Dissecting the fact that Syracuse Orange fans are sensitive and don't like it when others badmouth our team or try to explain why we're not as good as our record/ranking is a boring initiative at this stage in the season.

To me, we had our tantrum the first-third of the season (You don't like us? F*** you!), we had an ironic reaction to our tantrums in the second-third of the season (He ranked us where? #AddHimToTheList!) and now we're at the point where we (at least should) just shut out any outside noise while we digest the team internally, knowing what we know and being honest about what we don't like.

Otherwise, we're just going to keep driving ourselves crazy reading breakdowns of why Syracuse isn't all that good. And in irony of ironies, we're going to keep reading and hearing these breakdowns BECAUSE we created them.

To paraphrase Eli Cash, everyone knows National pundits want to tell Syracuse fans how bad their team is. What this post presupposes is... maybe they don't?

Case in point, Mark Titus' most-recent power rankings over at Grantland. I've been reading these since he started and I've found that Titus has been pretty even-handed. If I remember correctly, he even had the Orange at No. 1 before many others did. In recent weeks, he's dropped SU down the chart lower than most (fourth last week) due to the issues we've all witnessed.

Now, take this week's column. On paper, it is a textbook example of what Syracuse fans complain about. He puts the Orange below Missouri, he spends an inordinate amount of the SU section explaining what's wrong with them instead of talking about what's right, and every other team gets pieces chocked full of praise. In theory, it's the kind of piece that sends Orange fans en masse to Titus' email inbox with vitriolic screeds that bash his opinion, employer and mother.

But when you read the piece, you can't help but come to the startling conclusion that the only reason he spends almost the entire section defending his opinion of Syracuse and explaining why the Orange are not worthy of a higher ranking is in reaction to the vitriolic screeds he's already received from SU fans that likely bash his opinion, employer and mother.

Syracuse fans created this column about how Syracuse isn't good, which in turn pisses off Syracuse fans.

We are eating our own tail. And then complaining about how it tastes.