My Take

[Scooch]

Agree with a lot of this. I think this is a very fair and rational take. Kudos.

A few items:
-- Syracuse, as a whole, has to decide if P5 football is something they care about. If so, they have to totally re-work the expectations, priorities and how they approach things. You are right that Dino has the deck stacked against him, but so has every coach for decades. I get the current investments and fundraising is a lot of money and it is fantastic. But, but, but, it's us playing catch up to maybe be middle of the pack. And it is insanely late. INSANELY. Again, it's great, but it's akin to bragging about getting a flat screen tv in 2023.

-- You can't expect people to donate without a vision of real success and a clear path forward. You can't expect people to donate because things are so bad that we are staring at another decade of bad to mediocre football. Here is the reason: You're inability to plan does not constitute an emergency on my part. Or, as otherwise stated for the admin: you're inability to do your job for decades does not constitute me fixing your mistake bc of no other options. Your point about how the program has not been supported is systemic. You can't fail so badly that you then expect people to donate. Why would anyone give money to an admin that hasn't shown it can succeed? Not saying that that thought is right, but it does/will exist.

-- We have not had even a pie in the sky shot at the national title since McNabb. That was 25 years ago. That's the year Waterboy came out! The best selling cell phone was a Nokia 5110! The idea of not making a bowl game would have made everyone on this board apoplectic.

-- We're in a very high risk position. We don't have the money needed to fund a truly competitive football team. The money we are raising and putting to use is, at best, maybe making it so we can more likely be mediocre than bad, but it's still absolutely necessary because of severe gap in even baseline components for a program to have. We are looking at a fractured conference and on the outside looking in if there is an eventual breakup of the current conference.

-- You are right that it's probably rough for JW. But it's his job. he gets paid well to do that job. All due respect, because I also wouldn't want to be in his shoes, but this change isn't just about Dino, it's about the way Syracuse supports football moving forward.

Great post.

It’s not like boosters at big time programs just fork over their money and shut up. They have expectations and demands. There are consequences for not meeting those expectations.

We both poke fun and recoil at those Daddy Warbucks nuts that fund the SEC and B1G. But that’s how it works. They give big money, and in return get big influence.

I think SU is very uncomfortable with that model. And perhaps rightfully so. But that also means they’re capping their potential.

If I had the means to be a T Boone Pickens type for SU, you can be sure I’d have let it be known that Dino had to go 2 seasons ago. Does SU want a group of people with that influence going forward? Are they willing to expect to be a 9-10 win program?

 

[sutomcat]

Denaburg punted once. Hawkins wasn't even on the travel roster.

Stonehouse had punts of 49, 56, 57 (after the safety), 56, and 48 yards after his injury.

That is awesome (and remarkable).

Jack has been one of the best things about this season. Sorry I missed so many good punts on his in the second half. Kind of.

 

[Orangezoo]

Lot of of tough love good takes here. I don't want to go OT or derail nor repeat what's already been said and is on point. That said you can't look at everything happening outside of football right now and feel good about tossing a bunch of money into a college sports program. The return you get isn't guaranteed and honestly there are bigger priorities and instability to sort with.

Even look at a program like Tennessee who has gotten back some relevance with absurd spending and yet for what? Being just out of even a 12 team playoff scenario? It feels like insanity with the fools gold so much money is being thrown at.

So much to digest with uncertainty around cfb let alone all the noise and stuff going on outside of it.

 

[HRE Otto IV]

Agree with a lot of this. I think this is a very fair and rational take. Kudos.

A few items:
-- Syracuse, as a whole, has to decide if P5 football is something they care about. If so, they have to totally re-work the expectations, priorities and how they approach things. You are right that Dino has the deck stacked against him, but so has every coach for decades. I get the current investments and fundraising is a lot of money and it is fantastic. But, but, but, it's us playing catch up to maybe be middle of the pack. And it is insanely late. INSANELY. Again, it's great, but it's akin to bragging about getting a flat screen tv in 2023.

-- You can't expect people to donate without a vision of real success and a clear path forward. You can't expect people to donate because things are so bad that we are staring at another decade of bad to mediocre football. Here is the reason: You're inability to plan does not constitute an emergency on my part. Or, as otherwise stated for the admin: you're inability to do your job for decades does not constitute me fixing your mistake bc of no other options. Your point about how the program has not been supported is systemic. You can't fail so badly that you then expect people to donate. Why would anyone give money to an admin that hasn't shown it can succeed? Not saying that that thought is right, but it does/will exist.

-- We have not had even a pie in the sky shot at the national title since McNabb. That was 25 years ago. That's the year Waterboy came out! The best selling cell phone was a Nokia 5110! The idea of not making a bowl game would have made everyone on this board apoplectic.

-- We're in a very high risk position. We don't have the money needed to fund a truly competitive football team. The money we are raising and putting to use is, at best, maybe making it so we can more likely be mediocre than bad, but it's still absolutely necessary because of severe gap in even baseline components for a program to have. We are looking at a fractured conference and on the outside looking in if there is an eventual breakup of the current conference.

-- You are right that it's probably rough for JW. But it's his job. he gets paid well to do that job. All due respect, because I also wouldn't want to be in his shoes, but this change isn't just about Dino, it's about the way Syracuse supports football moving forward.

I don't think record is the problem as much as the product that we are watching. You can go 7-5 every year with an entertaining product and people will come. I don't think the Ls are pushing people away as much as the continual laying of eggs, along with totally inept Os.

In over 1/3 of his Ls Dino falls behind by 17 or more points in the 1st Half! That isn't watchable. He hasn't had a functional O in the last FIVE years. That isn't watchable. Every time people start to get excited about the team, we are let down. That makes people think same old SU, I won't buy in the next time.

Our problem right now isn't the state of the program. It isn't the current CFB environment. It is Dino. The team cannot be fixed and the fans cannot be expected to buy in until he is gone.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

I don't think record is the problem as much as the product that we are watching. You can go 7-5 every year with an entertaining product and people will come. I don't think the Ls are pushing people away as much as the continual laying of eggs, along with totally inept Os.

In over 1/3 of his Ls Dino falls behind by 17 or more points in the 1st Half! That isn't watchable. He hasn't had a functional O in the last FIVE years. That isn't watchable. Every time people start to get excited about the team, we are let down. That makes people think same old SU, I won't buy in the next time.

Our problem right now isn't the state of the program. It isn't the current CFB environment. It is Dino. The team cannot be fixed and the fans cannot be expected to buy in until he is gone.

That's a brutal way to put it but I don't think you're wrong.

Teams can be bad and still be fun to support if they play in an entertaining way.

That ain't us right now.

 

[HRE Otto IV]

To expand on my prior point, would anyone be out for blood if we were 2012-19 Duke? Over those 8 seasons they averaged 7.125 Ws and 5.75 Ls. In the ACC they avoided Clemson, FSU, Louisville, NC State and still only went 28-36 or an average of 3.5 Ws and 4.5 Ls. But they had functional offenses and weren't tortuous to be a fan of. And they weren't a laughing stock nationally.

I think 2012-19 Duke should be our minimal expectation. Dino hasn't even been close to that, even if you do not count 2020.

 

[Scooch]

Lot of of tough love good takes here. I don't want to go OT or derail nor repeat what's already been said and is on point. That said you can't look at everything happening outside of football right now and feel good about tossing a bunch of money into a college sports program. The return you get isn't guaranteed and honestly there are bigger priorities and instability to sort with.

Even look at a program like Tennessee who has gotten back some relevance with absurd spending and yet for what? Being just out of even a 12 team playoff scenario? It feels like insanity with the fools gold so much money is being thrown at.

So much to digest with uncertainty around cfb let alone all the noise and stuff going on outside of it.

Amen.

This is why I’ve become more of a pro sports guy. All the financial stuff is right out in the open. And owners get their money from media, merch and sponsorships. They don’t need to squeeze donations out of the common folk to compete for titles.

 

[Orangezoo]

That's a brutal way to put it but I don't think you're wrong.

Teams can be bad and still be fun to support if they play in an entertaining way.

That ain't us right now.

5 or 6 straight 7-5 seasons and you can sell a winning culture to go with and then seek bigger goals. A few big wins, a bowl every year and then you push for more glory. That's something that fans can warm up to over time without needing to plead for them to empty their pockets more to do so.

 

[Scooch]

SU fans won’t support at 7-5 team in big numbers.

We have evidence.

SU was essentially a 7-5 team for the last 6 years of Pasqualoni’s tenure. And fans abandoned the program in droves.

I don’t care how “exciting” the team may be. 7-5 is 7-5.

 

[Orangezoo]

SU fans won’t support at 7-5 team in big numbers.

We have evidence.

SU was essentially a 7-5 team for the last 6 years of Pasqualoni’s tenure. And fans abandoned the program in droves.

I don’t care how “exciting” the team may be. 7-5 is 7-5.

This is also a good point. I wonder how much that paradigm as shifted given that was over 20 yrs ago when expectations were much higher.

 

[Cuseregular]

Great post.

It’s not like boosters at big time programs just fork over their money and shut up. They have expectations and demands. There are consequences for not meeting those expectations.

We both poke fun and recoil at those Daddy Warbucks nuts that fund the SEC and B1G. But that’s how it works. They give big money, and in return get big influence.

I think SU is very uncomfortable with that model. And perhaps rightfully so. But that also means they’re capping their potential.

If I had the means to be a T Boone Pickens type for SU, you can be sure I’d have let it be known that Dino had to go 2 seasons ago. Does SU want a group of people with that influence going forward? Are they willing to expect to be a 9-10 win program?

Yep, I literally had a dream I won the lottery and at the press conference I said that “this was a very good day for the syracuse football program”.

This whole discussion makes me mad all over again at the Weitsman situation throwing a billionaire to the curb.

 

[sutomcat]

SU is putting a quarter of a billion dollars plus into long term facilities.

The football coach lost whatever pitches he was able to throw. That happens and move on.

Agree with this. SU has made unprecedented commitments to football in the last decade. They added the IPF (without checking, I think it just makes that timeline), the dome renovations, which continue and the football operations center. That has to be over $300 million. I would consider that a major commitment.

I believe we are finally paying a competitive salary to the football HC and I believe the budget for assistants has been greatly expanded. There is more money for recruiting and private jets are available to the staff. The support staff for football (for recruiting, nutrition, mental health, etc.) has been greatly expanded as well. All this has changed in the last couple of years.

Even without the football operation center, we are a lot more competitive with our peers than we were a decade ago.

I think we have increased our budget more than any other school in the conference, at least by percentage of where it was.

The biggest problem is that we have been directing all this money towards staff and infrastructure. The rest of the football world has changed and is funneling almost all funds raised towards NIL. When the football operations center and the dome renovation is done, we will have a relatively level playoff field (somewhere near the middle of the ACC).

Then we can focus on catching up with NIL.

 

[tep624]

Yeah, I appreciate the call on a message board for fans to rally support, but I strongly agree with your post. Your average fan isn't moving the needle. We've got any 1%ers on here, sure, they matter and can have seismic changes, but the university first and foremost has to sell a vision and make visible progress toward building something people fans want to invest in. It's fragile but right now there's not a lot to sell with Dino.

I’m an angel investor in my infancy (no I’m not Ashton Kutcher or name your celebrity level lol) but I can tell you that being objective as an investor and seeing someone like Dino being akin to the CEO of a business to potentially invest in - the fact that he is allowed to continue to work in this role making $4m a year, year in, year out, with the same issues being issues year after year and not being corrected - I’d have no faith as an investor investing in this company. Makes no sense because the board above the CEO or in this case the SU AD and administration clearly isn’t committed to being a success with a man like this at the helm for as long as he has been.

And if the issue truly is resources (which I believe is part of it but I also believe Dino is flawed in general) then the lack of commitment to that but the continued messaging of wanting to be an ACC competitor doesn’t correlate and shows a complete lack of commitment to what is necessary to be successful.

Why would people dump money into that?

 

[DoubleDee]

Coach P went 39-33 in the six years after McNabb, with 3 bowl games (and 2 wins).

Since then we've had:
10-37
25-25
14-23
40-53?

Can we go back?

I see your point, I guess I just meant to simpler times.
Your response does shine light on something that I have always said. This is who we are. We will have miracle seasons, but…

 

[AZOrange]

With all due respect we can throw as much $$$ at the problem as we want but it won’t change a thing so long as HCDB is on the sideline.

 

[Scooch]

Yep, I literally had a dream I won the lottery and at the press conference I said that “this was a very good day for the syracuse football program”.

This whole discussion makes me mad all over again at the Weitsman situation throwing a billionaire to the curb.

Remember those Daddy Warbucks types I mentioned a couple hours ago. Almost none of them act like Weitsman. That’s why he became personna non grata. The guy was a walking (or more precisely, flying) violation waiting to happen.

We need someone like that who isn’t an Instagram attention whore.

 

[CU44SE]

Maybe someone could help me understand better.

1- Syracuse goes from 8 years ago only getting 10-12 million in confrence payouts to now getting close to 40 million a year. Where is all that money going? I know we did a huge renovation of the dome, but wasn’t that done by donors, school, tax relief? I don’t know. Maybe it included some of that 40 million. It’s just crazy that we increased our yearly payout by 30million dollars, roughly an extra 270 million dollars since 2014 and we are still way behind in every football facility?

I just don’t understand how that’s possible. Were we that far in the red with gross?

2- You can’t ask your fans to continue to pay and support the team if they disagree with the product. If you want the fans to continue to pay for stuff, then you damn well better make the moves to keep them happy and make the product better. It’s a catch 22. No business in the history of mankind has made money by staying status quo and not spending money. You need to invest in products, change to make more money. If you don’t, others will pass you by. As many programs have over the years. Syracuse’s inability or lack of foresight to invest in the programs and facilities have left them behind the 8 ball.

If Syracuse does not make a change then the fans will stop going to games, stop donating, stop buying season tickets because they don’t like the product. That then affects the athletic dept, because now they have even less money to utilize for the program and get left even farther behind. At this point, you find the money to make the change because that keeps fan engagement and money and donations coming in.

Bottom line, the longer this program keeps Dino Babers as coach, the farther and farther Syracuse will fall behind in football.

 

[HRE Otto IV]

SU fans won’t support at 7-5 team in big numbers.

We have evidence.

SU was essentially a 7-5 team for the last 6 years of Pasqualoni’s tenure. And fans abandoned the program in droves.

I don’t care how “exciting” the team may be. 7-5 is 7-5.

First sentence I agree with. Last sentence I disagree.

With an exciting 7-5 team we can avg 95% capacity in the new Dome. With a Dinoesque 7-5 team we will struggle to avg 85% capacity.

We won't gain fans, but we have a better chance of retaining what we have left. We also will have more engaged fans who are more willing to fork over their money.

 

[Bayside44]

Remember those Daddy Warbucks types I mentioned a couple hours ago. Almost none of them act like Weitsman. That’s why he became personna non grata. The guy was a walking (or more precisely, flying) violation waiting to happen.

We need someone like that who isn’t an Instagram attention whore.

Yeah, and again, we have plenty of opportunities where he could've been useful, and chose not to.

His season tickets can be replaced.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

SU fans won’t support at 7-5 team in big numbers.

We have evidence.

SU was essentially a 7-5 team for the last 6 years of Pasqualoni’s tenure. And fans abandoned the program in droves.

I don’t care how “exciting” the team may be. 7-5 is 7-5.

I don't know. There were lean years mixed in there too.

 

[Scooch]

This is also a good point. I wonder how much that paradigm as shifted given that was over 20 yrs ago when expectations were much higher.

It may be worse. People have farrrrr more entertainment options today than they did 20 years ago. I suspect there’s a lot of *SU fans* who’d either watch a better game, or do something else entirely, than watch season after season of 7-5 football.

 

[Scooch]

View attachment 232673

I don't know. There were lean years mixed in there too.

My point. We went from an attendance average of 46-47K in the late 90s to 41-42K when P was let go. And the competition for peoples time and money is even more voracious now.

And that was with one lean year, 2002.

 

[Scooch]

I know you guys want to think that if we throw the ball 60 times a game that people will watch no matter what.

They won’t.

 

[HRE Otto IV]

View attachment 232673

I don't know. There were lean years mixed in there too.

And those were boring azz teams.

I think a 7-5 team that fights hard and has an exciting O will have a bunch of SU fans complaining that we are only 7-5 every year. But at least they are paying attention and care enough to complain.

A 7-5 team that is boring and not competitive in their losses won't have people even paying attention.

I think we are at a crossroads as program. The longer Dino stays and the longer it takes the next HC to right the ship, the more likely that our fanbase will forever become like Northwestern, Duke, Wake, Stanford.

 

[SWC75]

If Syracuse doesn't end up playing "big boy" football, which they have since Archbold funded the 1st stadium in the 1920:s, they might as well stop playing football entirely because there will be no support for it at a lower level.

1907: Archbold Stadium - Wikipedia