A Reason For Orange Optimism?
Time Warner Sports here in Syracuse has been recently rerunning the 1987 SU football team's undefeated season, replaying all 11 wins (and for some reason, the anticlimactic Sugar Bowl tie with Auburn). It's the 20th anniversary of that magical season, which makes me feel old because I remember all of it. I'm hoping SU fans were able to watch at least some of that marathon not just for the historical significance of that season but also because it serves as a reminder that a team that is not expected to do well can accomplish amazing things...
...which brings us to this year's version of the Orange. No, I'm not predicting an undefeated season; that would be just plain crazy. However, I do believe that SU will exceed most people's dismal expectations for them. The attitude on the SU campus has become, "we suck and this isn't going to change." The attitude of Average Syracusan has become, "we suck, this isn't going to change, it's all the AD and Chancellor's fault, and we never should have fired Paul Pasqualoni." Sports Illustrated has predicted us to go 3-9 and says head coach Greg Robinson will likely be fired after the season. Many SU fans are probably rooting for a finish like that, and most believe we have no hope of doing any better.
Sorry to rain on the pessimism parade, but we're going 6-6 this year. How can I say this? Simple. We have a great veteran defense coming back this year, and that will serve as the backbone of this team. The offense may take a little time to come together because we have a new quarterback, but he and our skill position players are very good, and most of them were actually recruited for this system, not the old Pasqualoni system. The O-line is the real concern, and this prediction goes completely out the window if QB Andrew Robinson has to spend the entire season running for his life.
We open at home on Friday against Washington, a team in a similar position as us in terms of recent struggles. The game is at home, UW coach Tyrone Willingham, already a loser once in the Dome as Notre Dame's head coach in '03, is already blaming the non-existent wind in the Carrier Dome as a possible reason for failure. Chalk this up as a win for us. The next home game is against Illinois, A TEAM WE DEFEATED LAST YEAR AT THEIR PLACE. Why do I emphasize that? Because many people I've seen on the forums don't see us beating Illinois this year, even though the game is at home and we beat them rather easily last year. We will win this game. Next up is Miami of Ohio, another team we beat last year with relative ease. Mark that down as another win. Later in the season, we play Buffalo at home, a sure W if ever there was one. That's 4 wins already.
The other 2 will show our improvement in conference play. We beat Connecticut last year, we're better than them, most people are calling this for the Orange, even the naysayers, so there's win #5. The 6th win will come against either Pittsburgh or Cincinnati, two teams that finished ahead of us last year but are still second-tier Big East teams. There you have it, 6-6. Simple.
Part of the reason why I feel so strongly about my prediction for this year is because I like what Greg Robinson and AD Daryl Gross are trying to do for the football program at SU. They're trying to breathe life into and get people excited about a team that was as dull and lifeless as their ex-coach for so many years. I'm all for that. Of course, Average Syracusan is against change of any kind, so they tend to dislike this stuff. And then there's "1-10..."
Okay, there, I said it. 1-10. Yes, we went 1-10 the first season of Greg Robinson's tenure in 2005. That has become the mantra of the anti-Greg SU fan (otherwise known as the previously pro-Pasqualoni SU fan). A reference to a season that is now 2 years in the past and which we already improved upon last year. They hold onto the fact that we "won the Big East in 2004", so we weren't really heading for rock bottom. We pretty much won the conference by default that year, finishing in a 4-way tie for first in a 7-team league. Plus, we lost to Temple, which should have been as good a tiebreaker as any. And the season was bookended by nationally televised blowouts where our D gave up 51 points each time. But 1-10 trumps all of that, apparently, even now.
I was watching the SU/Maryland game from 1987 that started the Time Warner Sports marathon, and I noticed some things. First of all, the D that year was also loaded, even more so than this year's team. They set the tone for that whole season. The offense in that first game was a little ragged. QB Don McPherson, destined to eventually become a Heisman Trophy candidate, got picked off 3 times. Michael Owens, wearer of the vaunted (and now-retired) #44, fumbled his first pitch. And yet, they still won the game, rather easily. This by itself shocked a lot of people who had fresh visions of a 5-6 record the year before (and a Maryland victory in the teams' last meeting in '85) in their minds. From there, the team believed in itself, and the fans came back with it. The guys on this team in 2007 believe in themselves, and they're ready to prove it on the field Friday night. I believe they will beat Washington, and who knows where we could go from there? But the first game will tell a lot.
And one more note about '87... that team overachieved instead of underachieved. For the last 15 years, we've had underachieving teams at SU, practically every year. Wouldn't it be nice to overachieve for once? If anything, we're due...
...which brings us to this year's version of the Orange. No, I'm not predicting an undefeated season; that would be just plain crazy. However, I do believe that SU will exceed most people's dismal expectations for them. The attitude on the SU campus has become, "we suck and this isn't going to change." The attitude of Average Syracusan has become, "we suck, this isn't going to change, it's all the AD and Chancellor's fault, and we never should have fired Paul Pasqualoni." Sports Illustrated has predicted us to go 3-9 and says head coach Greg Robinson will likely be fired after the season. Many SU fans are probably rooting for a finish like that, and most believe we have no hope of doing any better.
Sorry to rain on the pessimism parade, but we're going 6-6 this year. How can I say this? Simple. We have a great veteran defense coming back this year, and that will serve as the backbone of this team. The offense may take a little time to come together because we have a new quarterback, but he and our skill position players are very good, and most of them were actually recruited for this system, not the old Pasqualoni system. The O-line is the real concern, and this prediction goes completely out the window if QB Andrew Robinson has to spend the entire season running for his life.
We open at home on Friday against Washington, a team in a similar position as us in terms of recent struggles. The game is at home, UW coach Tyrone Willingham, already a loser once in the Dome as Notre Dame's head coach in '03, is already blaming the non-existent wind in the Carrier Dome as a possible reason for failure. Chalk this up as a win for us. The next home game is against Illinois, A TEAM WE DEFEATED LAST YEAR AT THEIR PLACE. Why do I emphasize that? Because many people I've seen on the forums don't see us beating Illinois this year, even though the game is at home and we beat them rather easily last year. We will win this game. Next up is Miami of Ohio, another team we beat last year with relative ease. Mark that down as another win. Later in the season, we play Buffalo at home, a sure W if ever there was one. That's 4 wins already.
The other 2 will show our improvement in conference play. We beat Connecticut last year, we're better than them, most people are calling this for the Orange, even the naysayers, so there's win #5. The 6th win will come against either Pittsburgh or Cincinnati, two teams that finished ahead of us last year but are still second-tier Big East teams. There you have it, 6-6. Simple.
Part of the reason why I feel so strongly about my prediction for this year is because I like what Greg Robinson and AD Daryl Gross are trying to do for the football program at SU. They're trying to breathe life into and get people excited about a team that was as dull and lifeless as their ex-coach for so many years. I'm all for that. Of course, Average Syracusan is against change of any kind, so they tend to dislike this stuff. And then there's "1-10..."
Okay, there, I said it. 1-10. Yes, we went 1-10 the first season of Greg Robinson's tenure in 2005. That has become the mantra of the anti-Greg SU fan (otherwise known as the previously pro-Pasqualoni SU fan). A reference to a season that is now 2 years in the past and which we already improved upon last year. They hold onto the fact that we "won the Big East in 2004", so we weren't really heading for rock bottom. We pretty much won the conference by default that year, finishing in a 4-way tie for first in a 7-team league. Plus, we lost to Temple, which should have been as good a tiebreaker as any. And the season was bookended by nationally televised blowouts where our D gave up 51 points each time. But 1-10 trumps all of that, apparently, even now.
I was watching the SU/Maryland game from 1987 that started the Time Warner Sports marathon, and I noticed some things. First of all, the D that year was also loaded, even more so than this year's team. They set the tone for that whole season. The offense in that first game was a little ragged. QB Don McPherson, destined to eventually become a Heisman Trophy candidate, got picked off 3 times. Michael Owens, wearer of the vaunted (and now-retired) #44, fumbled his first pitch. And yet, they still won the game, rather easily. This by itself shocked a lot of people who had fresh visions of a 5-6 record the year before (and a Maryland victory in the teams' last meeting in '85) in their minds. From there, the team believed in itself, and the fans came back with it. The guys on this team in 2007 believe in themselves, and they're ready to prove it on the field Friday night. I believe they will beat Washington, and who knows where we could go from there? But the first game will tell a lot.
And one more note about '87... that team overachieved instead of underachieved. For the last 15 years, we've had underachieving teams at SU, practically every year. Wouldn't it be nice to overachieve for once? If anything, we're due...
Labels: college football, Syracuse
posted by Dave | 2:02 PM
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