Did you guys not watch the Boston College/USC game? Northeastern teams are never going to line up 5 wide spread and beat good southern/west coast teams. Do Ohio State or Penn State try to line up 5 wide against the SEC? No, not even they can pull that off.
If Shafer is going to maximize his success as a head coach with defensive prowess and as a head coach for a northeastern team, we're going to have to use a power running game and a lot of play action. That is Syracuse football -- #44, a history of running backs -- not shotgun, pistol, 5 wide.
We're better off recruiting the Custis/Enoicy types that can go up and grab a jump ball 1 on 1 with a smaller DB than we are trying to line up 5 Estime's and just run by DB's from FSU and Clemson all day. Estime might be our burner but on any other ACC team he's just another guy. I love Erv, but have you seen how slow he is on kickoffs!?!? We're also probably a lot better off slowing the game down and huddling before every play. Our skill players on the outside are not as fast/talented as ACC defensive backs, the only thing running hurry up/spread gets us is a tired defense that's on the field all the time. Hiring McDonald/going with spread/hurry-up was a tactical error to begin with. This is Shafer's chance to fix it and showcase his aggressive/blitzing defense. If nothing else, it would be a HUGE improvement just for our offense to not continuously put our defense in bad spots.