Then and Now

[SWC75]

This is my annual post where I look at what I said in my season preview from the perspective, four months later, of what actually happened.

THE SITUATION

Then:

It always seems to be a pivotal year for the SU football program but when you are at this level, every year is a year that could send the program in one direction or the other. There’s not a lot of carry-over in the respect the program gains from one season to the next. Going into last year, we’d won three bowl games in four years. That doesn’t mean what it once did, (when going to a bowl meant that you were one of the best teams in the country), but it should still earn some measure of respect. Injuries cut through last year’s team like a scythe: 18 of 22 starters missed at least one game. It hit the offense especially hard: at one point we had a 4th string quarterback lining up behind a line that had none of the original starters and every member of which was playing hurt, including a couple of guys who probably shouldn’t have even suited up. So we couldn’t score and lost 9 of our last 10 games, finishing 3-9. That could be viewed as an anomaly but the prognosticators don’t seem to see it that way: they have us as either the worst or second worst team in the conference. We see our program as a bowl-winning program. They see us as the 3-9 we had last year. Who is right?

Now:

They were. The injuries were not as severe overall but we got down to a 5th string quarterback this year and lost 8 of our last 9 to finish 4-8. Now we have the image of a losing program firmly in place and are looking for the coach that can turn that around.

Then:

At the same time, the termites are gnawing at the underpinnings of the program, (or they are awaiting the first loss so they can resume doing so). During the 1-9 streak, many fans were insisting that we needed to get rid of Scot Shafer as soon as possible because it had become obvious to them that “he’s not the guy”. They want us to keep firing coaches until we get the genius who can turn the program around immediately just by his presence. That, of course, means a famous coach. The problems with trying to get a famous coach are:

1) We’ve never had a famous coach come here. Coaches become famous here but this is not a ‘destination’ school to most coaches. Our last three coaches were career assistants. Paul Pasqualoni had been the head coach at Western Connecticut, Dick McPherson at Massachusetts, Ben Schwartwalder at Muhlenberg. That’s the kind of resume our next head coach will have. He might prove better than Shafer but it won’t be because he was ‘famous’.

2) Famous coaches demand famous salaries, which would probably mean less money for the assistant coaches, who actually do much of the recruiting and coaching.

3) Famous coaches became famous at schools that had a lot more to offer than we do in terms of location, academic requirements, tuition, facilities and recent winning tradition. Mr. Famous Coach is unlikely to perform any miracles without those advantages.

4) If a famous coach did come here, he’s likely leave as soon as a better job became open. I know we’ve had that problem anyway but I still think we’re better off with someone who is trying to make his reputation here. At least he’s got to elevate the program to some extent for those other opportunities to open up.

Now:

And here we are, demanding a “flash” hire and finding out that the leading candidate is a guy whose resume isn’t any better than Shafer’s when the gat the job. That doesn’t mean he is Shafer. It just means we have no reason to believe he’ll be any more successful. No “famous coach” has ridden in on a white horse to save us.

Then:

At a place like Syracuse, you need time to build a program. Ben Schwartzwalder’s real breakthrough was in his 8th season, (1956, when he had Jim Brown as a senior). Dick McPherson’s was in his 7th season (1987, when Don McPherson should have won the Heisman). The clock started ticking again when Doug Marrone took over in the wake of the G-Rob disaster in 2009. He got the program back above the water line but then rowed off for another boat, (and then abandoned that ship as well). We hired Scott Shafer to maintain continuity but Doug took the rest of the staff with him, so we basically were starting over, at least in terms of the coaching staff. Again they are the ones that do most of the recruiting and most of the coaching when the kids get here. So basically the Shafer era is not an extension of the Marrone Era. We started all over again, just had we had in 2009 and in 2005. If we fire Shafer, we’ll be starting over for the fourth time in a little over a decade. You can’t build a program doing that, at least not a mid-major like Syracuse.

Now:

This is not a popular view. It’s been replaced by the “third year rule”, which states that, (per an examination of the Top 25 coaches), that successful coach tend to have good third years so if your guy didn’t, get rid of him and give someone else a chance. The third year rule must be news to the “Sack Mac Pack” who wanted him fired in his 6th year after he’d had winning season in years 3, 4 and 5. Of course, he went undefeated in year 7.

I had my own “third year theory”, which is that you tend to have a poor recruiting year when you make a coaching change because you sever all the relationships your current staff developed with recruits, their families and high school coaches and administrators. It’s a heart transplant not a hat change. That blip on the radar will tend to show up 3-4 years alter. Greg Robinson’s worst team was his third. (His first one won one less game but at least had a defense.) Doug Marrone most disappointing team was his third which had a shaky 5-2 start and then fell apart with an 0-5 finish. Scott Shaffer had a team in his third year that was dominated by freshmen and sophomores. What we need more than a genius coach is two more good recruiting classes to add to those freshmen and sophomores as they become juniors and seniors. If we don’t get that, they will be isolated and replaced by another group of freshmen and sophomores, instead of players who will take over as juniors and seniors and the next coach is likely to have a bad third year- and the same people who wanted Shafer fired will want the new guy fired, too. Can the new guy come down running in the recruiting to avoid the third year syndrome so he can pass the third year test? Stay tuned.

Then:

At the same time, I can’t say if Shafer is truly the “right guy”. His first season had a successful ending with a winning (7-6) record and a minor bowl win but it was a very, very bumpy ride. We absorbed some of the worst defeats the program has ever experienced. I was twice invited to other people’s houses to watch SU road games: Georgia tech and Florida State. We lost both games by 8 touchdowns. We wound up turning down the sound and talking over old times. We got blown out by a Northwestern team that wound up with a losing record and blown out of our own Dome by a Clemson team that wore far more orange than we did. (I couldn’t shout “Let’s Go Orange”). Then came last year’s disaster. He’s now 10-15 through two seasons, 5-11 in the conference. And frankly, the prospects this year don’t look tremendously better. The lynch mob insists that if a guy “isn’t the guy”, why waste time in getting rid of him? Do we need a couple more bad seasons before we do anything?

Now:

Not too many coaches can survive back to back 3-9 and 4-8 seasons and Scott Shafer didn’t. You certainly can’t make a strong case for him based on his record. He made things worse with some strange decisions and stranger explanations for them, none worse than keeping his starting quarterback in a 10-41 game with 5 minutes left where he got hurt because he had hopes of a comeback. Then his OC, Tim Lester, said it was because the back-up hadn’t warmed up yet. Who’s in charge here?

Then:

If we keep recruiting well, there has to be a breakthrough eventually. Shafer and his staff deserve a shot at coaching the talent they are bringing in and the school deserves to give their coaching staff every chance to succeed. We don’t want to interrupt the recruiting momentum by changing the coaching staff once again. But they have to go out and win games or the pressure to make still another change may get to be too strong to resist. And that’s why this is yet another pivotal year for the Syracuse Orangemen.

Now:

I still think that, based on the recruiting, Shafer and his staff would have raised the talent level to the point where we would have become a winning program. I think the talent would have overcome whatever weaknesses they had or mistakes they made. Then the issue would have been: were they the ones to get the most out of the talent they were recruiting? There’s a serious question about. But now it will remain unanswered. Hopefully the new group will be better coaches and be able to build on the recruiting foundation Shafer and his staff began.

 

[SWC75]

THE TEAM

OFFENSE

Then:

For the second straight year, our leading receiver never found the end zone, something that had last previously happened in 1973, Ben Schwartzwalder’s last year. Early in the second period in the opener against Villanova, (played on the 29th of August), running back Prince-Tyson Gulley broke through the line of scrimmage, looked up and saw no one between him and the goal line. He ran 65 yards for a touchdown. It was the last touchdown any Syracuse running back ran for that season. They went 11 1/2 games without another, never running for a touchdown in any fall month.

Now:

Steve Ismael scored on 7 of his 39 catches. Erv Phillips scored on 5 of his 29 catches.

Then:

Instead our quarterbacks did much of the ball carrying, especially when Terrell Hunt was in there. Hunt a big dude at 6-3, 234, played in only 5 games but was our third leading rusher with 292 yards and 6TDs This is part of the folly of the single back backfield: the only running alternative is your quarterback, the guy you least want to lose to injury. Hunt was getting pretty beat up, although his injury actually came on a sack. It may have affected his throwing, which was awful. The record shows he did complete 57% of his passes but that’s not exceptional these days and the vast majority of his passes were short shots, such as those bubble screens that made the fans cringe. In 145 passes he produced one touchdown pass and four interceptions…. For a long time our punter, Riley Dixon, was tied with Hunt for the most touchdown passes with one, thanks to a fake field goal, (he is our holder). Eventually, A. J. Long passed them both with 4TD passes vs. 8 interceptions. Two other quarterbacks, Austin Wilson and Mitch Kimble, produced no TDs and 5 interceptions, giving us a total of 6TD passes and 17 interceptions for the season.

Now:

Hunt got hurt early in the opening game and got replaced by Eric Dungey and Zach Mahoney who combined for 18 touchdown passes and 7 interceptions.

Then:

Long and Kimble did manage to run for three touchdowns between them and defensive end Ron Thompson, who was placed in the backfield for a goal line situation, got another for a total of 12 rushing touchdowns. That gave us 18 offensive touchdowns in 12 games. We got none on kick returns. The defense manufactured four touchdowns for a total of 22 for the team. We averaged 17 points per game.

Now:

We had 15 rushing touchdowns, two on punt returns, two on interceptions and two more on fumble returns for a total of 40 touchdowns. We averaged 28 points per game. If we’d kicked another field goal against Louisville we would have scored at least 20 points in each game, something that has only been achieved in Syracuse history by the 1959 and 1987 teams, (although ’87 was held to 16 by Auburn in the Sugar Bowl).

Then:

The guy in charge of giving us an up-to-date offense is Tim Lester. He has been our quarterbacks coach... Besides alternating snap counts, Lester isn’t going to try to overwhelm the opposition by the speed with which we get off plays. This won’t work if the plays don’t work. Lester is going to search for mismatches and try to exploit them. He also wants more “downfield” running. I think it’s the blockers who make the field tilt in the direction you want it to.

Now: We didn’t do much ‘downfield ‘running: it was mostly the option with occasional bursts up the middle when we caught the defense off guard. Actually, it’s hard to remember the last time we had a team that could sustain a consistent running attack. A big disappointment with this team was that we had no short yardage attack. We were back in the pistol, regardless of the play, with the quarterback handing the ball off to a back who was 6-7 yards behind the line of scrimmage. It’s hard to imagine you couldn’t spend enough practice time to put a power running package in for plays where you just need a yard or two- or run a quarterback sneak, which we used to do so well it was almost an automatic first down on 3rd or 4th and 1.

Then:

One of the things the team has to overcome is the staunch conservatism of the head coach. Scott Shafer is known as an aggressive chance-taking defensive coach who likes to pressure the offense to try to force big plays. But on offense he’s played it so close to the vest one gets the impression he actually prefers to have his defensive unit out there. Nowhere was it more apparent than in the season’s last game, where we were down 7-21 with about 7 minutes left. We had the ball on the Boston College 40, 4th and 6. Shafer punted, saying that he hoped to get a turnover or force a punt. It sounded like this is his idea of offense. That thought is scary.

Now: This was everybody’s biggest complaint about Shafer: He’ a defensive guy and he seemed to use his offense to set up the defense, rather than the other way around. This continued until his situation got desperate and Shafer began taking chances, (like trying for two), even when it didn’t seem to make any sense.

Then:

Quarterbacks are often described as playmakers. Actually, when a quarterback has to “make the play”, the offense isn’t really functioning well. A quarterback is a conduit for the ball from the center to the real playmakers- the guys who take the ball and run with it and score the touchdowns. When your quarterbacks run for as many touchdowns as they pass for and score three times as many touchdowns as your running backs, (as happened last year), your offense just isn’t working. You have to surround your quarterback with talent so he doesn’t have to make the plays himself for the offense to really get going.

Now:

We had plenty of playmakers on this team: Fredericks, Morris, Phillips, Strickland, Ismael, Estime. But we still relied on Dungey and Mahoney to make plays themselves. Dungey was our second leading rusher with 91 carriers for 351 yards and 5TDs while Mahoney had 41/151/2. Dungey got badly beat up and his future is uncertain. Mahoney seemed to avoid contact better but any time your quarterback is carrying the ball that much, the clock is ticking. I know the spread is all the rage and quarterbacks who both run and pass the ball are the keys to it. But with so many other playmakers I wonder if we aren’t better off with more of a pro-style offense where the quarterback’s job is to get the ball to the playmakers. Who would you rather have the ball at the end of the play?

Then:

Part of the problem was the type of receivers recruited in the Marrone era. Doug clearly preferred big targets and we had some tall guys with average speed or less running patterns for us. This is an era where offenses tend to run short routes with a high completion percentage and fewer sacks and turnovers and rely on the receivers to turn their route into big plays with speed and elusiveness. If you can get a big guy who can do that, great. But we had relatively stationary targets who rarely got much farther when they did catch the ball. Last year the recruiting started to turn in another direction but the veteran receivers were still in the Marrone mold.

Now:

Ismael, Estime and Phillips were clearly an upgrade, although Estime and Phillips were still learning to catch passes down the field. Now if we could only get a tight end who could catch the ball.

Then:

I like our running backs. Devante McFarland has decent size, (6-0 193) and speed and is nifty picking his way through defenders to find an opening. He had an 86 yard non-scoring run vs. Wake Forest. Everybody has raved about George Morris, a back we got out of Georgia a couple of years ago. He’s the same size and speed as McFarland. He’s gained 435 yards in two years to McFarland’s 461 but DeVante has averaged 6.1 yards per carry to 3.8 for Morris, who has to start showing those practice moves in games. Erv Phillips showed some moves and some speed in bursts last year that got the fans excited. He looked like a sort of running back version of Estime. The thought of having them both out there at once, (and healthy), is fun but Phillip’s numbers weren’t all that eye popping: 4.3 yards per carry and 3.8 per catch, (and, of course he didn’t score). But he sure looks interesting.

Also interesting are our three tailback recruits. Jordan Fredericks, (5-10, 205), was the player of the year in New York State. Dontae Strickland (5-11 180), from talent rich New Jersey, was rated higher than him nationally and then there’s Tyrone Perkins,(6-0 175), who missed his senior year due to an ACL tear but was descried as a “steal” by one recruiting expert. Looking at their film, they all look pretty dynamic. (Frankly they look at least as good as Robert Washington). Fredericks seems more of a straight-ahead runner while Strickland and Perkins are more “gliders” who make dazzling open-field moves. But all three combine power and speed and could become feature backs here. (Their speed and elusiveness might be more useful in a wide-open offense than Washington’s power-running style.)

Now:

They all look better than Robert Washington who isn’t coming here. McFarland had physical and emotional troubles and fell behind Fredericks and Morris, gaining 102 yards on 35 carries, a 2.9 average and never finding the end zone. Morris, who had seemed promising but was a disappointment his first two years, ran with power and determination all year and gained 326 yards on 66 carries, a 4.9 average, although he didn’t score either. The bright new star was Fredericks, who gained 607 yards on 107 carries (5.7) and scored 4 times, including a 75 yard burst. The real reason they didn’t score more is our lack of a power formation for short yardage: we were always passing to score down close to the goal line. I think our failure to get first downs in running situations also limited their carries and thus their yards. But all three have talent and all three will be back next year.

Strickland proved an exciting young player. He had 21 carries for 81 yards and a score, caught 9 passes for 137 yards and two scores, returned 4 kick-offs for 82 yards and looked like he could go all the way at any time. He also showed he could run with power when he couldn’t avoid the tacklers. Perkins was barely used with 1 carry for 5 yards. You wonder why they blew his redshirt for that.

Then:

But last year, injuries cut down the offensive line as if by a machine gun. All the starters got hurt and all the reserves got hurt and line coach Tim Doast had to put together a line with gum, spit and duct tape. One silver lining, (the only one), was that in playing a lot of guys, we now have a lot of guys who have played, so maybe the depth will be better this year. But one wonders if the continuity of having 3-4 returnees from proud, successful lines has now been broken. At least we will have four seniors and a junior eyeing the defensive line before the snap. LT Ivan Foy, LG Nick Robinson and center Rob Trudo have seen a lot of action, although Trudo has not been a center before. RT Omari Palmer, the one junior has also played a lot. RG Seamus Shanley is a surprise: he was a walk-on from West Genesee High School. Behind them are two freshman, a sophomore and a junior.

Now:

This was my biggest disappointment on the year. I thought a line full of juniors and seniors would have a strong year but they were mediocre at best. I think they protected the quarterback in the pocket fairly well, (we suffered 21 sacks in 12 games, 51st in the country). But the failure to consistently run the ball, especially on first down, plagued us all year.

 

[SWC75]

DEFENSE

Then:

One thing nobody questions about Scott Shafer is that he knows defense. He and the man to whom he gave his old job as defensive coordinator, Chuck Bullough , like a fan-pleasing, aggressive defense. Athon quotes an opposing coach: “They’re one of the most unique teams we play because defensively, it’s like they’re always just coming after you. They play a lot of zone and blitz but whatever the book says, they’ll do the opposite. If it says you’re supposed to sit back and play coverage, they’re coming. As a play-caller, you’re trying to get into a rhythm and build one thing into the next but they’re coming from everywhere. I don’t want to say they’re unsound, but they’re just always turning guys loose and if you can get the ball out you have a chance to hit them in the mouth and if they have a busted protection you’re going to hit them.”

Shafer and Bullough avoided getting “hit” enough last year that we had the 26th best team in the country in terms of yards surrendered and 37th in points, (of 125 teams), despite getting no help from the pitiful offense and little from unproductive kick return unit and the archly conservative punting philosophy of the head coach. But it wasn’t their first really good defensive team. In 2010 they were 7th in yards surrendered and 17th in scoring, (of course it was just Shafer then: he was the defensive coordinator).

Now:

The defense nosedived to 99th in yards and 90th in scoring. They were 78th against the run and 101st against the pass. Instead of losing by scores like 6-28, 6-16, 7-30 and 7-28, we lost by scores like 24-45, 38-44, 21-45 and 29-42. Our line was actually pretty good. Our linebackers were kind of erratic. Our defensive backfield was comically bad, although it improved when some of the younger players were promoted over some of the veterans. I really think that Shafer and Bullough, given time, would have produced a defense in a year or two that would have bene comparable to what we had in 2010 and 2014 and paired it with an offense that was pretty good and only going to get better. Now let’s see if the next staff can do that.

Then:

We may be in a similar situation this year- perhaps even worse. We’ve lost 8 of our 11 defensive starters to graduation, (although one jumped early to the pros: same impact), the most in 32 years. In addition talented Isaiah Johnson, who had the size to play inside, (6-4 276) but the speed to play on the flank, had to end his football career due to too many concussions. Massive Wayne Williams, (6-4 330) a highly touted but thus far disappointing former junior college player decided to leave school. Another massive tackle, John Raymon, (6-5 305, down from 325 last year) returns but so do his legs, which have frequently been injured, including a terrible, Joe Theisman-like twisting calamity two years ago against Georgia Tech that destroyed a knee and from which many thought he’d never come back. He sustained another knee injury last year and had one at Iowa before he transferred here. John spent much of fall practice watching on the sidelines after still another injury, this one to his “upper body”. And our most talented defensive lineman, end Ron Thompson (6-3 255), missed two weeks of fall practice with a “lower body injury” that caused him to wear a ‘boot’ and use crutches.

Looking at the other names on the defensive line depth chart I only recognize a couple: Donnie Simmons, (6-2 264), a senior end who has been part of the rotation for a while and now will get his chance to start at the end of his career here and Luke Archinega (6-4 243) is a converted linebacker. I do not recognize the other names. , which include 8 freshmen. There are two seniors, Rony Charles, a third string tackle behind two freshman and Lucas Albrecht, a fourth string end, also behind two freshman, an indication that those guys aren’t likely to see much action. There are good reports about a couple of these freshman. Chris Slayton (6-4 289) is supposed to have set records in the weight room and Steven Clark (6-3 290) has torn it up on the practice field. It’s the sort of thing you hear about in August. But the games begin in September. Kayton Samuels, another freshman, has in fact beaten out Clark for one of the tackle spots per the latest depth chart. Samuels is 6-0 300, so it appears the “new guys” of 2015 are bigger and stronger than the new guys of 2011, a good sign. But even if we can find four guys who can play well, we need people to back them up and spell them and we have no proven depth at all up front.

Now:

I was pretty pleased with this unit. Thompson would have been an All-American on a team that won more games. Raymon and Simmons ended injury-plagued careers on a high note. Clark, Slayton and Samuels had very good freshmen years. They would have been even better except for the chaos behind them.

Then:

Shafer and Bullough like comparatively light, quick linebackers Dyshaun Davis, Marquis Spruill and Cameron Lynch all had fine careers here but struggled to get up to 220 pounds. This year our outside linebackers are junior Parris Bennett, (6-0 216) and Marqez Hodge (5-11 221). Somebody back there has to be able to “bring it“ when the other team starts running downhill at us. Fortunately our middle man is sophomore Zaire Franklin, who last year played at 6-0 238 but has lost 8 pounds for this year. it was clear as a freshman that this guy was something special and he’ll have plenty of work to do this season. Last year we’d put in Archinega to give us more bulk back there but now he’s a defensive end. You wonder if we might positon him at his old linebacker spot in some situations.

Now:

Franklin was a warrior some people complained about his consistency but I think it’s the problem of the high standards we have for him after an impressive freshman year. Bennett looked good before he got hurt. Hodge was a disappointment. Jonathan Thomas and Ted Taylor made some plays toward the end of the year but they are typically undersized at 193 and 214, respectively. I could never figure out why, with under-sized linebackers, we had such trouble covering the flanks on either runs or passes, but we did. They’ll all be back next year so let’s see if they can improve.

Then:

We’ve got a couple of veteran cornerbacks in Julian Whigham and Wayne Morgan. Corey Winfield has actually beaten Morgan out for one starting spot but Shafer says he expects the top 4-5 cornerbacks to play about equally. Antwan Cordy has won the strong safety spot but he’s tiny, (5-8 175) for a safety. Rodney Williams (5-10 196) has surprisingly beaten out the bigger Chauncy Scissum, (6-2 207) at free safety. These guys may have to do a lot of run support, so being undersized is a concern.

Now:

Whigham’s year was a blooper reel and Morgan, who had been an important recruit, just disappeared down the depth chart. By the end of the season the backfield consisted of three sophomores, (Corey Winfield, Chauncy Scissum and Antwan Cordy) and three freshmen, (Cordell Hudson, Juwan Dowells and Kielan Whitner) and it looked it. Those guys made some plays but whiffed on others. The worst part was their inability to look back for the ball. They often were in position to cover a throw but failed to make the play because they didn’t know where the ball was and the receiver did. Another freshmen, Rodney Williams, was hurt midway through the season and didn’t play after that. I guess we’ll have to grow up with them.

 

[SWC75]

THE KICKING GAME

Then:

I prefer the old-fashioned term “the kicking game” to “special teams”, since all special teams plays are plays where the ball gets kicked and, well, we still call it “football”. We are in good shape with our actual kickers. Riley Dixon was probably our MVP last year, (we’ve had too many years recently where the punter was probably our best player). He averaged 42.4 yard per punt. Only 23 of 60 were returned. The same number wound up inside the 20. 17 of them went more than 50 yards. He’s also the holder for the place-kicks and threw a touchdown pass on a fake. He was going to be our emergency quarterback if all four of our regular quarterbacks were hurt, (which they all were but fortunately they were never all out at the same time). He’s a big kid at 6-5, 220 and is a football player, not just a kicker.

Now:

It was another year where our MVP was probably our punter. We’ve had some good ones but Riley would rank with any of them and exceed them in his all-around ability. He was always a threat to run or pass on a punt. He was the holder for place-kicks and was a threat there, too. He kicked for 43.3 yard s per punt, (41.6 net). He was named 1st team All-ACC punter, our first player to receive that honor in our three years in the league. Punting next year will be an adventure without Riley.

Then:

Cole Murphy made 13 of 16 field goals, including a couple of 50 yarders and 11 of 12 extra points. He kicked off as well, for an average of 58.6 yards. That’s not quite to the end zone but with touch-backs coming out to the 25 now, kicking it to the goal line is usually the better option: we gained 18 yards per kickoff return and the option gained 20. He again has beaten out Ryan Norton, who did our kick-offs and most of the place-kicking the previous year. He’s kicked 14 of 22 field goals and 36 of 38 extra points. He actually has sent his kick-offs farther than Murphy, (60.7), but that puts more of them in the end zone.

Now:

Murphy was 16 of 22 he hit three of them from beyond 40 yard, although one was blocked. All was forgiven when he hit the game winner vs. BC. He didn’t miss an extra appoint. He was a solid, if not exceptional kicker and will be back next year.

Then:

It’s not the kickers that are the problem. It’s everything else. When you offense is struggling, as ours has for year, you need to get big plays from the kicking game to give them a leg up. Not just field goals, extra points and good punts, but kick returns and blocked kicks. Last year, when we really needed help, we never blocked a kick and never returned a kick for a score. Our opponents blocked a punt and returned one kick-off and two punts for a score. Contrast that with 1997, when Quinton Spotswood tied an NCAA record with 4 punt returns for touchdown, Kevin Johnson added two kick-off returns for scores but they did it for a Donovan McNabb team that averaged 35 points a game. We need something like that now. We don’t have Spotswood or Johnson but we do have Estime, Phillips, Ismael, Fredericks, Strickland and Perkins, (or maybe 5-6 165 walk-on water sprite Jacob Hill). Somebody in that group ought to be able to get past the 20 on kickoffs and do more than fair catch punts. But we also need to block for them: whoever was returning kickoffs last year seemed to be a bug on a windshield at the 20 yard line each time.

Now: Estime was one of the best punt returners in the country, averaging 18.1 yards per return, (#2 nationally), and took two the distance. Our opposition got 8.5. We’d averaged only 8.4 yards a return in 2014, (our opposition got 14.3). We didn’t get a kickoff return that broke all the way but our average did increase slightly from 18.2 to 21.1 yards per return and “The Salt Badger” had a 37 yarder. Our coverage declined from 19.9 to 21.9, so we were still at a deficit there. We had two kicks blocked but never got a hand on one.


SUMMARY

Then:

Basically, I think the offense will rise to the level of mediocrity, the defense will fall to it and the kicking game will stay there. That adds up to overall mediocrity, an improvement over 3-9, even if it isn’t where we ultimately want to be. If mediocrity can give us a 6-6 record, the season will have been at least a measured success. But our opposition will have something to say about that.

Now:

The offense really didn’t gain any more yards but scored more. I guess that’s mediocrity. The defense never got within sight of mediocrity. Their failures kept the offense off the field, the main reason for their lack of production in yardage. The kicking game was pretty good. But the overall record wasn’t enough to keep the coaches employed and we are on to a new era.

 

[AccuRater]

This is my annual post where I look at what I said in my season preview from the perspective, four months later, of what actually happened.

THE SITUATION

Then:

It always seems to be a pivotal year for the SU football program but when you are at this level, every year is a year that could send the program in one direction or the other. There’s not a lot of carry-over in the respect the program gains from one season to the next. Going into last year, we’d won three bowl games in four years. That doesn’t mean what it once did, (when going to a bowl meant that you were one of the best teams in the country), but it should still earn some measure of respect. Injuries cut through last year’s team like a scythe: 18 of 22 starters missed at least one game. It hit the offense especially hard: at one point we had a 4th string quarterback lining up behind a line that had none of the original starters and every member of which was playing hurt, including a couple of guys who probably shouldn’t have even suited up. So we couldn’t score and lost 9 of our last 10 games, finishing 3-9. That could be viewed as an anomaly but the prognosticators don’t seem to see it that way: they have us as either the worst or second worst team in the conference. We see our program as a bowl-winning program. They see us as the 3-9 we had last year. Who is right?

Now:

They were. The injuries were not as severe overall but we got down to a 5th string quarterback this year and lost 8 of our last 9 to finish 4-8. Now we have the image of a losing program firmly in place and are looking for the coach that can turn that around.

Then:

At the same time, the termites are gnawing at the underpinnings of the program, (or they are awaiting the first loss so they can resume doing so). During the 1-9 streak, many fans were insisting that we needed to get rid of Scot Shafer as soon as possible because it had become obvious to them that “he’s not the guy”. They want us to keep firing coaches until we get the genius who can turn the program around immediately just by his presence. That, of course, means a famous coach. The problems with trying to get a famous coach are:

1) We’ve never had a famous coach come here. Coaches become famous here but this is not a ‘destination’ school to most coaches. Our last three coaches were career assistants. Paul Pasqualoni had been the head coach at Western Connecticut, Dick McPherson at Massachusetts, Ben Schwartwalder at Muhlenberg. That’s the kind of resume our next head coach will have. He might prove better than Shafer but it won’t be because he was ‘famous’.

2) Famous coaches demand famous salaries, which would probably mean less money for the assistant coaches, who actually do much of the recruiting and coaching.

3) Famous coaches became famous at schools that had a lot more to offer than we do in terms of location, academic requirements, tuition, facilities and recent winning tradition. Mr. Famous Coach is unlikely to perform any miracles without those advantages.

4) If a famous coach did come here, he’s likely leave as soon as a better job became open. I know we’ve had that problem anyway but I still think we’re better off with someone who is trying to make his reputation here. At least he’s got to elevate the program to some extent for those other opportunities to open up.

Now:

And here we are, demanding a “flash” hire and finding out that the leading candidate is a guy whose resume isn’t any better than Shafer’s when the gat the job. That doesn’t mean he is Shafer. It just means we have no reason to believe he’ll be any more successful. No “famous coach” has ridden in on a white horse to save us.

Then:

At a place like Syracuse, you need time to build a program. Ben Schwartzwalder’s real breakthrough was in his 8th season, (1956, when he had Jim Brown as a senior). Dick McPherson’s was in his 7th season (1987, when Don McPherson should have won the Heisman). The clock started ticking again when Doug Marrone took over in the wake of the G-Rob disaster in 2009. He got the program back above the water line but then rowed off for another boat, (and then abandoned that ship as well). We hired Scott Shafer to maintain continuity but Doug took the rest of the staff with him, so we basically were starting over, at least in terms of the coaching staff. Again they are the ones that do most of the recruiting and most of the coaching when the kids get here. So basically the Shafer era is not an extension of the Marrone Era. We started all over again, just had we had in 2009 and in 2005. If we fire Shafer, we’ll be starting over for the fourth time in a little over a decade. You can’t build a program doing that, at least not a mid-major like Syracuse.

Now:

This is not a popular view. It’s been replaced by the “third year rule”, which states that, (per an examination of the Top 25 coaches), that successful coach tend to have good third years so if your guy didn’t, get rid of him and give someone else a chance. The third year rule must be news to the “Sack Mac Pack” who wanted him fired in his 6th year after he’d had winning season in years 3, 4 and 5. Of course, he went undefeated in year 7.

I had my own “third year theory”, which is that you tend to have a poor recruiting year when you make a coaching change because you sever all the relationships your current staff developed with recruits, their families and high school coaches and administrators. It’s a heart transplant not a hat change. That blip on the radar will tend to show up 3-4 years alter. Greg Robinson’s worst team was his third. (His first one won one less game but at least had a defense.) Doug Marrone most disappointing team was his third which had a shaky 5-2 start and then fell apart with an 0-5 finish. Scott Shaffer had a team in his third year that was dominated by freshmen and sophomores. What we need more than a genius coach is two more good recruiting classes to add to those freshmen and sophomores as they become juniors and seniors. If we don’t get that, they will be isolated and replaced by another group of freshmen and sophomores, instead of players who will take over as juniors and seniors and the next coach is likely to have a bad third year- and the same people who wanted Shafer fired will want the new guy fired, too. Can the new guy come down running in the recruiting to avoid the third year syndrome so he can pass the third year test? Stay tuned.

Then:

At the same time, I can’t say if Shafer is truly the “right guy”. His first season had a successful ending with a winning (7-6) record and a minor bowl win but it was a very, very bumpy ride. We absorbed some of the worst defeats the program has ever experienced. I was twice invited to other people’s houses to watch SU road games: Georgia tech and Florida State. We lost both games by 8 touchdowns. We wound up turning down the sound and talking over old times. We got blown out by a Northwestern team that wound up with a losing record and blown out of our own Dome by a Clemson team that wore far more orange than we did. (I couldn’t shout “Let’s Go Orange”). Then came last year’s disaster. He’s now 10-15 through two seasons, 5-11 in the conference. And frankly, the prospects this year don’t look tremendously better. The lynch mob insists that if a guy “isn’t the guy”, why waste time in getting rid of him? Do we need a couple more bad seasons before we do anything?

Now:

Not too many coaches can survive back to back 3-9 and 4-8 seasons and Scott Shafer didn’t. You certainly can’t make a strong case for him based on his record. He made things worse with some strange decisions and stranger explanations for them, none worse than keeping his starting quarterback in a 10-41 game with 5 minutes left where he got hurt because he had hopes of a comeback. Then his OC, Tim Lester, said it was because the back-up hadn’t warmed up yet. Who’s in charge here?

Then:

If we keep recruiting well, there has to be a breakthrough eventually. Shafer and his staff deserve a shot at coaching the talent they are bringing in and the school deserves to give their coaching staff every chance to succeed. We don’t want to interrupt the recruiting momentum by changing the coaching staff once again. But they have to go out and win games or the pressure to make still another change may get to be too strong to resist. And that’s why this is yet another pivotal year for the Syracuse Orangemen.

Now:

I still think that, based on the recruiting, Shafer and his staff would have raised the talent level to the point where we would have become a winning program. I think the talent would have overcome whatever weaknesses they had or mistakes they made. Then the issue would have been: were they the ones to get the most out of the talent they were recruiting? There’s a serious question about. But now it will remain unanswered. Hopefully the new group will be better coaches and be able to build on the recruiting foundation Shafer and his staff began.

A must read. Insightful discussion of our place in the football universe. The discussion of "Mr. Famous Coach is spot on.

Nate, Stephen, Bud and all the other "reporters and analysts" in our local media, take note.

 

[OttoMets]

I'd forgotten that they wasted Tyrone Perkins's redshirt. Ugh.

 

[CuseGrad94]

Thanks for the hard work...great read!