Pete Thamel On State of SU Football | Syracusefan.com

Pete Thamel On State of SU Football

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Orange in a squeeze

Syracuse’s Dino Babers made his name as a head coach for being a nemesis to Clemson at a time when few in the ACC could muster much resistance.

In 2017, Syracuse stunned No. 2 Clemson in the Carrier Dome on a Friday night, Clemson’s last ACC loss. In 2018, Syracuse nearly pulled an upset at No. 3 Clemson, as Tigers backup Chase Brice needed a 94-yard scoring drive to win the game in the final minute. That Syracuse team went on to win 10 games, the lone winning season in Babers’ five years in Syracuse.

This week, Syracuse heads to Clemson with its program in the fetal position. Beset by opt-outs and injuries and fresh off a blowout home loss to Liberty, Syracuse is bracing for an ugly Saturday on the road against the No. 1 team in the country next week.

Syracuse’s season has been a perfect storm of misery. The Orange are down to seven scholarship offensive linemen, including a converted fullback, and is playing its fifth-string tailback and backup quarterback. The Orange’s best defensive player, Andre Cisco, got injured in warmups before the Georgia Tech game and has opted out for the season.

Don’t expect Babers’ job to be in jeopardy. He has four full years remaining on his contract this year, and the most conservative estimates of his buyout are that he’d be owed at least $17 million if he was fired after this season. That number would scare a well-heeled SEC athletic department, and Syracuse is decidedly not one of those.

What can Syracuse do? Support Babers’ weaknesses. One of the issues at Syracuse is that athletic director John Wildhack has no experience overseeing a major college football program, so there’s no leadership with an idea about structure, staffing and how to out-maneuver conference peers in more ideal recruiting bases.

Recruiting has never been the heartbeat of Babers’ coaching arsenal. While he has the charisma and charm to connect, coaches and analysts in the Northeast would not rate Babers’ recruiting metabolism with coaches like BC’s Jeff Hafley, Rutgers’ Greg Schiano or Penn State’s James Franklin.

Syracuse’s recruiting staff is one of the least sophisticated in the ACC, as Babers’ longtime assistant Roy Wittke is the new director of player personnel. Places like BC, Wake Forest and Rutgers – the schools Syracuse needs to beat — have invested in sophisticated operations. The Orange are lagging behind.

The most glaring evidence of the recruiting deficiencies is the lack of talent in Syracuse’s quarterback room, as Babers has yet to recruit and develop a proven ACC-level starter, and the lack of depth in that room has always been glaringly thin. He inherited Eric Dungey, and injured redshirt junior quarterback Tommy DeVito has yet to live up to his billing.

Babers is speeding toward his fourth losing seasons in five years. There’s a clear talent deficiency that’s glaring. Syracuse and Babers are contractually in lockstep for a while. To compete in the ACC, they need to start recruiting like an ACC school.
 
Orange in a squeeze

Syracuse’s Dino Babers made his name as a head coach for being a nemesis to Clemson at a time when few in the ACC could muster much resistance.

In 2017, Syracuse stunned No. 2 Clemson in the Carrier Dome on a Friday night, Clemson’s last ACC loss. In 2018, Syracuse nearly pulled an upset at No. 3 Clemson, as Tigers backup Chase Brice needed a 94-yard scoring drive to win the game in the final minute. That Syracuse team went on to win 10 games, the lone winning season in Babers’ five years in Syracuse.

This week, Syracuse heads to Clemson with its program in the fetal position. Beset by opt-outs and injuries and fresh off a blowout home loss to Liberty, Syracuse is bracing for an ugly Saturday on the road against the No. 1 team in the country next week.

Syracuse’s season has been a perfect storm of misery. The Orange are down to seven scholarship offensive linemen, including a converted fullback, and is playing its fifth-string tailback and backup quarterback. The Orange’s best defensive player, Andre Cisco, got injured in warmups before the Georgia Tech game and has opted out for the season.

Don’t expect Babers’ job to be in jeopardy. He has four full years remaining on his contract this year, and the most conservative estimates of his buyout are that he’d be owed at least $17 million if he was fired after this season. That number would scare a well-heeled SEC athletic department, and Syracuse is decidedly not one of those.

What can Syracuse do? Support Babers’ weaknesses. One of the issues at Syracuse is that athletic director John Wildhack has no experience overseeing a major college football program, so there’s no leadership with an idea about structure, staffing and how to out-maneuver conference peers in more ideal recruiting bases.

Recruiting has never been the heartbeat of Babers’ coaching arsenal. While he has the charisma and charm to connect, coaches and analysts in the Northeast would not rate Babers’ recruiting metabolism with coaches like BC’s Jeff Hafley, Rutgers’ Greg Schiano or Penn State’s James Franklin.

Syracuse’s recruiting staff is one of the least sophisticated in the ACC, as Babers’ longtime assistant Roy Wittke is the new director of player personnel. Places like BC, Wake Forest and Rutgers – the schools Syracuse needs to beat — have invested in sophisticated operations. The Orange are lagging behind.

The most glaring evidence of the recruiting deficiencies is the lack of talent in Syracuse’s quarterback room, as Babers has yet to recruit and develop a proven ACC-level starter, and the lack of depth in that room has always been glaringly thin. He inherited Eric Dungey, and injured redshirt junior quarterback Tommy DeVito has yet to live up to his billing.

Babers is speeding toward his fourth losing seasons in five years. There’s a clear talent deficiency that’s glaring. Syracuse and Babers are contractually in lockstep for a while. To compete in the ACC, they need to start recruiting like an ACC school.

I’m in a group text w 5 other SU alums (fraternity brothers) and one posted a link to this yesterday.

Thamel clearly doesn’t actually know what’s going on around here, so I’ll save myself some typing by doing a copy & paste of my reply there:


True, but -

A - Syracuse has ALWAYS struggled w crooting, especially in this millennium

B - Dino has our highest rated class in nearly 2 decades lined up for next year.

C - all the new guys he just hired are dramatically better recruiters across the board than those they replaced.

D - our facilities upgrades finally put us on an equal footing w our peers. (IPF, upgraded locker rooms and housing, Dome reno, etc.)

E - we still have that $25M donation yet to be allocated.
(Wildhack himself also donated $1M, super booster Joyce Hergenhan donated $2m) -
this is unprecedented in Orange football history.

It's almost as if Wildhack & Dino knew what our shortcomings were, and have aggressively tried to address them.
 
Some good points there. At this point it seems pretty likely, Dino will get fired from Syracuse at some point. Just not going to happen for at least a couple years considering those buyout figures. Ugh.
 
Boy that's sobering; Wildhack noted as a weakness for reasons stated, despite the praise here on the board. Dino's inability to ineffectively recruit, along with a basically defunct recruiting staff/operations.

This is only gonna end bad I fear.
 
Yeah, some truth buried in there but it's covered in typical Thamel glop and hard to distinguish between.

Takeaways:

1. Big buyout, he gets another year and it's probably a good thing
2. Recruiting is always an issue and could use some tweaking
3. More Hafley butt kissing. Whoever is his agent needs a raise
4. Thamel doesn't like Wildhack, but we knew that
 
Thamel clearly doesn’t have sources inside the SU AD anymore.
Dr. Gross would personally leak to Thamel.
It’s how he broke the news we were joining the ACC in 2011 on The NY Times site the Friday night before it went public on Saturday.


Thamel doesn’t get that fundraising has been remarkable during this pandemic and we have our best recruiting class under Dino this cycle.
What is his problem.
 
Boy that's sobering; Wildhack noted as a weakness for reasons stated, despite the praise here on the board. Dino's inability to ineffectively recruit, along with a basically defunct recruiting staff/operations.

This is only gonna end bad I fear.

You should 100% believe everything you read on the internet.
- Mark Twain
 
Wow, that buyout number is crazy, and I understand it works both ways, as we all thought after a 10 win season Dino would be the one running to a bigger school. If that figure is close to accurate I'd assume it goes down $5M next year so it's still a $12M buyout, which Syracuse wouldn't be willing to pay. So it looks like we're "stuck" with Dino at least through 2022.

Let's hope he can turn this ship around.
 
I'd be curious to learn more about how recruiting operations are set up at those places he mentioned. Thamel isn't necessarily wrong but it's an easy observation to make about the program. There wasn't anything revealing in that article other than the buyout figures for Dino's contract.
 
Thamel clearly doesn’t have sources inside the SU AD anymore.
Dr. Gross would personally leak to Thamel.
It’s how he broke the news we were joining the ACC in 2011 on The NY Times site the Friday night before it went public on Saturday.


Thamel doesn’t get that fundraising has been remarkable during this pandemic and we have our best recruiting class under Dino this cycle.
What is his problem.

my guess is this was leaked by Wildhack with the "hey i'm part of the problem too" part to direct the scent elsewhere. This gets the story out there that Dino is not going anywhere and they need to address an issue that Dino may have been reluctant to admit failings with.

I smell something orchestrated here. Maybe it's a good thing because we need perhaps Dino to find his Buddy Ryan. Doesn't need to be his best friend, just another voice to turn it around. As i've said, this operation has good bones. Now it needs a rejigger
 
Guys, we can't be mad at Pete Thamel for speaking honestly on the program. It's basically the same thing that goes on here at this message board.

The '21 class is better on paper RIGHT NOW. Look at some of the teams behind us. They are going to pass us as they fill their classes. We are going to be in the 50s/60s range which is par for the course with Dino's tenure on the hill.

Pete wants us to be successful believe it or not and is as frustrated as most of us.
 
Guys, we can't be mad at Pete Thamel for speaking honestly on the program. It's basically the same thing that goes on here at this message board.

The '21 class is better on paper RIGHT NOW. Look at some of the teams behind us. They are going to pass us as they fill their classes. We are going to be in the 50s/60s range which is par for the course with Dino's tenure on the hill.

Pete wants us to be successful believe it or not and is as frustrated as most of us.
Yup, it's not like after 2018 we did some jump, we've been in the 50's/60's for a long time which at least makes me feel ok knowing he'll probably get 2-3 more classes, if we atleast can win 4-5 a year and not 1 (can't believe I'm really saying this) recruiting won't suffer all that badly.
 
Guys, we can't be mad at Pete Thamel for speaking honestly on the program. It's basically the same thing that goes on here at this message board.

The '21 class is better on paper RIGHT NOW. Look at some of the teams behind us. They are going to pass us as they fill their classes. We are going to be in the 50s/60s range which is par for the course with Dino's tenure on the hill.

Pete wants us to be successful believe it or not and is as frustrated as most of us.
Answered a question I was going to ask about the incoming class - when it is all said and done it will better in our terms but league wise we will be near the bottom?
 
Other than the unconfirmed $17M number, is there anything in this that we didn't know already?
He's just taking known information and putting his Thamel spin on it.
 
Thamel clearly doesn’t have sources inside the SU AD anymore.
Dr. Gross would personally leak to Thamel.
It’s how he broke the news we were joining the ACC in 2011 on The NY Times site the Friday night before it went public on Saturday.


Thamel doesn’t get that fundraising has been remarkable during this pandemic and we have our best recruiting class under Dino this cycle.
What is his problem.
Our record? Our performance on the actual field? I'm not a Thamel fan but he wasn't unfair. Our recruiting has been poor. Even this year, with it being our best in a long time, it just puts us about even with our peer schools. And the top schools in the ACC would be singing the blues if they had our recruiting year.
 
I’m in a group text w 5 other SU alums (fraternity brothers) and one posted a link to this yesterday.

Thamel clearly doesn’t actually know what’s going on around here, so I’ll save myself some typing by doing a copy & paste of my reply there:


True, but -

A - Syracuse has ALWAYS struggled w crooting, especially in this millennium

B - Dino has our highest rated class in nearly 2 decades lined up for next year.

C - all the new guys he just hired are dramatically better recruiters across the board than those they replaced.

D - our facilities upgrades finally put us on an equal footing w our peers. (IPF, upgraded locker rooms and housing, Dome reno, etc.)

E - we still have that $25M donation yet to be allocated.
(Wildhack himself also donated $1M, super booster Joyce Hergenhan donated $2m) -
this is unprecedented in Orange football history.

It's almost as if Wildhack & Dino knew what our shortcomings were, and have aggressively tried to address them.

Petey is a hater always has been. He is a BC fan who despises SU sports.
 
Just like dino used his leverage to get his deal JW needs to grow a pair and use his, do something similar to this, we won't get a whole lot back, I doubt much but we better get something. Dino knows if he's canned here after 1-10 he'll never get a P5HC job again.
 
Our record? Our performance on the actual field? I'm not a Thamel fan but he wasn't unfair. Our recruiting has been poor. Even this year, with it being our best in a long time, it just puts us about even with our peer schools. And the top schools in the ACC would be singing the blues if they had our recruiting year.
He gets several things wrong.
He can hammer the program on the field but he ignores a lot.

Ripping the program is fair game but the fundraising and recruiting actually going up.
 
Petey is a hater always has been. He is a BC fan who despises SU sports.

the money quotes are the a) buyout and b) the recruiting apparatus. Either Wildhack is lighting a candle under Dino to provide a better ROI or there is another coach in the area that is thinking to himself, "i can build Syracuse into a stronger power" with a more organized recruiting strategy.

It could frankly be both.
 

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