System vs. Talent

[CIL]

I think we all at time can get to caught up in one or the other. The fact of the matter is we probably haven't had enough talent to run anything consistently over the last decade, probably since McNabb.

QB play has been abysmal, I can count McPherson, McNabb, Philcox, and Graves as very good talents at the QB position since I've been following SU over the last 30 years. We've only had 2 QB's drafted in that time frame. Two!

How many skill guys have we had drafted over the last decade? Carter, Williams, Morant and Tyree? None of which went higher than the 4th round. That's pretty sad. Over the last few years, Abeline Christian has had more skill guys taken than us. That 2009 Texas Tech team had 4 or 5 guys taken in the first 3 or 4 rounds. Ga Tech and their wishbone has had 4 or 5 skill guys drafted in the last couple of years, including 2 WR's in the first round.

Marrone will not be successful at Syracuse, nor will any other coach with any other system until our talent on the offensive side of the ball is upgraded. Marrone has had only two full recuiting classes thus far. He will live or die with this incoming class, IMO.

 

[44PRIDE]

He will live or die with this incoming class, IMO.

Completely agree with this.

More importantly is if we start to see a purge of Marrone recruits leaving the program, I'm hoping the "powers that be" have the good sense to step in and intervene.

 

[OrangeMojo]

I think we all at time can get to caught up in one or the other. The fact of the matter is we probably haven't had enough talent to run anything consistently over the last decade, probably since McNabb.

QB play has been abysmal, I can count McPherson, McNabb, Philcox, and Graves as very good talents at the QB position since I've been following SU over the last 30 years. We've only had 2 QB's drafted in that time frame. Two!

How many skill guys have we had drafted over the last decade? Carter, Williams, Morant and Tyree? None of which went higher than the 4th round. That's pretty sad. Over the last few years, Abeline Christian has had more skill guys taken than us. That 2009 Texas Tech team had 4 or 5 guys taken in the first 3 or 4 rounds. Ga Tech and their wishbone has had 4 or 5 skill guys drafted in the last couple of years, including 2 WR's in the first round.

Marrone will not be successful at Syracuse, nor will any other coach with any other system until our talent on the offensive side of the ball is upgraded. Marrone has had only two full recuiting classes thus far. He will live or die with this incoming class, IMO.

what highly recruited offensive skill position player is going to sign on to play in that mess of an offense in the near future? Hunt really needs to step up and claim the QB position in the spring while showing he's a threat to run the ball as well as pass, or I just see more of the same next year.

 

[kingottoiii]

The problem is Marrone is not maximizing what he is working with. Sure we need talent to have a good O, and no system will change that. But a different system would certainly make our current group better. Not good, but better. RU (4-3), UConn (3-4), and Pitt (3-2 without Graham) all have similar talent yet none of them ended up 1-6 in BE play.

 

[CIL]

I would say that Pitt has much better offensive talent than SU across the board except for Sunseri. UConn clearly does not, although their OL is servicable. RU is probably a wash, although their defensive talent is better than our at this point. I say at this point because I feel our younger guys are quite talented, but not physically ready to play.

 

[IthacaBarrel]

I would say that Pitt has much better offensive talent than SU across the board except for Sunseri. UConn clearly does not, although their OL is servicable. RU is probably a wash, although their defensive talent is better than our at this point. I say at this point because I feel our younger guys are quite talented, but not physically ready to play.

Rutgers has more talent at WR and RB, IMO.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

The problem is Marrone is not maximizing what he is working with. Sure we need talent to have a good O, and no system will change that. But a different system would certainly make our current group better.

Yeah.

 

[JoeSU]

We went 10-3 in 2001 with RJ Anderson and Troy Nunes at QB, incl. wins over Auburn, VaTech, WVa and Pitt.

 

[Avatusstone28]

We need some sort of Wow factor, that will entice blue chip recruits to come to Syracuse. Be it coaching, facilities or whatever. For whatever reason, we can't even get legacies (Gronk, Spinny, Williams, etc.) to come here.

A serious commitment must be made, if they want to be relevant in college football again.

 

[Upstate]

Rutgers has more talent at WR and RB, IMO.

WR yes, but not at RB, they were held to negative rushing yards 2 or 3 times this season. NEGATIVE RUSHING YARDS.

 

[richard levy]

We went 10-3 in 2001 with RJ Anderson and Troy Nunes at QB, incl. wins over Auburn, VaTech, WVa and Pitt.

Wasn't 2001 Dwight Freeney's sr year. He was such a freak of player, totally disruptive, almost as responsible for that year as any one DE could ever be in college

 

[CIL]

The problem is Marrone is not maximizing what he is working with. Sure we need talent to have a good O, and no system will change that. But a different system would certainly make our current group better. Not good, but better. RU (4-3), UConn (3-4), and Pitt (3-2 without Graham) all have similar talent yet none of them ended up 1-6 in BE play.

Would it? Do we have proof of that? I'm not so sure it does. Cinci during their decent years had some damn goo dplaymakers out there (Gilyard, etc) to go along with Tony Pike.

It's not as if we can spread things out and suddenly we're 9-3, or go flexbone and the team is headed to the BCS. Boise's system is nice, but they've had NFL talent all over the place to execute itall the way from Brock Forsey, Titus Young, the Pettis kid, Nanee, Clady, wilson, Ian Johnson, etc.

The fact of the matter is systems are seconday to talent. Talent wins games, period. Cal runs a spread and they've been mediocre lately trying to find a decent QB forever.

 

[Faegan]

He will live or die with this incoming class, IMO.

Importantly, we cannot make a change for the sake of making a change. Marrone is far better than having to endure another Gump-like era. I think in the end Doug will pull it together and be here a long time. Time will tell.

 

[Millhouse]

Cal runs a spread and they've been mediocre lately trying to find a decent QB forever.

mediocre would be an improvement worth dancing in the streets

 

[orangepassion]

Has Boise had such great talent over these years?

 

[kingottoiii]

Would it? Do we have proof of that? I'm not so sure it does. Cinci during their decent years had some damn goo dplaymakers out there (Gilyard, etc) to go along with Tony Pike.

It's not as if we can spread things out and suddenly we're 9-3, or go flexbone and the team is headed to the BCS. Boise's system is nice, but they've had NFL talent all over the place to execute itall the way from Brock Forsey, Titus Young, the Pettis kid, Nanee, Clady, wilson, Ian Johnson, etc.

The fact of the matter is systems are seconday to talent. Talent wins games, period. Cal runs a spread and they've been mediocre lately trying to find a decent QB forever.

IMO Marrone's system is too complex and requires a team to execute over and over again. That IMO isn't realistic to expect of college kids. The lack of practice time, the distractions of college life, and the fact that these are 18-22 year old kids make that virtually impossible. I think we need to take the K.I.S.S approach along with a system that maximizes our talent. We need to use misdirection, trick plays, and look for mismatches to exploit. Just lining up and trying to out execute your opponent will never work at a school like SU. We will never have the talent to do so.

I don't think that a system change will all of a sudden make us 9-3. But I do think a system change will make our O more consistent and give us a better chance to win games overall.

Do you think if we used Deleone's system this year that we would have had similar results on O? Or would he have found a way to make our O more consistent? His system was able to mask poor OL, WR, and QB talent from 1999-2004. I think a good system can mask deficiencies. I think Marrone's system requires talent, and will accentuate any deficiencies.

 

[chakka3421]

I would say experience plays into this as well - with 55 out of 80 ish scholies all fresh and sophs we have too many young boys under 20 playing against teams with far more upperclassmen and more mature teams. also I think the "purge" of players early on finally caught up with DM and SU when he first got here.

Also I dont know if its Nassib or the OLine or system or all three...too complex for me to figure out.

 

[Aweart23]

I would say experience plays into this as well - with 55 out of 80 ish scholies all fresh and sophs we have too many young boys under 20 playing against teams with far more upperclassmen and more mature teams. also I think the "purge" of players early on finally caught up with DM and SU when he first got here.

Also I dont know if its Nassib or the OLine or system or all three...to complex for me to figure out.

THIS^^^^^^^^

 

[kingottoiii]

I would say experience plays into this as well - with 55 out of 80 ish scholies all fresh and sophs we have too many young boys under 20 playing against teams with far more upperclassmen and more mature teams. also I think the "purge" of players early on finally caught up with DM and SU when he first got here.

Also I dont know if its Nassib or the OLine or system or all three...too complex for me to figure out.

That is why most of the successful CFB Os are simple. You need to be able to get Frosh and Sophs that have ability onto the field. You shouldn't have to wait until they are JRs or SRs for them to make an impact. You need to have an O that plays your most talented kids. You do not need a system that requires kids to "know" the O and leaves talent on the bench to learn the system for two years. Play your best 5 skill guys and make things easy on them.

 

[Rocco]

IMO Marrone's system is too complex and requires a team to execute over and over again. That IMO isn't realistic to expect of college kids. The lack of practice time, the distractions of college life, and the fact that these are 18-22 year old kids make that virtually impossible. I think we need to take the K.I.S.S approach along with a system that maximizes our talent. We need to use misdirection, trick plays, and look for mismatches to exploit. Just lining up and trying to out execute your opponent will never work at a school like SU. We will never have the talent to do so.

I don't think that a system change will all of a sudden make us 9-3. But I do think a system change will make our O more consistent and give us a better chance to win games overall.

Do you think if we used Deleone's system this year that we would have had similar results on O? Or would he have found a way to make our O more consistent? His system was able to mask poor OL, WR, and QB talent from 1999-2004. I think a good system can mask deficiencies. I think Marrone's system requires talent, and will accentuate any deficiencies.

Good post.

The Saints offense won't work unless you have playmakers. Marrone is trying to emulate that offense with a modified playbook and without playmakers. It is still too complex for them to learn and execute on a consistent basis. I don't see how it would work next year either. He doesn't have that much time to wait for his players to develop over a few years, unless he starts winning very soon. Next year is his year to show improvement. Something needs to done in the meantime to score some points.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

The fact of the matter is systems are secondary to talent. Talent wins games, period.

My argument is that our system does our talent no favors.:noidea:

 

[CIL]

IMO Marrone's system is too complex and requires a team to execute over and over again. That IMO isn't realistic to expect of college kids. The lack of practice time, the distractions of college life, and the fact that these are 18-22 year old kids make that virtually impossible. I think we need to take the K.I.S.S approach along with a system that maximizes our talent. We need to use misdirection, trick plays, and look for mismatches to exploit. Just lining up and trying to out execute your opponent will never work at a school like SU. We will never have the talent to do so.

We agree here to an extent. My gripe with Marrone is at the collegiate level, talent usually can mask the occaisional mistake. I would love to see some of these younger kids have a scripted set of plays to execute (Kinder, Hunt, Kobena, AAM, etc)

I don't think that a system change will all of a sudden make us 9-3. But I do think a system change will make our O more consistent and give us a better chance to win games overall.

How would changing systems make us more consistent? Let's just scrap the system we've spent installing for the last 2 years? I think the offensive talent is probably mid major level right now, it needs to be bumped soon or we'll never get a chance to find out. Hopefully the young kids can get it done.

Do you think if we used Deleone's system this year that we would have had similar results on O? Or would he have found a way to make our O more consistent? His system was able to mask poor OL, WR, and QB talent from 1999-2004. I think a good system can mask deficiencies. I think Marrone's system requires talent, and will accentuate any deficiencies.

You do realize that DeLeone's playbook probably two times the size of ours, correct? JO stated in a chat room that he had over 1500 plays in the thing. My guess is we are around half of that. If you want to KISS, Deleone is probably the wrong example to use.

 

[JoeSU]

Wasn't 2001 Dwight Freeney's sr year. He was such a freak of player, totally disruptive, almost as responsible for that year as any one DE could ever be in college

Yea, that was Freeney's incredible season, which made the entire defense (especially the secondary) appear better. Despite our 6-1 BE record, both our defense and offense were ranked 4th that year, so neither was dominating. This year our D was also ranked 4th, but our offense was dead last by a mile.

 

[kingottoiii]

You do realize that DeLeone's playbook probably two times the size of ours, correct? JO stated in a chat room that he had over 1500 plays in the thing. My guess is we are around half of that. If you want to KISS, Deleone is probably the wrong example to use.

I have always heard that about Deleone but when it came to what he used in the actually games, he basically called the same plays over an over. The only difference was formations. Do different formations count as different plays in that book? If so then that would explain how it was so big. I don't think anyone who watched SU play thought our system was complex when he was here.

 

[GoSU96]

IMO Marrone's system is too complex and requires a team to execute over and over again. That IMO isn't realistic to expect of college kids. The lack of practice time, the distractions of college life, and the fact that these are 18-22 year old kids make that virtually impossible. I think we need to take the K.I.S.S approach along with a system that maximizes our talent. We need to use misdirection, trick plays, and look for mismatches to exploit. Just lining up and trying to out execute your opponent will never work at a school like SU. We will never have the talent to do so.

I don't think that a system change will all of a sudden make us 9-3. But I do think a system change will make our O more consistent and give us a better chance to win games overall.

Do you think if we used Deleone's system this year that we would have had similar results on O? Or would he have found a way to make our O more consistent? His system was able to mask poor OL, WR, and QB talent from 1999-2004. I think a good system can mask deficiencies. I think Marrone's system requires talent, and will accentuate any deficiencies.

There's wasn't a single explosive player at WR or TB this year. Therefore the emphasis of execution and grinding it out. A bunch of good players, but not a singular talent. Agree the the emphasis on execution put a lot of pressure on the team, consistently bad field position, and lack of easy yards and points upped the pressure.

If there was one kid at either position and it would have been a different story. Put a kid opposite of Lemon and Provo like Sanu or Bailey, and this team is 8 or 9 wins easy. Wouldn't have needed a superstar tailback this year, but a kid of the level of Mungro/Reyes/Rhodes/Brinkley and they win 7 games at least.