Syracuse Football: It’s time to reboot and embrace the underdog again

Syracuse football has had to embrace the role of an underdog for over a decade now. We look at the Orange’s past and current underdog status and their ability to be great going forward.

Syracuse football and its fans have endured the program being cellar dwellers (aka the laughing stock) in college football for a while now. It seems like forever since they were something to be proud of.

Through losing seasons, multiple coaches and program turnover, we have stood by, waiting for the light at the end of the tunnel. Now, after a 10-3 performance last year and a bowl win, it feels like the Orange might finally actually be back and be the underdog no longer.

Growing up I remember watching my first Syracuse football game in 2004 at the Carrier Dome against Rutgers (a game the Orange won 41-31) and it felt amazing to watch the team play. The team wasn’t great, but it was good, led by heisman hopeful/star running back Walter Reyes. It was exciting to see the offense click and the defense hold its own; something we would see rarely over the next 10 plus years.

The Orange would finish that year 6-6 according to Cuse.com, but lose in the Champs Sports Bowl 51-14, according to ESPN.com.

That mediocrity though would also be enough fire long-time Head Coach Paul Pasqualoni after the season despite having only one losing sason in his 13 years at the helm.

The problem was Syracuse football used to be a Top 25 caliber team, but when the athletic department started to see the team regress to an average program they thought it was time for a change. Thus began the era of ‘he who shall not be named’ (also known as Greg Robinson).

Greg Robinson was a knowledgeable coach with prior experience coaching defenses for multiple college and pro teams. He looked like a good hire by new Athletic Director Daryl Gross, but oh was he wrong!

Robinson would take an average Syracuse football team in 2004 and turn them into what may be the worst team(s) Syracuse football has ever produced. He would have seasons of 1-10 (2005), 4-8 (2006), 2-10 (2007), and 3-9 (2008), according to Sports-Reference.com

To put that in perspective, the Orange went 10-37 (3-25 Big East) during that stretch, of which five wins in those first two seasons were vacated due to NCAA violations, acording to the Daily Orange.

In addition, Robinson’s two double-digit losing seasons in 2005 & 2007 are the only two in Syracuse Football’s long storied history. The Orange which was average in 2004 became underdogs the following year and would go on to embrace that role for the next few years and beyond for better and for worse.

The Orange did come back to almost average after hiring Doug Marrone to coach the team in 2009. Even then though, every year the Orange felt like underdogs and had to earn every game they won. Nothing came easy.

Unfortunately for Syracuse, building a program takes time. Marrone stayed only four years, finishing with a 25-25 record at Syracuse before taking a job in the NFL, according to Syracuse.com. Had he stayed, the Orange may have been back to “normal” sooner, but it is what is.

The Orange, after losing Marrone would hire from within turning to defensive coordinator Scott Shafer. Shafer was a safe pick, but not the one the Orange needed to get back to relevance in college football.

As a result, the Orange would again have to embrace the underdog role once again and finish 14-23 during his tenure, according to Syracuse.com, before he was fired like Coach Robinson. Seeing a trend yet?

Here’s where the story turns good though Orange fans.

The Orange finally made a good move when they hired passionate and talented head coach Dino Babers to lead the Syracuse football program in 2016. Though he had to wait a year or two to get the recruits and players he wanted for his system, (which led to two 4-8 seasons to start his tenure) he turned the program into a contender in 2018 led by senior quarterback Eric Dungey, a star holdout from the Scott Shafer era.

The Orange would finish 10-3 in 2018 and go on to finish the season with a No.15 ranking in the final AP Poll, in addition to winning the Camping World Bowl 34-18 against West Virginia.

As in previous years, the Orange had embraced the underdog role to start the 2018 season, but as they continued through the schedule they started upsetting and/or almost beating Top 25 teams (looking at you Clemson). That gave the Orange confidence, which in turn led to them being one of the better teams in college football.

Win after win, the Orange was the underdog but looking like favorite. The Orange were back, and we all started looking ahead and setting the bar and the expectations high for 2019.

This is where we get to this season.

The Orange came in with a highly talented and somewhat inexperienced quarterback in Tommy DeVito. They also had a former four-star recruit/transfer running back Abdul Adams from Oklahoma to pair with Senior Moe Neal, two all-americans returning in free safety Andre Cisco as well as kicker Andre Szmyt, as well as star NFL prospects on the defensive line in Kendall Coleman and Alton Robinson.

The Orange were loaded and as a result, was looking like they were no longer an underdog anymore. They were poised to be favorites in multiple games and it felt good.

However, the season opener against Liberty on the road left much to be desired and had the team and fans wondering if we were jumping the gun a little bit. The Orange would pitch a shut out of 24-0, but the win was anything but dominant. It was a win, but an ugly win at that.

The game at Maryland a week later was even worse. The Orange never really got started before the Terrapins had pummeled the Orange into the dust, ultimately winning 63-20 to drop the Orange to 1-1 on the season.

Now with Clemson on the horizon, the Orange look like they are going to have to embrace the underdog role once again if they want to get back to what they used to be: a team with confidence, potential, and heart.

Knowing they aren’t the favorite, even at home in Carrier Dome, may be just what the Orange need to get back to greatness.

In addition, having college football experts like ESPN’s Paul Finebaum saying the Orange has “no chance at all“, according to Syracuse.com, is only fuel on the fire for a team already desperate to prove the doubters wrong and right the ship.

They’ve been to the bottom and come back up, so they know what it takes to get there again. Maybe they just need to embrace being the underdog again?

Sure, embracing the role as the underdog has been mostly bad for the Orange in terms of results in the past decade, but one cannot deny its helped shape the program to what it is today. Going through those hard years and struggles has shown the team who it needs to be going forward and grow.

It has given the team an identity from which it can rally around and do so with class and dignity. Maybe being an underdog, after all, isn’t the worst thing. Maybe, just maybe, this is who the Orange are and need to be going forward to achieve the true greatness and heights they so desire.