Washington did it.  Tennessee did it.  All the cool kids are doing it.  So why shouldn't Syracuse?  Why shouldn't they just quit on the rest of the season now that their coach has been fired?  No one would blame them.

Don't tell that to Cam Dantley:

"Just to see everybody in here yesterday (Monday, an off day for the players), carrying on, of course people are going to talk about it a little bit," Dantley said. "In terms of it affecting everybody, it didn't seem like that to me. There's the same amount of people in the weight room and the same amount of people watching film and doing all that type of stuff.

"I don't think hearing the information made them be like, oh, let's just pack it in the rest of the season and act like the season's over. Everybody still wants to play. Everybody still loves the game of football and takes these last two games seriously and wants to win."

The only thing less clear than how the Orange will come out on Saturday is who will lead them on offense.  Greg Robinson, 45 games into his tenure, finally figured out the ancient art of "keeping things a secret."

"I'm not going to spend time talking about all that right now. Again, getting things adjusted and fixed is part of the strategy of the game."

That's right, the time for talk is...well, it's been done for a while now.  And the new time for talk clearly hasn't started yet.  Not sure what the "time for talk" calendar looks like but clearly we're not at New Year's Day yet.

But of course, the big question is still "Who will replace Robinson?"  One person you might want to ask is Donovan McNabb, who sits on the SU Board of Trustees and has been rumored to have some influence.  Then again...

“He prefers not to get involved until the process moves forward,” Rich Burg, McNabb’s publicist, said by phone.

That's fine but, can we just make sure Donovan is aware there can't be ties in the head coach hiring process?

It seems that it's suddenly a requirement that a member of the opposing coaching staff each week must be under consideration for the SU position.  This week it's Notre Dame assistant Rob Ianello.  Word on the street is that SU reached out him, to which Ianello says...

When asked if he's been in contact with anyone from Syracuse about the opening, Ianello said, "No."

"My ultimate goal is to be a head football coach at the Division I-A college level," Ianello said. "If that opportunity ever arose, I would certainly look into it at any school I felt had the opportunity to win."

When asked if he felt Syracuse was a place he had an opportunity to win at, Ianello said, "I don't know enough about Syracuse University to make that comment."

In other words, let's talk on Sunday.