Syracuse Football Fires Head Coach Scott Shafer

This pretty much sums things up, doesn’t it? After another double digit loss to NC State on Saturday, Shafer was also at a loss…for words. He admitted to being embarrassed about his own behavior on the sidelines, and then walks off stage blaming a reporter for asking a tough question. Sorry coach, but as you know, it’s kind of their job to do that.

Two days later, he’s out of the job.

Unfortunately, the young talent Shafer gathered this season hasn’t amounted to wins. After the team’s first 3-0 start since 1991, the offense and defense have sputtered to eight consecutive losses.

After yet another bad loss, time has finally run out on the Scott Shafer era. The final score might have only been a 13 point difference, but SU was once again manhandled by a middle-of-the-pack ACC team. That’s the third time this season that an unranked team has taken it to Syracuse.

More from Syracuse Football

• Syracuse Football: Cuse boils Purdue, turns attention to Army on Saturday
• Syracuse football only team in country with top-5 scoring offense, defense
• Syracuse Orange: Looking at On3 NIL Valuations of top-five ‘Cuse players
• Syracuse Football: Alumnus Noah Eagle to call Purdue game, that’s dope
• Syracuse Orange: Head of Orange United ready to ‘vie for championships’

Aside from the losses, I think it’s Shafer’s lack of composure in game situations that cost him his job. He’s completely lost his cool in the past two games and gotten flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct in each. After a tirade in the Clemson game in which he threw his headset to the ground, Shafer again erupted in the fourth quarter against NC State for another costly penalty.

Losing was bad enough, but losing your cool as well was the nail in the coffin. Last week I said he had given himself a lifeline because of the way his team played against Clemson, but he obviously lost that… after he lost his cool in the game and the press conference afterwards.

Aside from just the losses and lack of composure, the inconsistencies on this team have been growing too big. One week they can come out and look outstanding against the #1 team in the country, the next they do almost nothing against an NC State team with four losses and no signature wins.

Does all the blame rest with Scott Shafer? Absolutely not. He took over a team that was mostly Doug Marrone players, and was asked to pretty much start from scratch. He’s brought in some solid talent over the past few years and that is evident by the incredible youth on this team. Almost 80% of the offensive production has come from freshman. On defense, more than 60% of the tackles are from underclassmen.

He’s also done a very solid job of changing the culture at Syracuse. He was a no nonsense guy who wasn’t afraid to punish players that didn’t follow the rules. That can’t be more evident than his indefinite suspensions of Qaadir Sheppard and Amir Ealey for failed drug tests. He clearly wanted this team to go by the book and wanted to run a clean program, something he should definitely be lauded for. It’s something I truly hope Coyle looks for in the next head coach.

However, as much as there is to be positive about, at the end of the day it’s about wins and losses. Shafer proved that although he can accrue talent, he couldn’t win with it. Eight straight losses are something that no power-5 program should have to deal with. The possibility of back-to-back 3 win seasons should be unthinkable.

Next: SU Basketball: Battle 4 Atlantis Tourney Info

So where does the team go from here? Clearly we’re back to a rebuilding process, as I don’t think any coach is going to be able to come right in and win immediately. Yes they have some talent on both sides of the ball, but as was evident this year, the gap between them and even some of the mediocre ACC teams is still pretty large.

It’s going to take another year or two of improved recruiting for Syracuse football to turn around the program. Now the question turns to, who do we hire next? The coaching market is already incredibly competitive, and it’s already clear that SU is going to have to fork out big money if they want a pedigreed coach. Both Houston and Memphis have already paved the way for that, offering their current coaches over 3 million per year. In comparison, Shafer was making a little over 1 million per year.

Check back throughout the week for more coverage on the Syracuse football program and where they go moving forward. We’ll have an article about some possible coaching replacements coming soon! And don’t forget, there still is one more game in the season. Although rather meaningless, it would certainly be nice for the kids to get a victory and go out on a positive note after this disaster of a season. We’ll have coverage of the Boston College game later in the week as well.