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Message: [QUOTE="Chip, post: 819536, member: 19"] Trust me, it feels weird to be "all is well, stay the course" guy. Maybe it's just part of the aging process. It's even tougher for those of us who enjoyed the late 80s thru the 90s. I think it's going to be very difficult to ever have that consistency again, unless NYS has a major upgrade in HS football talent. We will likely have to settle for some 6-6, 7-5 type years with a couple bad outliers and a couple good outliers when things come together. It's ok though, we're safely positioned in a strong conference, so we have that going for us. The old Big East is purgatory and anything is better than that. McDonald is definitely learning on the job. Talent deficiencies or not, there were some real head scratchers in that game. But he had some really nice calls as well (wheel route to McFarlane was my favorite call of the day, really wish that one was executed). I think the tone of OttoGrotto's post is accurate though. We need guys on the staff who can bring in more talent, and that talent can carry us. We'll start to see it soon if all these verbals honor on signing day. We already have a solid system on defense. It's not perfect, but for SU to play as well defensively as it does against these peer teams (Maryland, Pitt, NC State) is encouraging. Yeah FSU gouged us, get in line. There's just nothing easy about that realization. The hardest part of all of this is a town with a Top 10 (at worst) hoops program sharing a facility with a mediocre football program. It's going to make fan decisions a lot tougher. I was up there for the weekend in Oswego, and everyone still talks about the football game. They are all watching the games. Even the nice trooper who pulled me over for speeding between Cortland & Binghamton on the way home (unrelated fun story) noticed my SU shirt and started talking about the game. Either that, or the innocent 4 year old in the back seat, got me out of the ticket. Don't judge me (please). So people still pay attention to it, which is encouraging, but taking the time and effort to attend the game probably isn't going to happen outside of the Clemson/FSU/VT/Miami games in the Dome. If the AD makes the determination that the lack of attendance is the biggest negative impact to recruiting, then the investment that is the $99 season tix probably needs to be expanded. They're going to have to give them away for awhile longer, advertise it literally everywhere you possibly can, and get people in the door. If they still won't come, then I'm not sure the answer. To end this rant, things still look a lot better than they did from 2005 to 2008. We've crawled, we're walking, and hopefully soon we can even run a little bit. [/QUOTE]

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