Sell me on Wildhack | Page 3 | Syracusefan.com

Sell me on Wildhack

I'll never forget when we went from "Orangemen" to "Orange" and they spray painted the logo over the "men" in the endzone. That was a glimpse into what resources he was given.

Jake accomplished so much in his time here. He wasn't handcuffed. He was in a straight jacket.
EndZone.gif
 
Jake was the very best AD the school ever had.

He found Mac, hired Roy jr, elevated P, allowed boeheim to flourish and saved his bacon after probation 1.

When he was ad id like to know what school
Had a fully financed AD among our peers? bc certainly did not from my direct understanding.

I’m sure Penn St wasn’t lapping us either. There was less money in college sports. It was performance on field

College sports are now massive business so wildhack runs SUAD like a division of ESPN. Which we need of course. It doesn’t mean he’s a good identifier of coaching talent. His results are very mixed so far. Objectively true statement. How he handles the next SU HOOPS coach will be very enlightening because boeheim is still around and is a trouble maker w the media and letting people know his opinion.
Along as JB is still in the area the AD will always have trouble in hiring a good coach.
 
Jake did some good things at SU but IMHO he was near the end of the line when college realignment happened and his and Buzz's indifference during the ACC site visit cost us ACC entry in 2003 when Miami, FSU and other schools didn't push back against the Virginia governor's backing for Va Tech.
 
Jake did some good things at SU but IMHO he was near the end of the line when college realignment happened and his and Buzz's indifference during the ACC site visit cost us ACC entry in 2003 when Miami, FSU and other schools didn't push back against the Virginia governor's backing for Va Tech.
There was no pushing back against the Virginia governor. He controlled the state's university system. UVA had no choice but to do what he wanted when he told them to get Virginia Tech into the ACC.
 
Not much mention of men’s basketball here.

I think Wildhack’s handling of that was mediocre at best.

I know there are many who say he had no other choice and that Boeheim held all the cards - but he basically allowed that charade to happen for far too long.

And the fact that Adrian Autry was hired and we are where we are in that program - our “cash cow” as many people have put it - is enough to be severely punished.

As an aside - not that it matters much to this board, but our Olympic sport performance over the last 5-7 years has been underwhelming at best. Aside from 2022 and that magical run, men’s soccer has been middling at best. Women’s soccer and volleyball are resource drains, field hockey while still making NCAA Tournaments has been lower half of the ACC the last 5 years. Cross country teams and track teams have declined under new leadership. Softball has fallen off a cliff since the Canadian pitcher graduated. Crew and rowing have been good - do those sports move the needle at all?

I do question the other components of the athletic department and wonder about resource allocation. I know under Gross some of the allocations were out of whack which is why many of them succeeded but it hasn’t been very good.
 
Not much mention of men’s basketball here.

I think Wildhack’s handling of that was mediocre at best.

I know there are many who say he had no other choice and that Boeheim held all the cards - but he basically allowed that charade to happen for far too long.

And the fact that Adrian Autry was hired and we are where we are in that program - our “cash cow” as many people have put it - is enough to be severely punished.

As an aside - not that it matters much to this board, but our Olympic sport performance over the last 5-7 years has been underwhelming at best. Aside from 2022 and that magical run, men’s soccer has been middling at best. Women’s soccer and volleyball are resource drains, field hockey while still making NCAA Tournaments has been lower half of the ACC the last 5 years. Cross country teams and track teams have declined under new leadership. Softball has fallen off a cliff since the Canadian pitcher graduated. Crew and rowing have been good - do those sports move the needle at all?

I do question the other components of the athletic department and wonder about resource allocation. I know under Gross some of the allocations were out of whack which is why many of them succeeded but it hasn’t been very good.
Men’s cross country came in 4th this year at Nationals and has a streak of 17 straight appearances.
Men’s soccer made the tournament this years.
And field hockey would have advanced further in the tourney if not for a strange reversal of a goal, per the game announcers, not me.
 
Men’s cross country came in 4th this year at Nationals and has a streak of 17 straight appearances.
Men’s soccer made the tournament this years.
And field hockey would have advanced further in the tourney if not for a strange reversal of a goal, per the game announcers, not me.
I stand corrected on XC.

Men’s soccer made NCAA’s this year but has had sustained success. FH the same - they get in the tournament based on strong conference affiliation but are a cut below the top teams in the league.
 
I haven’t been to a game since 2019. What’s changed—did concessions step up their game?

FWIW, I used to work concessions/catering back in the day.
They make a decent chicken sandwich and fries if I'm being honest.
 
I haven't gone to a stadium or arena in at least five years and viewed the food options as a positive. Its either mediocre, wildly overpriced, or both. Its so universal that I suspect Wildhack is correct, its largely out of his control - and maybe the best any team can do at this point is minimize how sucky it is. This goes in "who cares" for me -its not a pro or con.

The one clearly negative mark I'd agree to on Wildhack is the Hillsman situation. I'm not sure how much of that he had control over or knowledge of - I'm not really interested in a discussion or debate on it either. I'd say if he didn't know it was his responsibility to, and it went on too long. But this comes up close to never when people are griping about his job performance, or its an aside at best. The focus is men's basketball and lacrosse, with a dash of football thrown in since about mid-October this year.

I worry that some Syracuse fans don't recognize how much college lacrosse has changed - its unlikely we'll see anything close to the 80s/90s dominance again. I'd agree it has been disappointing...I'm not sure if we get better people have a standard that is reasonable here. We've haven't been anywhere close to "good enough" in my mind to be able to fairly judge this. Probably a slight negative - but not as big a negative as many people here think (I think).

Its absolutely wild to me that nobody has brought up the soccer national championship (at least that I've seen). I get that Wildhack started in 2016 and McIntyre has been coach since 2010 - but if we're going to take the position he's got to be in the know on everything (see: Hillsman), he's gotta get some credit for the soccer national championship.

Any time Syracuse has had great success in football, its because of outside-the-box thinking. There's a reason why the first black Heisman Trophy winner was from Syracuse and that his time here overlaps with the most successful period in Syracuse history. If we're going to see sustained success again, it will be a result of outside-the-box thinking. I will continue to defend the hiring of Brown regardless of how things go from here - if we don't support an AD making outside the box thinking we'll get "safe" decisions that leads to a bunch of 6-6, 7-5 season being viewed as success on the hill. We've already seen a significant cultural pull towards making the safe decision - If we go back to the Shaw/Jake era that was the message they kept telling the fans. The financial risk of not making safe decisions and wrecking the AD budget for years is a looming risk at a private university as well. Anyone saying "we need to see how Brown works out before we judge that hire" has the wrong mentality - Wildhack took a calculated risk in an environment where that is actively discouraged. He should be applauded for it regardless how it "works out".
Fwiw I will not hold it against wildhack if su lax struggles. Nothing against the nice people who play it and love it but it doesn't matter to me
 
Jake did most of the legwork on replacing the old Astroturf with permanent field turf, and covering the field with the plastic trays for Hoops season, but he didn't have the money in the budget for the conversion. Buzz told him to make do with that he had.
Back when we were all told we couldnt do it, I emailed the CEO of field turf and asked him, he was so excited that I couldn't get it through his head that I was just a fan, a nobody, etc
 
Doesn't a lot ride on whether Wildhack gets us a spot in the next round of realignment?

As I recall, that was a big reason for hiring a TV guy to be an AD. His TV connections are the best chance at Syracuse having a "seat at the table" in realignment.

Hoping that's still true.
 

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