...and I needed to mollify my alumni and boosters with a couple of wins over BCS conference teams, I could do a lot worse than to schedule Syracuse early and often. In a couple of seconds, SU will have lost by 2 TDs to Akron, in the Carrier Dome. They played well in the 3rd quarter, but that was about it.
You can't coach speed, but you can coach tackling; over and over today, the SU defense was meeting Akron ball carriers in the backfield, only to be shrugged off en route to 10+ yard carries. If it were a matter of someone else's talent, that'd be one thing, but most of our players were recruited by our current staff. If it were a matter of offense, that'd be one thing given the head coach's background in defense, but we couldn't tackle today to save our lives and we gave up 40+ points and almost 500 yards to a team from the MAC. Last year, SU was one of the worst D1 teams in the country, across the board, and the first 2 games (losses against Northwestern and Akron) do nothing to inspire confidence about our other non-conference games (v. Penn State and Notre Dame) or our ability to climb out of the Big East cellar.
I've watched parts of both games now, and I'm hard pressed to find any sort of identity for this team, not to mention actual promise. My guess is that our current coach doesn't have much longer.
With today's loss, and a 7 and 28 record over the last three seasons, I think Coach Robinson will be removed midseason.
I'd be a little surprised by a mid-season firing, only because there's no one else who'll be able to do anything with this group either. I think he'll last until the day after the final loss, with the PTB basically doing a secret search as the season progresses.