-Delone was fantastic the last 6 games.
-Lemon had a coming out party today
-Our O-Line has been progressively getting better throughout the year
-The Offense has been able to sustain long scoring drives with minimal turnovers by the end of the year
-Our Defense was WAYYYY better than advertised, and even while missing key players was very very good.
-We are going to be very experienced at almost every position next year, even two-deep in some areas.

I expect a bowl next year.

and a huge step towards getting back to the MacPherson level. I wouldn’t say this season was a big success, but overall I’d probably give a grade of B- to B. In most areas I’d say we met expectations and in some areas I think we exceeded expectations.

All in all, just getting bodies in here that can hold down a position in case of injuries will do this team the most good. From my perspective without looking at the schedule for next year I think 7 wins could be the goal. That would get us back to a bowl game and would set us up for a potential run at the conference in 2011.

all things considered, this was a good season. There is no question that the tide has turned and that the program is moving in the right direction. Sure there will be dipshits who continue to question this team and won’t commit until they are playing in a bowl game, but they are also going to discover that they’re missing out on some pretty good football games.

If you told me last year that 20+ players would quit the team, including some starters from last year’s squad, that MW would quit the team half-way through, that 10 more starters would not finish the season due to injury (include Suter and A. Jones), and that we’d be relying heavily on freshmen and players that were playing new positions…I’d probably roll my eyes, put forehand-to-forehead, and find a hobby for Saturday afternoons.

Instead, this team has managed to stay competitive in most of it’s games (WVU being the outlier, followed by the 2nd halves of USF and Pitt) and that in itself is huge. Tack on some great wins against Nortwestern and Rutgers, and I may have to bust out the “T” word. That is a huge testament to the remaining players and their desire to practice and commit themselves, and a huge nod to the coaching staff for preparation and game-planning and putting the players in the best position to win.

In some strange way, though, there is almost a sense of relief. I would be completely ecstatic to be planning for a bowl right now, but it is also kind of nice to know that we are building (quickly) to something much, much bigger and gives us something to improve upon next year…and something that we can realistically achieve. I would almost be afraid of the huge expectations for next year if this team were to have over-achieved this season. Four wins is very respectable and a great foundation.

My greatest hope for next year is that we either: a) play fewer 12:00pm games or b) start winning them. Perhaps the administration will allow the team to practice at 12:00pm everyday , instead of the afternoon or in the evening. SU played 8 noon games this year (2 more than any other Big East team), and we lost all of them. On the other hand, our 4 wins were all afternoon or evening games.

Clearly, this team needs “Noon’s Magicians”….

…from a progressive standpoint. (see all arguments made above and in previous posts)

HCDM has a tremendous opportunity for things to maybe snowfall and catch fire

    While the coaching search was still happening I took shit for saying we could go 6-6 with the right coach, and that Marrone was not the right coach. And I’m sure I’ll take greif on this post too, however after re-examining the season, Marrone cost the team a Bowl invite(all be it to the lowest level bowl out there). He cost us the Luoisville game, plain and simple. It was in fact his hyppocrytical casino rule that drove out Mike Williams(while their advertising banners adorn the dome)
    You cant drive off half your team and expect to be a decent football team, check it out in the history of college football. No incoming coach has had more players leave a team than he had leave. His unwillingness to build towards next year, once we had been eliminated from bowl contention was dissapointing. His total lack of common sense, to at least reward the guys like Dantley and Robinson by feild time once we were down by 3 scores in the last game of the year, if for nothing else a reward for sticking with his program and eccepting their new roles. Even though those roles left them standing on the sideline all year long, was dissapointing to say the least.
    Doug Marrone is not the Orange holy grail, as he has made out to be. He is has also proven he is not a bad coach, just an inexpirienced head coach. Lets just hope he learned from all his mistakes this year as Robinson didn’t seem to do.
    The team i give an A-, great effort all year long, just didn’t get the results at times. Coaching gets a C- was going to say a D, but they were able to keep the team playing hard( the one bright spot)