The long version:
Again, I see the need for some historical perspective.
Schwartzwalder's real breakthrough was in his 8th season, McPherson's in his 7th, (what would a Syracusefan.com board have looked like in 1986?). We are now in the 6th season of the Marrone/Shafer Era.
"But it's a different era!"
Yes it is. And that doesn't matter useless it's an era was building the Syracuse University football program into a perennial winner is easier now than it was then. Is it? I don't think so. For one thing, we've had a near total change of the coaching staff in the middle of this rebuilding effort. You could argue that all we're in in the second year of the Shafer Era. This is the best conference we've ever been in, (I might think differently if we were in the Coastal Division in this silly set-up), and our schedules are as tough as they've ever been, (although Coach Mac faced some pretty tough ones in the early 80's). We've got more money than we ever had and better facilities but they are not better than the teams we are competing with in our conference. they get the same money and presumably have facilities just as good. The money and the buildings is to allow us to compete with them. It wont' give us an advantage over them. meanwhile former small colleges and mid-majors have risen to get a piece of the major college pie in our traditional recruiting grounds: Connecticut, Rutgers, Cincinnati, Central and South Florida. In the past, Syracuse would have had many of the players they are using. Finally, the balance of power in college football has shifted to the south. It used to be that the northern teams were the big, strong teams and the southern teams were the fast, quick teams. But everybody has weight rooms now so the difference between teams isn't about being big and strong, its' about being fast and quick so that's what makes the good teams good. Northern teams try to recruit southern players but we get the B and C listers and wind up playing against the A listers. Yeah, it's anew era. A tougher one.
"let's get a big-name coach!"
Ben Schwartzwalder used to say "The alumni wanted a big name coach. What they got was a long-name coach." The long name coach won a national championship. Syracuse had had a lot of famous coaches: Frank O'Neill, Howard Jones, Tad Jones, Chick Meehan, Lew Andreas, Vic Hanson, Ossie Solem, Schwartwalder, Dick MacPherson, Paul Pasqualoni and now Doug Marrone. O'Neill, the Jones, Schwartzwalder and McPherson are in the Hall of Fame. The only one who had been a major college football coach before he got the Syracuse job was Solem, who had coached at Drake and Iowa. Famous coaches don't come here. Coaches become famous here. They are all learning on the job. If we spent the money to get a famous coach, there'd be less money for his staff and the recruiting budget. We'd be top heavy. We'd likely find out why the famous coach was available and the reason could be bad news for us. And if the famous coach was successful, he's jump to a powerhouse as soon as there was an opening.
And famous coaches and blue-chip recruits don't tend to come to places where the stands are half empty and those that come leave early.
This is probably the most difficult level at which to be a head coach. In high school it's about youth programs, teaching the game and coaching the team. In the small colleges it's about coaching well enough that you win more than your rivals and a player who wasn't quite a D-1 prosect but can play goes to your school instead of them. At the FCS level it's about getting the under-the radar guys who will play against under the radar guys. if you are BCS but not in the power conferences you can dominate your conference the way Boise State did. if you are a true powerhouse, a "Selector school", you are automatically on the short list of any recruit you contact and you can win most of your games just because you have more and better talent than they do. In the pros, you have adult, professionals who are elite athletes and know how to stay that way. So you concentrate on game plans. if you are in a power conference but not a powerhouse, you are competing against blue-chippers with under the radar guys. You have fans who remember when your school was good and demand that this year's team be as good as they remember. Not many coaches are going to have consistent success at this level.
And not many coaches are going to do very well when their team is, as described above "a MASH unit". That's hardly the point at which to judge them.
Finally, you aren't going to build a program by firing the coach every two years until you find somebody that Millhouse thinks is "smart". That's how you destroy it.
(I wonder how many people Millhouse thinks are smart?)
