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Message: [QUOTE="leftytg, post: 1410351, member: 2651"] I swear, it's like some people don't remember the Robinson years and what a complete and total disaster the program was in when he left. I'm certainly sympathetic to the notion that people have repressed it or break into hives thinking about it again, but those years did happen. There is a difference between a program rebuild and reloading. What Marrone inherited was a total rebuild. He had to instill a new culture, set new expectations, and purge the roster of the considerable amount of FCS talent that had accumulated, on top of the ordinary tasks that go along with being a head coach. You post the 2010 and 2011 numbers. I can't help but notice you did not post the 2008, 2009, and 2012 numbers. If you had, a clearer picture would emerge of just how far the program had sunk, and the very clear line of progress culminating in the 2012 season. The whole point of hiring Shafer was for continuity and maintain (and ideally advance) the foundation that Marrone had laid. Nobody is disputing that Syracuse lost a ton of offense going into Shafer's first year. This happens at every school every now and then. Only the elite schools can seamlessly transition, and even that isn't a guarantee. A step backwards as younger players assume their new starring roles is to be expected. But that isn't what happened. Shafer - rather than aiming to continue Syracuse's offensive identity of a pro-style offense with an emphasis on multiple outlets each play - decided to reinvent things. That is fine, but he followed that up with promoting a WR coach to OC, a guy who hadn't worked out and demonstrated an ability to successfully install and run an offensive system. A guy who was long on buzzwords and current trends and short on demonstrated ability. Say what you want about Marrone, but he was an offense guy. He had a very good NFL pedigree on that front, and he was going to be the shaper and molder of the Syracuse offense. His most important hire, then, would be his DC. When he hired Shafer, he hired a known quantity. a guy who had been a DC for 8 years, with two of those years at the major conference level. Shafer knew who he was as a DC - especially after the disaster of Michigan and RichRod forcing him to run the 3-5-3 defense. Shafer, being a defense guy, needed to bring in an experienced, proven, offensive coordinator who had a demonstrated vision and proven track record of executing that vision, that synced up with what Shafer wanted for Syracuse University. Now sometimes proven, experienced coordinators don't work out. The aforementioned Rob Spence is certainly an example. But at least the Spence hire made sense - he had been an OC for 9 years, including the most recent 4 at Clemson. McDonald wasn't just a bad hire, it was a failure of concept. To double down on Tim Lester, and to continue to hire nearly exclusively from the WMU/Bill Cubit pool, leaves me deeply skeptical of his priorities and decision making abilities as a head coach. I earnestly hope I'm wrong. Along with everyone else here I'll be watching every game come football season and their wins and losses make or break my weekends. But I see troubling trends and cracks in the foundation, and it doesn't make me, or anyone in my position, a bad fan or unduly negative to talk about them on a fan board. [/QUOTE]

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