improved program from their Big East days, (they have been invited back in), 38-20. Then we took on West Virginia, now a Big 12 team in the kaleidoscope that is college football these days in another Pinstripe Bowl and plowed right through them in the snow, 38-12 to get back to 8-5 again.
Happy ending. Mission accomplished. Surely this would be enough to get Marrone his extension and the program the continuity it required moving into the new era in the ACC.
Rumors started floating around that Marrone was inquiring about NFL jobs, then that he was interviewing with NFL teams. I had a feeling that he might someday go back to the NFL but I assumed it would be when we were all the way back to the level of success we’d had from 1987-2001, (when we were one of four FBS teams to have a winning record in every one of those years: the others being Michigan, Nebraska and Florida State),and be solidly established as annual ACC contenders. I never imagined he’s leave voluntarily at this juncture. He must have been thinking “I have to get a better job”. All of a sudden, there was a news conference with our coach – Doug Marrone- being introduced as the new head coach of the Buffalo Bills.
Everyone was in shock. What did Marrone have to say to the fans to whom he had described this as his “dream job”? Nothing. Not a word. How was he going to teach leadership to a bunch of veteran NFL players? Don’t you have to be in college to do that? Why did the Bills want a coach who kept saying he needed to do a better job? Why did he leave? Was it Dr. Gross? Was it the facilities? Was it the empty seats? The bad letters? Did he simply see this job as a stepping stone to the NFL? Was that opening speech just B. S.? I have a feeling that he felt this would be like a movie where the coach whips his kids into shape and teaches them values and they win because he did that. That may have come apart in 2011 and maybe he never recovered from that. We’ll never know what happened because he said nothing to us.
Seeking to hold things together, the University appointed defensive coordinator Scott Shafer head coach. Hopefully he could keep the coaching staff together. But then came a succession of announcements that coaches from the Syracuse staff had signed to be on Marrone’s Bills staff, eventually 7 of them, (despite Doug’s statement that eh wanted coaches with NFL experience, which few of these guys had). Doug had totally blown up the SU staff. He probably just wanted to work with the people he’d been working with, (many of whom he’d already had relationships before he came to Syracuse, which is why their names were in his famous notebooks). But it seemed to some almost punative, as if he was trying to screw his old school.
So, after fighting to get the coach’s contract extended so we wouldn’t have to start over again with a new coaching staff our first year in the ACC, it turns out that we will do exactly that. Putting resentments aside, Marrone deserves credit for getting us up off the canvas and making us into a respectable program again. I think we have the talent on the team to compete in the ACC and will be OK in the long run. But there’s still the tremendous feeling he left this job in the middle of it, as well as disappointment that he didn’t say something to the fans he courted so hard in the beginning when he left us. There’s no point in being bitter about it. I wish no ill fortune upon Doug Marrone. I’ll be watching his tenure in Buffalo with interest and if they are successful, I’ probably even wind up rooting for the Bills. Only one other SU coach has gone on to coach in the NFL, (Coach Mac had a brief misadventure with the Patriots), and it would be cool to have an SU coach have a good NFL run. But if, in 3-4 years he’s looking for another “Dream Job” and watching Scott Shafer coach us in the ACC title game, the irony of the situation will not be lost on me.
