Worst Roster Since When? | Page 3 | Syracusefan.com

Worst Roster Since When?

dwilmont44 said:
We're back in the days of arguing why our low ranking is wrong
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Well our record will tell who was right and who was wrong…as of right now I am not betting the mortgage on an over 500 record…do so at your own risk people…
 
I see both sides to this. The rankings don’t jump off the page but there are some ingredients to be excited about. Historically we haven’t done well with low rankings and have overestimated the abilities of guys arguing that rankings don’t matter. They absolutely do matter. I can understand posters who are optimistic and those who aren’t. To be honest, I really have no clue what to expect with this roster but I know we have a better coaching staff.
 
If we have solid QB play we will be bowling. The transfers we brought in who had the gaudiest numbers are G6 guys and one JUCO so you always have to wonder what the step up will look like but considering how many holes we had to fill and the fact that we can’t outspend other schools, we did ok. And the upgrade from EROB to Vince is massive. Not to mention Castillo
 
Good lord, why is everyone calling me a schmuck? I was bored at work and trying to get a conversation going. Mea culpa on the ratings, it was 2025 when we finished last in the ACC. This year, as several of you noted, we’re closer to 40.

That said, my point still stands. Do we have any preseason All-ACC players? Maybe, if you really squint, Samuels or Peal. We’re a developmental program that just fired several coaches tied to player development and turned over most of the 2022–2024 classes. In the NIL era, what’s the track record of relying on largely anonymous 18- and 19-year-olds while lining up against older, better-recruited, better-paid rosters?

I don’t post much, but I’ve been on this board since the AOL days. After watching 20 years of mostly cellar-dwelling awfulness, it’s frustrating to think we finally had a glimmer of hope, only to watch the door get slammed shut by Indiana, Ole Miss, Texas Tech, and whatever other program happens to have a billionaire alum this cycle.
 
MamesJungro said:
Good lord, why is everyone calling me a schmuck? I was bored at work and trying to get a conversation going. Mea culpa on the ratings, it was 2025 when we finished last in the ACC. This year, as several of you noted, we’re closer to 40.

That said, my point still stands. Do we have any preseason All-ACC players? Maybe, if you really squint, Samuels or Peal. We’re a developmental program that just fired several coaches tied to player development and turned over most of the 2022–2024 classes. In the NIL era, what’s the track record of relying on largely anonymous 18- and 19-year-olds while lining up against older, better-recruited, better-paid rosters?

I don’t post much, but I’ve been on this board since the AOL days. After watching 20 years of mostly cellar-dwelling awfulness, it’s frustrating to think we finally had a glimmer of hope, only to watch the door get slammed shut by Indiana, Ole Miss, Texas Tech, and whatever other program happens to have a billionaire alum this cycle.
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Antoine, our freshman All-American linebacker.
 
MamesJungro said:
Good lord, why is everyone calling me a schmuck? I was bored at work and trying to get a conversation going.
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Side Eye Dog Meme GIF
 
The thing that scares me is Fran talks about a championship but we don’t have half a roster. We need some studs that we don’t got. We might not win the mac
 
Cuse House said:
Antoine, our freshman All-American linebacker.
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Tons of potential, but didn't make All-ACC honorable mention last year, which suggests coaches and media slot him as a middle-of-the-pack starter, maybe around 20th to 25th best. Could he move up to the top 5? I hope so!
 
phsyra said:
How many of our new recruits this year will be on the team in two years. It seems a lot of players leave after year 1. The transfer portal is very important and how we got to 10-3 with Kyle Mcord. Being the worst t the transfer protal is not a good indicator.
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Weeding out will be part of every class going forward. Can’t afford to keep players that aren’t showing proper potential.
 
Love the focus on portal rankings while simultaneously ignoring the HS rankings. At least be consistent.

We also got rid of the recruiting coaches who couldn’t develop guys. Will it work? Remains to be seen. But Fran is focusing on what he does - getting the players and having more coaches do what they do best - develop and coach. He overindexed in recruiting guys in his mold with his first staff. He has learned and pivoted. Now we will see the results in next 12-24 months.

I’d be very disappointed if we don’t win 6-8 games next year. There will be some surprises I think both positively and negatively with a young roster.

Biggest key to me is the OL continuing to develop. Three starters returning, need youth to perform.
 
richmondcuse03 said:
Love the focus on portal rankings while simultaneously ignoring the HS rankings. At least be consistent.

We also got rid of the recruiting coaches who couldn’t develop guys. Will it work? Remains to be seen. But Fran is focusing on what he does - getting the players and having more coaches do what they do best - develop and coach. He overindexed in recruiting guys in his mold with his first staff. He has learned and pivoted. Now we will see the results in next 12-24 months.

I’d be very disappointed if we don’t win 6-8 games next year. There will be some surprises I think both positively and negatively with a young roster.

Biggest key to me is the OL continuing to develop. Three starters returning, need youth to perform.
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HS Rankings are great if guys actually develop and stay. Samuel and Antoine are great examples. I would argue we need to be able to keep more guys consistently if we plan on relying heavily on HS recruiting. Truth be told, it is going to be difficult in this day and age. I would much prefer utilizing the transfer portal heavily for proven production. Pros and cons to each method of roster building.
 
richmondcuse03 said:
Love the focus on portal rankings while simultaneously ignoring the HS rankings. At least be consistent.

We also got rid of the recruiting coaches who couldn’t develop guys. Will it work? Remains to be seen. But Fran is focusing on what he does - getting the players and having more coaches do what they do best - develop and coach. He overindexed in recruiting guys in his mold with his first staff. He has learned and pivoted. Now we will see the results in next 12-24 months.

I’d be very disappointed if we don’t win 6-8 games next year. There will be some surprises I think both positively and negatively with a young roster.

Biggest key to me is the OL continuing to develop. Three starters returning, need youth to perform.
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The biggest “portal” additions were the DC and O-Line Coach.
The other D coaches also.

It’s not like Toledo was loaded with 4* talent, yet their D ranked very highly across all of D1 football.

And our OL has underperformed for seemingly ages, only occasionally covered up by superior QB play;
Dungey, Schrader, McCord, Angeli.

If we “just” upgrade our OL performance to average, our O will be dramatically better with Angeli.
(The OL guys all pass the eye test, it’s not like we’ve got dudes who weigh 270 we’re hoping can bulk up. )

And Jeebus forbid PB Angeli is not able to go for any reason, we now have an experienced QB2 who has actually started games and performed well.
And a QB3 who also has actual game experience.
 
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Hard to say, we only lost 2 players (Gill/Cook) with any type of meaningful production. Not going to include the running backs when, imo, any runnning back with the same # of touches will put up the same numbers at a minimum. OL Im going with better. DL push, LBs better, DE better, DBs better, WRs push, QB better.

DC much better. When I watched tape of his D they tackle. The biggest improvement we need on D is being able to tackle.

*Edit- TE is worse. Villari is a good football player. Safeties push. We really need to improve here, can't see the position being worse than last year but don't know if it's better either.
 
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LpoolNative said:
Alright bud
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I’m not saying it’s totally bad. Just saying we are 3 guys away from being really good. Dt to pare with Perry, safety who can cover with Barron like skills, and wr that is number 1 clearly. All three guys would cost about 3-4 mil total and would change our team drastically. Now Fran is preying that we can coach all these guys up and I prey they can and we play out of our minds. Just not sure it’s gonna happen.
 
HRE Otto IV said:
Even so with Gill, he still was at 30+ catches and 500+ yards each of the last two seasons. Right now who would you pencil in to surpass that?

I think it will be WR by committee kinda of like 2018.
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He would have 2025 bigger numbers if we had a real QB instead of an interception machine and a lacrosse player. His 2024 numbers are not bad considering we had Pena, Gadsden, Meeks and LaQuint as options ahead of him.
 
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djorange1989 said:
What should he do, be Dino or Shafer and poor mouth their lot in life as a non-blue blood and make 6-6 the standard?
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I get we are moneyballing this. I just think we are being too cheap as to try and be a playoff team. 3-4 more mill and we coulda had 3 guys we needed to improve o and especially d.
 
Cuse House said:
HS Rankings are great if guys actually develop and stay. Samuel and Antoine are great examples. I would argue we need to be able to keep more guys consistently if we plan on relying heavily on HS recruiting. Truth be told, it is going to be difficult in this day and age. I would much prefer utilizing the transfer portal heavily for proven production. Pros and cons to each method of roster building.
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We did in fact keep all the 25s we want. It was the 24s where our top guys didn’t perform but I think that’s more a failure on identifying the right guys. And it was a class a few weeks after taking the job so not sure it’s the best sign. The real tell is how we will we do next year retaining 25s and 26s.
 
721Comstock said:
The biggest “portal” additions were the DC and O-Line Coach.
The other D coaches also.

It’s not like Toledo was loaded with 4* talent, yet their D ranked very highly across all of D1 football.

And our OL has underperformed for seemingly ages, only occasionally covered up by superior QB play;
Dungey, Schrader, McCord, Angeli.

If we “just” upgrade our OL performance to average, our O will be dramatically better with Angeli.
(The OL guys all pass the eye test, it’s not like we’ve got dudes who weigh 270 we’re hoping can bulk up. )

And Jeebus forbid PB Angeli is not able to go for any reason, we now have an experienced QB2 who has actually started games and performed well.
And a QB3 who also has actual game experience.
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Yup. And Erob was being paid to be a stud recruiter. We needed to allocate that money to a stud DC. I’m still very surprised we got Vince given the competition for him.
 
shu 49 said:
I get we are moneyballing this. I just think we are being too cheap as to try and be a playoff team. 3-4 more mill and we coulda had 3 guys we needed to improve o and especially d.
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More bang for the buck, moneyball is the right approach. Production from veteran players over potential all day long.
 

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