Reply to thread

Message: [QUOTE="SWC75, post: 1114382, member: 289"] I think our history is relevant. I don't feel obligated to study the histories of other schools who may not be quite the same as ours. Pitt is located in prime recruiting territory in western PA and has some state support. In Schwartzwalder's era, it was mostly about coaching. Ben didn't have to recruit nation-wide for one platoon football. As i said, all of his important players came from New York or adjacent states and they all would have heard of Syracuse growing up or even been fans. Again, it's a mid-size private school in an glamorous location in a state that doesn't emphasize high school football. And it's an era when you have 85 scholarship players and a 100+ man roster, meaning we have to recruit the whole country for players. And schools like Connecticut, Rutgers, Temple, Cincinnati, Louisville, Central and South Florida are more formidable recruiting rivals than they sued to be. And we're in a man-sized division of a big boy conference. I think this should properly be referred to as the Marrone/Shafer Era as Doug left before the rebuilding of the program was complete. It doesn't mean that Shafer shouldn't be evaluated based on his own accomplishments and failures but the rebuilding process began in 2009, not 2013. Comparing it to the Ben and Mac Eras, it's more like 1954 than 1949 and more like 1986 than 1981. The only major college bowl games in the 50's were the Big Four on New Year's Day, (Orange, Sugar, Cotton and Rose) plus the Gator and Sun Bowls, (the Liberty and Bluebonnet bowls began in 1959), so comparing his getting the team to a bowl to the Marrone Era is pointless. it's impressive that Ben too a school that had been 1-8 in 1948 and had them in the Orange Bowl four season later. Even in Mac's time there were only a dozen bowl games, so there's no comparison there either. Going to a bowl used to mean that you were a really good team. Not these days. [/QUOTE]

Verification: What is a Syracuse fan's favorite color?