In our continuing Case Studies series at The Student Section, we present a team-specific examination through the eyes of a reporter.
Joe Manganiello of the Watertown (N.Y.) Daily Times covers Syracuse football. You can find his Twitter account here.
Joe writes for Comeback sites Crossover Chronicles and The AP Party, covering the NBA and the larger realms of entertainment and culture.
You might have read Joe’s preseason checkup on Syracuse from the summer. Now, we return to ask Joe where the Orange will turn to for their next head coach, while touching on a few other topics as well.
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TSS: What are Syracuse’s foremost needs at the end of 2015, with an eye toward 2016?
JOE MANGANIELLO: Injuries in back-to-back seasons to quarterback Terrel Hunt left Syracuse undermanned and underqualified at the game’s most important position. There were other problems that befell the Scott Shafer administration — the Orange had eight new starters on defense in 2015, and the unit surrendered 43.4 points per game on the road — however, nothing doomed the program more than uncertainty at QB. Walk-on Zack Mahoney started the final four games after Eric Dungey’s electric-yet-frail freshman season was shut down. Mahoney was fine in a pinch against LSU and Clemson, but he completed 46.6 percent of his throws and averaged 5 yards per passing attempt.
Dungey and Mahoney will be stronger with an offseason to work out the kinks and prepare for the starting role. Pending his approval of the next football coach, 2016 recruit Rex Culpepper joins the Orange as the program’s most exciting quarterback prospect in a decade. The Orange have no shortage of question marks these days, but who quarterbacks the team in 2016 is only second to what the next coaching staff offers the program.
TSS: What trap does Syracuse need to avoid with its next head coaching hire — not necessarily in terms of a specific coach, but perhaps an identifier, such as “someone who hasn’t been a head coach” or “someone who runs X style of offense or defense”?
JM:
That makes 15 head coaching openings. https://t.co/uLFGTyrhXU
— Stephen Bailey (@Stephen_Bailey1) November 29, 2015
Head coaching jobs are open around the country. Every program with a vacancy, from Georgia to Syracuse to Rutgers, has a private list of candidates — descending from dream hires to realistic choices to “No way, our fans would bemoan us.”
What I’m interested in is whether or not Syracuse has a chance at hiring someone with head coaching experience. If there was a theme of the Scott Shafer era, it was that every time the going got tough, Shafer hid behind “One day at a time…” jargon. Running a program is about more than knowing the game of football, which Shafer does, or being beloved by your players, which a strong majority of his team did.
Syracuse fans need assurance that the next chapter of the program will be free of panic. Shafer fumbled late-game clock situations. He stumbled through awkward press conferences, clinging to regurgitated, lifeless coach-speech. The next face of the Orange football program can be emotional and passionate, as Shafer was, but the man must also be capable of overcoming adversity. Perhaps Shafer was just unlucky, but three years was enough to prove he couldn’t handle the speed of that job.
TSS: Which are the three most likely candidates for the job, and what do you think athletic director Mark Coyle will value the most in his search?
JM: In line with Syracuse’s trouble at quarterback, I believe Coyle will hire an offensive mind, and I also believe it’s what the fans want more than anything.
More often than not, Syracuse has put good defenses on the field, and there’s evidence on many NFL rosters to back that up. It’s been two decades, however, since Marvin Harrison and Donovan McNabb graced the program — bonafide superstars that gave opposing defenses fits.
Syracuse is a cold city in the thick of Upstate New York — the program would be hard pressed to sign the best tailback or wideout from SEC country, and ditto for a top-10 quarterback, based on ancillary details. Recruiting athletes to Syracuse University has always been about two things: tradition and relevance. It’s why the basketball program is a national powerhouse — one coach, a clear course of action, a recognizable and repeatable style of play, the chance to compete for a championship. The football program inched toward respectability under Doug Marrone, but lost its way in the doldrums of the Shafer era.
Oregon coach Scott Frost and Bowling Green coach Dino Babers are spread offense wizards with proven reputations, and Babers has the added benefit of having head coaching experience. There are also pro-style offensive minds such as Stanford’s Mike Bloomgren. Syracuse needs to powerfully choose a direction offensively, and begin winning back the national recruiting trails that elevated the program in the 1980s and ’90s.
