With the arrival of a new calendar year comes the opportunity for a new start for us all, and for Syracuse football, the same is true.
As such, here are five New Year’s resolutions that Syracuse football needs to embrace as we enter 2022.
1- Pound the Portal
This one is pretty obvious given some of the roster defections and a relatively small recruiting class, but Syracuse football must resolve in this New Year to absolutely pound the portal, and soon, in search for talent.
The team has needs on all parts of the roster, but in particular, the team needs to focus on restocking the shelves when it comes to offensive firepower. The Orange need to be going after at least one if not multiple WR options who can help us stretch the field in the passing game, a pass-catching (and yes, that means throwing him the ball) TE to replace the recently departed Luke Benson, and potentially even a QB who can compete with Garrett Shrader (looking at you Taisun Phommachanh), or at the very least a lower-level QB for depth.
2- Embrace Change
Syracuse just made two of the most exciting offensive coaching hires in decades with the arrival of Robert Anae and Jason Beck from Virginia. It’s important that Syracuse football resolves in 2022 to allow their exciting coaching styles to change our offense, rather than force these coaches to change their coaching style to fit the box that Syracuse has played in for years.
This box I am referring to is the super-conservative offensive box that has historically flown in the face of the offenses typically seen by teams that play in climate-controlled Dome settings. Sure, this need not be the old-school Rams’ “Greatest Show on Turf”. But let’s let these coaches, who are coming from an explosive and high-scoring offense last season with the Cavaliers, evolve the Syracuse offense beyond its runs and short passes at or behind the line of scrimmage. Imagine a world where the majority of our passing plays actually involve the ball traveling more than 5 yards downfield? Let’s bring the intermediate pass back to Syracuse football. Let’s make opposing defenses have to game plan around more than which player will run the ball.
3 – #Restore44
Regardless of whether or not Sean Tucker himself wants to wear it, 2022 needs to be the year that Syracuse University rights the wrong done to the Syracuse football program by former AD Daryl Gross, and brings back the #44. The #44 is the University’s number. Every single player made the choice to wear it knowing it would never be retired. They could have chosen any other number if their goal was to have a number in the rafters. But instead, they chose to wear a number they knew would be put back into rotation.
Unfortunately, despite this, Gross installed a bizarrely misguided arrangement with the families of previous number-wearers that has bastardized the process of awarding the 44 moving forward, requiring a gauntlet of approvals and permissions that all-but-ensures no one will ever have the privilege and honor of wearing the University’s number again.
2022 needs to be the year that Syracuse University restores this tradition and recruiting tool, whether Sean Tucker is the one to wear it next, or someone else is.
4 – Market Sean Tucker
Syracuse needs to in the first half of 2022 market the heck out of Sean Tucker. Tucker burst onto the national scene last year with an amazing campaign that had him being mentioned with the best in the nation when it came to year-end awards. And while Tucker earned a number of post-season accolades, some of the biggest honors such as the Doak and Heisman didn’t even feature Tucker as a finalist. While part of that is attributable to the fact that the team sputtered down the stretch, and his own performance fell off accordingly, the relative national anonymity of the Syracuse football program and its players absolutely played a role as well.
As we enter this season, the Syracuse football program needs to get in front of this. Now that NIL is a thing, everything possible must be done to ensure that this special RB has the national name recognition he deserves in hopes that if he puts up similar numbers next year, he is more solidly positioned among the finalists for many more big-time national awards.
5 – Start Strong…and Finish Strong…in 2022
One final resolution for the Syracuse football team in 2022…start, and finish, the next season strong.
Syracuse football appears set to open the season with an ACC game (vs. Louisville), something highly atypical in recent seasons, followed by games at UConn, and then versus Purdue and Wagner in the Carrier Dome. Now, regardless of the early season record, I want to see an exciting offense that features a dynamic, and hard-to-predict, passing game accompanied by a heavy dose of Sean Tucker. If that’s the offense Syracuse puts on the field, and it clicks, it absolutely will result in early season wins and early season momentum, momentum that needs to be built on and parlayed into a competent ACC season that results in more real victories and fewer moral victories.
And this coming season, it goes without saying, MUST end with a Bowl appearance. Even if it’s just a 6-6 Pinstripe Bowl appearance or similar…this program absolutely, positively MUST take that final step forward in 2022.