Syracuse Football: Anonymous coaches can take their quotes & shove ’em

My column here is about Syracuse football, but I think it’s appropriate to start out with a quote from years ago by Orange basketball head coach Jim Boeheim.

“But they’re quoted from somebody else, an anonymous assistant coach. Let the assistant coach come up to me and say, ‘Gerry McNamara is overrated.’ I’d like to see one of those guys come up to me and say that.”

If you’re more than 20 years old and have been a fan of Syracuse basketball for about that long too, you likely know that’s just a clip from the infamous Jim Boeheim “without Gerry McNamara, we wouldn’t have won 10 *bleeping* games” quote.

This came after the Daily Orange printed a story about anonymous coaches and their thoughts on the season, in particular how they looked at GMac’s season. This led to a post-game press conference, profanity-laced tirade from Coach Boeheim that was not only understandable but also legendary…I love my milk in a glass container from Byrne…dairy.

Now how does this apply to football? Well, it seems that Athlon Sports does something similar to what the Daily Orange did and asks various coaches in the ACC their opinions on the teams (as they do for other conferences and teams as well). So I recently saw a link to the ACC version, a story on athlonsports.com, and I found it insulting and lame for lack of better, more family-friendly words just as Coach Boeheim did that earlier situation.

So according to these windbag anonymous coaches, the defensive line “struggles” and “lacks talent”, the offensive line is the worst in the league and you don’t even need to disguise what you plan to do, and one quote calls this team a train wreck while other teams have a similar offense game plan but “run that system better and with better players.”

IT IS TAKING EVERYTHING I HAVE IN ME NOT TO FIRE OFF A PROFANE RANT THAT WOULD MAKE RICHARD PRYOR BLUSH! THESE QUOTES ARE UTTER CRAP!!!!!!!!!

Do I expect every sports media or coach to think Syracuse football will win the national championship or kiss Dino Babers’ butt? NO! But so much of this hate is just annoying and tiresome. Is it too hard to be fair and open-minded that maybe things will be different this year and not post crap like this?

Hey Josh Black and Kingsley Jonathan, apparently you two lack talent and are going to struggle according to some coach who doesn’t have the fortitude to even put his name on the quote.

Listen, everyone is entitled to their opinions but at this point, my using the #TheDisrespectIsReal hashtag is an understatement with how many people are jumping on the trash the Cuse bandwagon.

I just do not understand sometimes how some people can’t enter into a new season with an open mind and see that the staff and players are working on the issues they had last season, especially with a seasoned coach like head coach Dino Babers, who has had a lot of success in his career.

Do you truly think Babers, the rest of his staff, and the players on this team just looked at last season and felt satisfied with only one win? One quote is basically stating that Syracuse has the least amount of talent of any other team running similar offensive schemes, and I would like to know how that is not an insult to Taj Harris and Sean Tucker, among others?

This may not bother some of you as much as it does me, but I am just so tired of the constant day in and day out negativity surrounding this program and how Syracuse is becoming a target simply because last season was rough.

The anonymous quotes from ACC coaches on Syracuse football are lame.

Nobody is denying this happened and yes I know, this is coming from a guy who said he could see ways this team could go undefeated and is admittedly optimistic, but holy crap enough is enough already. Maybe the Syracuse football team should just quit now since so many people will stink and save us all the trouble.

OR  MAYBE we as a fan base can stand up for our team, the players and staff who represent our team and at least not rule out that this team has addressed the issues that led to that awful season and put it behind us.

Maybe we can stop looking at that one season as somehow establishing a “golden standard of awfulness” as the legacy of the entire history of the program under Coach Babers. Maybe coaches or media outlets can instead of pushing the negative narrative, simply just question if those issues are fixed and wait until the season starts before completely trashing the Syracuse football program.

Now more than ever I truly hope this team does find a way to go undefeated and possibly even play for the national championship, just so these “experts” can learn that you can’t always judge a book simply by one chapter when previous chapters actually piqued your interest enough to keep reading.

I am going to close with this before I make this less family-friendly and more NC-17 but I will close it with these thoughts. Why is it so difficult to be open to the possibility things will be better this season?

Why do so many harp on the negative but blow off the positives? Why aren’t these negative Nelly’s talking about young players like Garrett Williams or Sean Tucker or Luke Benson or Mikel Jones who will be playmakers? Or talking about veterans like Andre Szmyt continuing the legacy of punters and kickers at Syracuse University?

Or why aren’t they at least saying, “You know what, they struggled last year but we will have to wait until they play to see how they respond.” And last but not least, are we forgetting that the Carrier Dome is a home-field advantage that we fans can help make the Loud House of old that has caused chaos and confusion, and that fans are hopefully excited to be back in the Dome after a year away due to Covid?

LET’S GO ORANGE!!!! LET’S GO ORANGE!!!!